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The Mountain Girl

by Payne Erskine · English · Gutenberg #32429 · 651,605 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Mountain Girl

Author: Payne Erskine

Illustrator: J. Duncan Gleason


        
Release date: May 19, 2010 [eBook #32429]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32429

Credits: Produced by David Garcia, Martin Pettit and the Online
        Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOUNTAIN GIRL ***




Produced by David Garcia, Martin Pettit and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net






THE MOUNTAIN GIRL

[Illustration: _"We will go home--to my home--just like this,
together."_

FRONTISPIECE. _See Page 311._]


The Mountain Girl

By PAYNE ERSKINE

Author of "When the Gates Lift Up Their Heads."

[Illustration]

WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. DUNCAN GLEASON

A. L. BURT COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK


COPYRIGHT, 1911, 1912, BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.

_All rights reserved._




CONTENTS


CHAPTER                                                            PAGE

     I. In which David Thryng arrives at Carew's Crossing             1

    II. In which David Thryng experiences the Hospitality of
          the Mountain People                                        10

   III. In which Aunt Sally takes her Departure and meets Frale      25

    IV. David spends his First Day at his Cabin, and Frale makes
          his Confession                                             35

     V. In which Cassandra goes to David with her Trouble, and
          gives Frale her Promise                                    47

    VI. In which David aids Frale to make his Escape                 59

   VII. In which Frale goes down to Farington in his own Way         68

  VIII. In which David Thryng makes a Discovery                      76

    IX. In which David accompanies Cassandra on an Errand of Mercy   86

     X. In which Cassandra and David visit the Home of Decatur
          Irwin                                                      94

    XI. In which Spring comes to the Mountains, and Cassandra
          tells David of her Father                                 103

   XII. In which Cassandra hears the Voices, and David leases
          a Farm                                                    111

  XIII. In which David discovers Cassandra's Trouble                120

   XIV. In which David visits the Bishop, and Frale sees his Enemy  131

    XV. In which Jerry Carew gives David his Views on Future
          Punishment, and Little Hoyle pays him a Visit and is
          made Happy                                                144

   XVI. In which Frale returns and listens to the Complaints of
          Decatur Irwin's Wife                                      152

  XVII. In which David Thryng meets an Enemy                        164

 XVIII. In which David Thryng Awakes                                172

   XIX. In which David sends Hoke Belew on a Commission, and
          Cassandra makes a Confession                              180

    XX. In which the Bishop and his Wife pass an Eventful Day at
          the Fall Place                                            189

   XXI. In which the Summer Passes                                  198

  XXII. In which David takes little Hoyle to Canada                 207

 XXIII. In which Doctor Hoyle speaks his Mind                       212

  XXIV. In which David Thryng has News from England                 218

   XXV. In which David Thryng visits his Mother                     224

  XXVI. In which David Thryng adjusts his Life to New Conditions    234

 XXVII. In which the Old Doctor and Little Hoyle come back to
          the Mountains                                             244

XXVIII. In which Frale returns to the Mountains                     253

  XXIX. In which Cassandra visits David Thryng's Ancestors          265

   XXX. In which Cassandra goes to Queensderry and takes a Drive
          in a Pony Carriage                                        276

  XXXI. In which David and his Mother do not Agree                  288

 XXXII. In which Cassandra brings the Heir of Daneshead Castle
          back to her Hilltop, and the Shadow Lifts                 300




THE MOUNTAIN GIRL




CHAPTER I

IN WHICH DAVID THRYNG ARRIVES AT CAREW'S CROSSING


The snow had ceased falling. No wind stirred among the trees that
covered the hillsides, and every shrub, every leaf and twig, still bore
its feathery, white load. Slowly the train labored upward, with two
engines to take it the steepest part of the climb from the valley below.
David Thryng gazed out into the quiet, white wilderness and was glad. He
hoped Carew's Crossing was not beyond all this, where the ragged edge of
civilization, out of which the toiling train had so lately lifted them,
would begin again.

He glanced from time to time at the young woman near the door who sat as
the bishop had left her, one slight hand grasping the handle of her
basket, and with an expression on her face as placid and fraught with
mystery as the scene without. The train began to crawl more heavily,
and, looking down, Thryng saw that they were crossing a trestle over a
deep gorge before skirting the mountain on the other side. Suddenly it
occurred to him that he might be carried beyond his station. He stopped
the smiling young brakeman who was passing with his flag.

"Let me know when we come to Carew's Crossing, will you?"

"Next stop, suh. Are you foh there, suh?"

"Yes. How soon?"

"Half an houh mo', suh. I'll be back d'rectly and help you off, suh.
It's a flag station. We don't stop there in winter 'thout we're called
to, suh. Hotel's closed now."

"Hotel? Is there a hotel?" Thryng's voice betokened dismay.

"Yes, suh. It's a right gay little place in summah, suh." He passed on,
and Thryng gathered his scattered effects. Ill and weary, he was glad
to find his long journey so nearly at an end.

On either side of the track, as far as eye could see, was a
snow-whitened wilderness, seemingly untouched by the hand of man, and he
felt as if he had been carried back two hundred years. The only hint
that these fastnesses had been invaded by human beings was an occasional
rough, deeply red wagon road, winding off among the hills.

The long trestle crossed, the engines labored slowly upward for a time,
then, turning a sharp curve, began to descend, tearing along the narrow
track with a speed that caused the coaches to rock and sway; and thus
they reached Carew's Crossing, dropping down to it like a rushing
torrent.

Immediately Thryng found himself deposited in the melting snow some
distance from the station platform, and at the same instant, above the
noise of the retreating train, he heard a cry: "Oh, suh, help him, help
him! It's poor little Hoyle!" The girl whom he had watched, and about
whom he had been wondering, flashed by him and caught at the bridle of a
fractious colt, that was rearing and plunging near the corner of the
station.

"Poor little Hoyle! Help him, suh, help him!" she cried, clinging
desperately, while the frantic animal swung her off her feet, close to
the flying heels of the kicking mule at his side.

Under the heavy vehicle to which the ill-assorted animals were attached,
a child lay unconscious, and David sprang forward, his weakness
forgotten in the demand for action. In an instant he had drawn the
little chap from his perilous position and, seizing the mule, succeeded
in backing him to his place. The cause of its fright having by this time
disappeared, the colt became tractable and stood quivering and snorting,
as David took the bridle from the girl's hand.

"I'll quiet them now," he said, and she ran to the boy, who had
recovered sufficiently to sit up and gaze in a dazed way about him. As
she bent over him, murmuring soothing words, he threw his arms around
her neck and burst into wild sobbing.

"There, honey, there! No one is hurt. You are not, are you, honey son?"

"I couldn't keep a holt of 'em," he sobbed.

"You shouldn't have done it, honey. You should have let me get home as
best I could." Her face was one which could express much, passive as it
had been before. "Where was Frale?"

"He took the othah ho'se and lit out. They was aftah him. They--"

"S-sh. There, hush! You can stand now; try, Hoyle. You are a man now."

The little fellow rose, and, perceiving Thryng for the first time,
stepped shyly behind his sister. David noticed that he had a deformity
which caused him to carry his head twisted stiffly to one side, and also
that he had great, beautiful brown eyes, so like those of a hunted fawn
as he turned them upon the stranger with wide appeal, that he seemed a
veritable creature of the wilderness by which they were surrounded.

Then the girl stepped forward and thanked him with voice and eyes; but
he scarcely understood the words she said, as her tones trailed
lingeringly over the vowels, and almost eliminated the "r," so lightly
was it touched, while her accent fell utterly strange upon his English
ear. She looked to the harness with practised eye, and then laid her
hand beside Thryng's, on the bridle. It was a strong, shapely hand and
wrist.

"I can manage now," she said. "Hoyle, get my basket foh me."

But Thryng suggested that she climb in and take the reins first,
although the animals stood quietly enough now; the mule looked even
dejected, with hanging head and forward-drooping ears.

The girl spoke gently to the colt, stroking him along the side and
murmuring to him in a cooing voice as she mounted to the high seat and
gathered up the reins. Then the two beasts settled themselves to their
places with a wontedness that assured Thryng they would be perfectly
manageable under her hand.

David turned to the child, relieved him of the basket, which was heavy
with unusual weight, and would have lifted him up, but Hoyle eluded his
grasp, and, scrambling over the wheel with catlike agility, slipped
shyly into his place close to the girl's side. Then, with more than
childlike thoughtfulness, the boy looked up into her face and said in a
low voice:--

"The gen'l'man's things is ovah yandah by the track, Cass. He cyant tote
'em alone, I reckon. Whar is he goin'?"

Then Thryng remembered himself and his needs. He looked at the line of
track curving away up the mountain side in one direction, and in the
other lost in a deep cut in the hills; at the steep red banks rising
high on each side, arched over by leafy forest growth, with all the
interlacing branches and smallest twigs bearing their delicate burden of
white, feathery snow. He caught his breath as a sense of the strange,
untamed beauty, marvellous and utterly lonely, struck upon him. Beyond
the tracks, high up on the mountain slope, he thought he spied,
well-nigh hid from sight by the pines, the gambrel roof of a large
building--or was it a snow-covered rock?

"Is that a house up there?" he asked, turning to the girl, who sat
leaning forward and looking steadily down at him.

"That is the hotel."

"A road must lead to it, then. If I could get up there, I could send
down for my things."

"They is no one thar," piped the boy; and Thryng remembered the
brakeman's words, and how he had rebelled at the thought of a hotel
incongruously set amid this primeval beauty; but now he longed for the
comfort of a warm room and tea at a hospitable table. He wished he had
accepted the bishop's invitation. It was a predicament to be dropped in
this wild spot, without a store, a cabin, or even a thread of blue smoke
to be seen as indicating a human habitation, and no soul near save these
two children.

The sun was sinking toward the western hilltops, and a chillness began
creeping about him as the shadows lengthened across the base of the
mountain, leaving only the heights in the glowing light.

"Really, you know, I can't say what I am to do. I'm a stranger here--"

It seemed odd to him at the moment, but her face, framed in the huge
sunbonnet,--a delicate flower set in a rough calyx,--suddenly lost all
expression. She did not move nor open her lips. Thryng thought he
detected a look of fear in the boy's eyes, as he crept closer to her.

In a flash came to him the realization of the difficulty. His friend had
told him of these people,--their occupations, their fear of the world
outside and below their fastnesses, and how zealously they guarded their
homes and their rights from outside intrusion, yet how hospitable and
generous they were to all who could not be considered their hereditary
enemies.

He hastened to speak reassuring words, and, bethinking himself that she
had called the boy Hoyle, he explained how one Adam Hoyle had sent him.

"The doctor is my friend, you know. He built a cabin somewhere within a
day's walk, he told me, of Carew's Crossing, on a mountain top. Maybe
you knew him?"

A slight smile crept about the girl's lips, and her eyes brightened.
"Yes, suh, we-all know Doctah Hoyle."

"I am to have the cabin--if I can find it--live there as he did, and see
what your hills will do for me." He laughed a little as he spoke,
deprecating his evident weakness, and, lifting his cap, wiped the cold
moisture from his forehead.

She noted his fatigue and hesitated. The boy's questioning eyes were
fixed on her face, and she glanced down into them an answering look. Her
lips parted, and her eyes glowed as she turned them again on David, but
she spoke still in the same passive monotone.

"Oh, yes. My little brothah was named foh him,--Adam Hoyle,--but we only
call him Hoyle. It's a right long spell since the Doctah was heah. His
cabin is right nigh us, a little highah up. Theah is no place wheah you
could stop nighah than ouahs. Hoyle, jump out and help fetch his things
ovah. You can put them in the back of the wagon, suh, and ride up with
us. I have a sight of room foh them."

The child was out and across the tracks in an instant, seizing a valise
much too heavy for him, and Thryng cut his thanks short to go to his
relief.

"I kin tote it," said the boy shrilly.

"No, no. I am the biggest, so I'll take the big ones. You bring the
bundle with the strap around it--so. Now we shall get on, shan't we?
But you are pretty strong for a little chap;" and the child's face
radiated smiles at the praise.

Then David tossed in valise and rug, without which last no Englishman
ever goes on a journey, and with much effort they managed to pull the
box along and hoist it also into the wagon, the body of which was filled
with corn fodder, covered with an old patchwork quilt.

The wagon was of the rudest, clumsiest construction, the heavy box set
on axles without springs, but the young physician was thankful for any
kind of a conveyance. He had been used to life in the wild, taking
things as he found them--bunking in a tent, a board shanty, or out under
the open sky; with men brought heterogeneously together, some merely
rough woodsmen in their natural environment, others the scum of the
cities to whom crime was become first nature, decency second, and
others, fleeing from justice and civilized law, hiding ofttimes a fine
nature delicately reared. During this time he had seldom seen a woman
other than an occasional camp follower of the most degraded sort.

Inured thus, he did not find his ride, embedded with good corn fodder,
much of a hardship, even in a springless wagon over mountain roads.
Wrapped in his rug, he braced himself against his box, with his face
toward the rear of the wagon, and gazed out from under its arching
canvas hood at the wild way, as it slowly unrolled behind them, and was
pleased that he did not have to spend the night under the lee of the
station.

The lingering sunlight made flaming banners of the snow clouds now
slowly drifting across the sky above the white world, and touched the
highest peaks with rose and gold. The shadows, ever changing, deepened
from faintest pink-mauve through heliotrope tints, to the richest violet
in the heart of the gorges. Over and through all was the witching
mystery of fairy-like, snow-wreathed branches and twigs, interwoven and
arching up and up in faint perspective to the heights above, and down,
far down, to the depths of the regions below them; and all the time,
mingled with the murmur of the voices behind him, and the creaking of
the vehicle in which they rode, and the tramp of the animals when they
came to a hard roadbed with rock foundation,--noises which were not
loud, but which seemed to be covered and subdued by the soft snow even
as it covered everything,--could be heard a light dropping and
pattering, as the overladen last year's leaves and twigs dropped their
white burden to the ground. Sometimes the great hood of the wagon struck
an overhanging bough and sent the snow down in showers as they passed.

Heavily they climbed up, and warily made their descent of rocky steeps,
passing through boggy places or splashing in clear streams which issued
from springs in the mountain side or fell from some distant height, then
climbing again only to wind about and again descend. Often the way was
rough with boulders that had never been blasted out,--sometimes steeply
shelving where the gorge was deepest and the precipice sheerest. Past
all dangers the girl drove with skilful hand, now encouraging her team
with her low voice, now restraining them, where their load crowded upon
them over slippery, shelving rocks, with strong pulls and sharp command.
David marvelled at her serenity under the strain, and at her courage and
deftness. With the calmness of the boy nestling at her side, he resigned
himself to the sweet witchery of the time and place. Glancing up at the
high seat behind him, he saw the child's feet dangling, and knew they
must be cold.

"Why can't your little brother sit back here with me?" he said; "I'll
cover him with my rug, and we'll keep each other warm."

He saw the small hunched back stiffen, and try to appear big and manly,
but she checked the team at a level dip in the road.

"Yes, sonny, get ovah theah with the gentleman. It'll be some coldah now
the sun's gone." But the little man was shyly reluctant to move. "Come,
honey. Sistah'd a heap rathah you would."

Then David reached up and gently lifted the atom of manhood, of pride,
sensitiveness, and affection, over where he caused him to snuggle down
in the fodder close to his side.

For a while the child sat stiffly aloof, but gradually his little form
relaxed, and his head drooped sideways in the hollow of the stranger's
shoulder, held comfortably by Thryng's kindly encircling arm. Soon,
with his small feet wrapped in the warm, soft rug, he slept soundly and
sweetly, rocked, albeit rather roughly, in the jolting wagon.

Thryng also dreamed, but not in sleep. His mind was stirred to unusual
depths by his strange surroundings--the silence, the mystery, the beauty
of the night, and the suggestions of grandeur and power dimly revealed
by the moonlight which bathed the world in a flood of glory.

He was uplifted and drawn out of himself, and at the same time he was
thrown back to review his life and to see his most inward self, and to
marvel and question the wherefore of it all. Why was he here, away from
the active, practical affairs which interest other men? Was he a
creature of ideals only, or was he also a practical man, taking the
wisest means of reaching and achieving results most worth while? He saw
himself in his childhood--in his youth--in his young manhood--even to
the present moment, jogging slowly along in a far country, rough and
wild, utterly dependent on the courtesy of a slight girl, who held, for
the moment, his life in her hands; for often, as he gazed into the void
of darkness over narrow ledges, he knew that only the skill of those two
small hands kept them from sliding into eternity: yet there was about
her such an air of wontedness to the situation that he was stirred by no
sense of anxiety for himself or for her.

He took out his pipe and smoked, still dreaming, comparing, and
questioning. Of ancient family, yet the younger son of three generations
of younger sons, all probability of great inheritance or title so far
removed from him, it behooved that he build for himself--what? Fortune,
name, everything. Character? Ah, that was his heritage, all the heritage
the laws of England allowed him, and that not by right of English law,
but because, fixed in the immutable, eternal Will, some laws there are
beyond the power of man to supersede. With an involuntary stiffening of
his body, he disturbed for an instant the slumbering child, and quite as
involuntarily he drew him closer and soothed him back to forgetfulness;
and they both dreamed on, the child in his sleep, and the man in his
wide wakefulness and intense searching.

His uncle, it is true, would have boosted him far toward creating both
name and fame for himself, in either army or navy, but he would none of
it. There was his older brother to be advanced, and the younger son of
this same uncle to be placed in life, or married to wealth. This also he
might have done; well married he might have been ere now, and could be
still, for she was waiting--only--an ideal stood in his way. Whom he
would marry he would love. Not merely respect or like,--not even
both,--but love he must; and in order to hold to this ideal he must fly
the country, or remain to be unduly urged to his own discomfiture and
possibly to their mutual undoing.

As for the alternatives, the army or the navy, again his ideals had
formed for him impassable bars. He would found his career on the saving
rather than the taking of life. Perhaps he might yet follow in the wake
of armies to mend bodies they have torn and cut and maimed, and heal
diseases they have engendered--yes--perhaps--the ideals loomed big. But
what had he done? Fled his country and deftly avoided the most
heart-satisfying of human delights--children to call him father, and
wife to make him a home; peace and wealth; thrust aside the helping hand
to power and a career considered most worthy of a strong and resourceful
man, and thrown personal ambition to the winds. Why? Because of his
ideals--preferring to mend rather than to mar his neighbor.

Surely he was right--and yet--and yet. What had he accomplished? Taken
the making of his life into his own hands and lost--all--if health were
really gone. One thing remained to him--the last rag and remnant of his
cherished ideals--to live long enough to triumph over his own disease
and take up work again. Why should he succumb? Was it fate? Was there
the guidance of a higher will? Might he reach out and partake of the
Divine power? But one thing he knew; but one thing could he do. As the
glory of white light around him served to reveal a few feet only of the
way, even as the density beyond seemed impenetrable, still it was but
seeming. There was a beyond--vast--mysterious--which he must search out,
slowly, painfully, if need be, seeing a little way only, but seeing that
little clearly, revealed by the white light of spirit. His own or God's?
Into the infinite he must search--search--and at last surely find.




CHAPTER II

IN WHICH DAVID THRYNG EXPERIENCES THE HOSPITALITY OF THE MOUNTAIN
PEOPLE.


Suddenly the jolting ceased. The deep stillness of the night seemed only
intensified by the low panting of the animals and the soft dropping of
the wet snow from the trees.

"What is it?" said Thryng, peering from under the canvas cover.
"Anything the matter?"

The beasts stood with low-swung heads, the vapor rising white from their
warm bodies, wet with the melting snow. His question fell unheard, and
the girl who was climbing down over the front wheel began to unhitch the
team in silence. He rolled the sleeping child in his rug and leaped out.

"Let me help you. What is the trouble? Oh, are you at home?"

"I can do this, suh. I have done it a heap of times. Don't go nigh Pete,
suh. He's mighty quick, and he's mean." The beast laid back his ears
viciously as David approached.

"You ought not go near him yourself," he said, taking a firm grip of the
bridle.

"Oh, he's safe enough with me--or Frale. Hold him tight, suh, now you
have him, till I get round there. Keep his head towa'ds you. He
certainly is mean."

The colt walked off to a low stack of corn fodder, as she turned him
loose with a light slap on the flank; and the mule, impatient, stamping
and sidling about, stretched forth his nose and let out his raucous and
hideous cry. While he was thus occupied, the girl slipped off his
harness and, taking the bridle, led the beast away to a small railed
enclosure on the far side of the stack; and David stood alone in the
snow and looked about him.

He saw a low, rambling house, which, although one structure, appeared to
be a series of houses, built of logs plastered with clay in the chinks.
It stood in a tangle of wild growth, on what seemed to be a wide ledge
jutting out from the side of the mountain, which loomed dark and high
behind it. An incessant, rushing sound pervaded the place, as it were a
part of the silence or a breathing of the mountain itself. Was it wind
among the trees, or the rushing of water? No wind stirred now, and yet
the sound never ceased. It must be a torrent swollen by the melting
snow.

He saw the girl moving in and out among the shadows, about the open log
stable, like a wraith. The braying of the mule had disturbed the
occupants of the house, for a candle was placed in a window, and its
little ray streamed forth and was swallowed up in the moonlight and
black shades. The child, awakened by the horrible noise of the beast,
rustled in the corn fodder where Thryng had left him. Dazed and
wondering, he peered out at the young man for some moments, too shy to
descend until his sister should return. Now she came, and he scrambled
down and stood close to her side, looking up weirdly, his twisted little
form shivering and quaking.

"Run in, Hoyle," she said, looking kindly down upon him. "Tell mothah
we're all right, son."

A woman came to the door holding a candle, which she shaded with a
gnarled and bony hand.

"That you, Cass?" she quavered. "Who aire ye talkin' to?"

"Yes, Aunt Sally, we'll be there directly. Don't let mothah get cold."
She turned again to David. "I reckon you'll have to stop with us
to-night. It's a right smart way to the cabin, and it'll be cold, and
nothing to eat. We'll bring in your things now, and in the morning we
can tote them up to your place with the mule, and Hoyle can go with you
to show you the way."

She turned toward the wagon as if all were settled, and Thryng could not
be effusive in the face of her direct and conclusive manner; but he took
the basket from her hand.

"Let me--no, no--I will bring in everything. Thank you very much. I can
do it quite easily, taking one at a time." Then she left him, but at the
door she met him and helped to lift his heavy belongings into the house.

The room he entered was warm and brightly lighted by a pile of blazing
logs in the great chimneyplace. He walked toward it and stretched his
hands to the fire--a generous fire--the mountain home's luxury.

Something was cooking in the ashes on the hearth which sent up a savory
odor most pleasant and appealing to the hungry man. The meagre boy stood
near, also warming his little body, on which his coarse garments hung
limply. He kept his great eyes fixed on David's face in a manner
disconcerting, even in a child, had Thryng given his attention to it,
but at the moment he was interested in other things. Dropped thus
suddenly into this utterly alien environment, he was observing the girl
and the old woman as intently, though less openly, as the boy was
watching him.

Presently he felt himself uncannily the object of a scrutiny far
different from the child's wide-eyed gaze, and glancing over his
shoulder toward the corner from which the sensation seemed to emanate,
he saw in the depths of an old four-posted bed, set in their hollow
sockets and roofed over by projecting light eyebrows, a pair of keen,
glittering eyes.

"Yas, you see me now, do ye?" said a high, thin voice in toothless
speech. "Who be ye?"

His physician's feeling instantly alert, he stepped to the bedside and
bent over the wasted form, which seemed hardly to raise the clothing
from its level smoothness, as if she had lain motionless since some
careful hand had arranged it.

"No, ye don't know me, I reckon. 'Tain't likely. Who be ye?" she
iterated, still looking unflinchingly in his eyes.

"Hit's a gentleman who knows Doctah Hoyle, mothah. He sent him. Don't
fret you'se'f," said the girl soothingly.

"I'm not one of the frettin' kind," retorted the mother, never taking
her eyes from his face, and again speaking in a weak monotone. "Who be
ye?"

"My name is David Thryng, and I am a doctor," he said quietly.

"Where be ye from?"

"I came from Canada, the country where Doctor Hoyle lives."

"I reckon so. He used to tell 'at his home was thar." A pallid hand was
reached slowly out to him. "I'm right glad to see ye. Take a cheer and
set. Bring a cheer, Sally."

But the girl had already placed him a chair, which he drew close to the
bedside. He took the feeble old hand and slipped his fingers along to
rest lightly on the wrist.

"You needn't stan' watchin' me, Cass. You 'n' Sally set suthin' fer th'
doctah to eat. I reckon ye're all about gone fer hunger."

"Yes, mothah, right soon. Fry a little pork to go with the pone, Aunt
Sally. Is any coffee left in the pot?"

"I done put in a leetle mo' when I heered the mule hollah. I knowed ye'd
want it. Might throw in a mite mo' now th' gentleman's come."

The two women resumed their preparations for supper, the boy continued
to stand and gaze, and the high voice of the frail occupant of the bed
began again to talk and question.

"When did you come down f'om that thar country whar Doctah Hoyle lives
at?" she said, in her monotonous wail.

"Four days ago. I travelled slowly, for I have been ill myself."

"Hit's right quare now; 'pears like ef I was a doctah I wouldn't 'low
myself fer to get sick. An' you seed Doctah Hoyle fo' days back!"

"No, he has gone to England on a visit. I saw his wife, though, and his
daughter. She is a young lady--is to be married soon."

"They do grow up--the leetle ones. Hit don't seem mo'n yestahday 'at
Cass was like leetle Hoyle yandah, an' hit don't seem that since Doctah
Hoyle was here an' leetle Hoyle came. We named him fer th' doctah. Waal,
I reckon ef th' doctah was here now 'at he could he'p me some. Maybe ef
he'd 'a' stayed here I nevah would 'a' got down whar I be now. He was a
right good doctah, bettah'n a yarb doctah--most--I reckon so."

David smiled. "I think so myself," he said. "Are there many herb doctors
here about?"

"Not rightly doctahs, so to speak, but they is some 'at knows a heap
about yarbs."

"Good. Perhaps they can teach me something."

The old face was feebly lifted a bit from the pillow, and the dark eyes
grew suddenly sharp in their scrutiny.

"Who be ye, anyhow? What aire ye here fer? Sech as you knows a heap
a'ready 'thout makin' out to larn o' we-uns."

David saw his mistake and hastened to allay the suspicion which gleamed
out at him almost malignantly.

"I am just what I said, a doctor like Adam Hoyle, only that I don't know
as much as he--not yet. The wisest man in the world can learn more if he
watches out to do so. Your herb doctors might be able to teach me a good
many things."

"I 'spect ye're right thar, on'y a heap o' folks thinks they knows it
all fust."

There was a pause, and Thryng leaned back in his stiff, splint-bottomed
chair and glanced around him. He saw that the girl, although moving
about setting to rights and brushing here and there with an unique,
home-made broom, was at the same time intently listening.

Presently the old woman spoke again, her threadlike voice penetrating
far.

"What do you 'low to do here in ouah mountains? They hain't no
settlement nighabouts here, an' them what's sick hain't no money to pay
doctahs with. I reckon they'll hev to stay sick fer all o' you-uns."

David looked into her eyes a moment quietly; then he smiled. The way to
her heart he saw was through the magic of one name.

"What did Doctor Hoyle do when he was down here?"

"Him? They hain't no one livin' like he was."

Then David laughed outright, a gay, contagious laugh, and after an
instant she laughed also.

"I agree with you," he said. "But you see, I am a countryman of his, and
he sent me here--he knows me well--and I mean to do as he did, if--I
can."

He drew in a deep breath of utter weariness, and leaned forward, his
elbows on his knees, his head in his hands, and gazed into the blazing
fire. The memories which had taken possession of his soul during the
long ride seemed to envelop him so that in a moment the present was
swept away into oblivion and his spirit was, as it were, suddenly
withdrawn from the body and projected into the past. He had been unable
to touch any of the greasy cold stuff which had been offered him during
the latter part of his journey, and the heat brought a drowsiness on him
and a faintness from lack of food.

"Cass--Cassandry! Look to him," called the mother shrilly, but the girl
had already noticed his strange abstraction, and the small Adam Hoyle
had drawn back, in awe, to his mother.

"Get some whiskey, Sally," said the girl, and David roused himself to
see her bending over him.

"I must have gone off in a doze," he said weakly. "The long ride and
then this warmth--" Seeing the anxious faces around him, he laughed
again. "It's nothing, I assure you, only the comfort and the smell of
something good to eat;" he sniffed a little. "What is it?" he asked.

Old Sally was tossing and shaking the frying salt pork in the skillet at
the fireplace, and the odor aggravated his already too keen appetite.

"Ye was more'n sleepy, I reckon," shrilled the woman from the bed.
"Hain't that pone done, Sally? No, 'tain't liquor he needs; hit's
suthin' to eat."

Then the girl hastened her slow, gliding movements, drew splint chairs
to a table of rough pine that stood against the side of the room, and,
stooping between him and the fire, pulled something from among the hot
ashes. The fire made the only light in the room, and David never forgot
the supple grace of her as she bent thus silhouetted--the perfect line
of chin and throat black against the blaze, contrasted with the weird,
witchlike old woman with roughly knotted hair, who still squatted in the
heat, and shook the skillet of frying pork.

"Thar, now hit's done, I reckon," said old Sally, slowly rising and
straightening her bent back; and the woman from the bed called her
orders.

"Not that cup," she cried, as Sally began pouring black coffee into a
cracked white cup. "Git th' chany one. I hid hit yandah in th' cornder
'hind that tin can, to keep 'em f'om usin' hit every day. I had a hull
set o' that when I married Farwell. Give hit here." She took the
precious relic in her work-worn hands and peered into it, then wiped it
out with the corner of the sheet which covered her. This Thryng did not
see. He was watching the girl, as she broke open the hot, fragrant
corn-bread and placed it beside his plate.

"Come," she said. "You sure must be right hungry. Sit here and eat."
David felt like one drunken with weariness when he rose, and caught at
the edge of the table to steady himself.

"Aren't you hungry, too?" he asked, "and Hoyle, here? Sit beside me;
we're going to have a feast, little chap."

The girl placed an earthen crock on the table and took from it honey in
the broken comb, rich and dark.

"Have a little of this with your pone. It's right good," she said.

"Frale, he found a bee tree," piped the child suddenly, gaining
confidence as he saw the stranger engaged in the very normal act of
eating with the relish of an ordinary man. He edged forward and sat
himself gingerly on the outer corner of the next chair, and accepted a
huge piece of the pone from David's hand. His sister gave him honey, and
Sally dropped pieces of the sizzling hot pork on their plates, from the
skillet.

David sipped his coffee from the flowered "chany cup" contentedly.
Served without milk or sugar, it was strong, hot, and reviving. The girl
shyly offered more of the corn-bread as she saw it rapidly disappearing,
pleased to see him eat so eagerly, yet abashed at having nothing else to
offer.

"I'm sorry we can give you only such as this. We don't live like you do
in the no'th. Have a little more of the honey."

"Ah, but this is fine. Good, hey, little chap? You are doing a very
beneficent thing, do you know, saving a man's life?" He glanced up at
her flushed face, and she smiled deprecatingly. He fancied her smiles
were rare.

"But it is quite true. Where would I be now but for you and Hoyle here?
Lying under the lee side of the station coughing my life away,--and all
my own fault, too. I should have accepted the bishop's invitation."

"You helped me when the colt was bad." Her soft voice, low and
monotonous, fell musically on his ear when she spoke.

"Naturally--but how about that, anyway? It's a wonder you weren't
killed. How came a youngster like you there alone with those beasts?"
Thryng had an abrupt manner of springing a question which startled the
child, and he edged away, furtively watching his sister.

[Illustration: _"Casabianca, was it?" said Thryng, smiling. Page 17._]

"Did you hitch that kicking brute alone and drive all that distance?"

"Aunt Sally, she he'ped me to tie up; she give him co'n whilst I th'owed
on the strops, an' when he's oncet tied up, he goes all right." The atom
grinned. "Hit's his way. He's mean, but he nevah works both ends to
oncet."

"Good thing to know; but you're a hero, do you understand that?" The
child continued to edge away, and David reached out and drew him to his
side. Holding him by his two sharp little elbows, he gave him a playful
shake. "I say, do you know what a hero is?"

The startled boy stopped grinning and looked wildly to his sister, but
receiving only a smile of reassurance from her, he lifted his great eyes
to Thryng's face, then slowly the little form relaxed, and he was drawn
within the doctor's encircling arm.

"I don't reckon," was all his reply, which ambiguous remark caused
David, in his turn, to look to the sister for elucidation. She held a
long, lighted candle in her hand, and paused to look back as she was
leaving the room.

"Yes, you do, honey son. You remembah the boy with the quare long name
sistah told you about, who stood there when the ship was all afiah and
wouldn't leave because his fathah had told him to bide? He was a hero."
But Hoyle was too shy to respond, and David could feel his little heart
thumping against his arm as he held him.

"Tell the gentleman, Hoyle. He don't bite, I reckon," called the mother
from her corner.

"His name begun like yourn, Cass, but I cyan't remembah the hull of it."

"Casabianca, was it?" said Thryng, smiling.

"I reckon. Did you-uns know him?"

"When I was a small chap like you, I used to read about him." Then the
atom yielded entirely, and leaned comfortably against David, and his
sister left them, carrying the candle with her.

Old Sally threw another log on the fire, and the flames leaped up the
cavernous chimney, lighting the room with dramatic splendor. Thryng
took note of its unique furnishing. In the corner opposite the one where
the mother lay was another immense four-poster bed, and before it hung a
coarse homespun curtain, half concealing it. At its foot was a huge box
of dark wood, well-made and strong, with a padlock. This and the beds
seemed to belong to another time and place, in contrast to the other
articles, which were evidently mountain made, rude in construction and
hewn out by hand, the chairs unstained and unpolished, and seated with
splints.

The walls were the roughly dressed logs of which the house was built,
the chinks plastered with deep red-brown clay. Depending from nails
driven in the logs were festoons of dried apple and strips of dried
pumpkin, and hanging by their braided husks were bunches of Indian corn,
not yellow like that of the north, but white or purple.

There were bags also, containing Thryng knew not what, although he was
to learn later, when his own larder came to be eked out by sundry gifts
of dried fruit and sweet corn, together with the staple of beans and
peas from the widow's store.

Beside the window of small panes was a shelf, on which were a few worn
books, and beneath hung an almanac; at the foot of the mother's bed
stood a small spinning-wheel, with the wool still hanging to the
spindle. David wondered how long since it had been used. The scrupulous
cleanliness of the place satisfied his fastidious nature, and gave him a
sense of comfort in the homely interior. He liked the look of the bed in
the corner, made up high and round, and covered with marvellous
patchwork.

As he sat thus, noting all his surroundings, Hoyle still nestled at his
side, leaning his elbows on the doctor's knees, his chin in his hands,
and his soft eyes fixed steadily on the doctor's face. Thus they
advanced rapidly toward an amicable acquaintance, each questioning and
being questioned.

"What is a 'bee tree'?" said David. "You said somebody found one."

"Hit's a big holler tree, an' hit's plumb full o' bees an' honey. Frale,
he found this'n."

"Tell me about it. Where was it?"

"Hit war up yandah, highah up th' mountain. They is a hole thar what
wil' cats live in, Wil' Cat Hole. Frale, he war a hunt'n fer a cat. Some
men thar at th' hotel, they war plumb mad to hunt a wil' cat with th'
dogs, an' Frale, he 'lowed to git th' cat fer 'em."

"And when was that?"

"Las' summah, when th' hotel war open. They war a heap o' men at th'
hotel."

"And now about the bee tree?"

"Frale, he nevah let on like he know'd thar war a bee tree, an' then
this fall he took me with him, an' we made a big fire, an' then we cut
down th' tree, an' we stayed thar th' hull day, too, an' eat thar an'
had ros'n ears by th' fire, too."

"I say, you know. There seem to be a lot of things you will have to
enlighten me about. After you get through with the bee tree you must
tell me what 'ros'n ears' are. And then what did you do?"

"Thar war a heap o' honey. That tree, hit war nigh-about plumb full o'
honey, and th' bees war that mad you couldn't let 'em come nigh ye
'thout they'd sting you. They stung me, an' I nevah hollered. Frale, he
'lowed ef you hollered, you wa'n't good fer nothin', goin' bee hunt'n'."

"Is Frale your brother?"

"Yas. He c'n do a heap o' things, Frale can. They war a heap o' honey in
that thar tree, 'bout a bar'l full, er more'n that. We hev a hull tub o'
honey out thar in th' loom shed yet, an' maw done sont all th' rest to
th' neighbors, 'cause maw said they wa'n't no use in humans bein' fool
hogs like th' bees war, a-keepin' more'n they could eat jes' fer
therselves."

"Yas," called the mother from her corner, where she had been admiringly
listening; "they is a heap like that-a-way, but hit ain't our way here
in th' mountains. Let th' doctah tell you suthin' now, Hoyle,--ye mount
larn a heap if ye'd hark to him right smart, 'thout talkin' th' hull
time youse'f."

"I has to tell him 'bouts th' ros'n ears--he said so. Thar they be." He
pointed to a bunch of Indian corn. "You wrop 'em up in ther shucks,
whilst ther green an' sof', and kiver 'em up in th' ashes whar hit's
right hot, and then when ther rosted, eat 'em so. Now, what do you
know?"

"Why, he knows a heap, son. Don't ax that-a-way."

"In my country, away across the ocean--" began David.

"Tell 'bout th' ocean, how hit look."

"In my country we don't have Indian corn nor bee trees, nor wild cat
holes, but we have the ocean all around us, and we see the ships and--"

"Like that thar one whar th' boy stood whilst hit war on fire?"

"Something like, yes." Then he told about the sea and the ships and the
great fishes, and was interrupted with the query:--

"Reckon you done seed that thar fish what swallered the man in th' Bible
an' then th'ow'd him up agin?"

"Why no, son, you know that thar fish war dade long 'fore we-uns war
born. You mustn't ax fool questions, honey."

Old Sally sat crouched by the hearth intently listening and asking as
naïve questions as the child, whose pallid face grew pink and animated,
and whose eyes grew larger as he strove to see with inward vision the
things Thryng described. It was a happy evening for little Hoyle.
Leaning confidingly against David, he sighed with repletion of joy. He
was not eager for his sister to return--not he. He could lean forever
against this wonderful man and listen to his tales. But the doctor's
weariness was growing heavier, and he bethought himself that the girl
had not eaten with them, and feared she was taking trouble to prepare
quarters for him, when if she only knew how gladly he would bunk down
anywhere,--only to sleep while this blessed and delicious drowsiness was
overpowering him.

"Where is your sister, Hoyle? Don't you reckon it's time you and I were
abed?" he asked, adopting the child's vernacular.

"She's makin' yer bed ready in th' loom shed, likely," said the mother,
ever alert. With her pale, prematurely wrinkled face and uncannily
bright and watchful eyes, she seemed the controlling, all-pervading
spirit of the place. "Run, child, an' see what's keepin' her so long."

"Hit's dark out thar," said the boy, stirring himself slowly.

"Run, honey, you hain't afeared, kin drive a team all by you'se'f. Dark
hain't nothin'; I ben all ovah these heah mountains when thar wa'n't one
star o' light. Maybe you kin he'p her."

At that moment she entered, holding the candle high to light her way
through what seemed to be a dark passage, her still, sweet face a bit
flushed and stray taches of white cotton down clinging to her blue
homespun dress. "The doctah's mos' dade fer sleep, Cass."

"I am right sorry to keep you so long, but we are obleeged--"

She lifted troubled eyes to his face, as Thryng interrupted her.

"Ah, no, no! I really beg your pardon--for coming in on you this way--it
was not right, you know. It was a--a--predicament, wasn't it? It
certainly wasn't right to put you about so; if--you will just let me go
anywhere, only to sleep, I shall be greatly obliged. I'm making you a
lot of trouble, and I'm so sorry."

His profusion of manner, of which he was entirely unaware, embarrassed
her; although not shy like her brother, she had never encountered any
one who spoke with such rapid abruptness, and his swift, penetrating
glance and pleasant ease of the world abashed her. For an instant she
stood perfectly still before him, slowly comprehending his thought, then
hastened with her inherited, inborn ladyhood to relieve him from any
sense that his sudden descent upon their privacy was an intrusion.

Her mind moved along direct lines from thought to expression--from
impulse to action. She knew no conventional tricks of words or phrases
for covering an awkward situation, and her only way of avoiding a
self-betrayal was by silence and a masklike impassivity. During this
moment of stillness while she waited to regain her poise, he, quick and
intuitive as a woman, took in the situation, yet he failed to comprehend
the character before him.

To one accustomed to the conventional, perfect simplicity seems to
conceal something held back. It is hard to believe that all is being
revealed, hence her slower thought, in reality, comprehended him the
more truly. What he supposed to be pride and shame over their meagre
accommodations was, in reality, genuine concern for his comfort, and
embarrassment before his ease and ready phrases. As in a swift breeze
her thoughts were caught up and borne away upon them, but after a moment
they would sweep back to her--a flock of innocent, startled doves.

Still holding her candle aloft, she raised her eyes to his and smiled.
"We-uns are right glad you came. If you can be comfortable where we are
obliged to put you to sleep, you must bide awhile." She did not say
"obleeged" this time. He had not pronounced it so, and he must know.

"That is so good of you. And now you are very tired yourself and have
eaten nothing. You must have your own supper. Hoyle can look after me."
He took the candle from her and gave it to the boy, then turned his own
chair back to the table and looked inquiringly at Sally squatted before
the fire. "Not another thing shall you do for me until you are waited
on. Take my place here."

David's manner seemed like a command to her, and she slid into the chair
with a weary, drooping movement. Hoyle stood holding the candle, his wry
neck twisting his head to one side, a smile on his face, eying them
sharply. He turned a questioning look to his sister, as he stiffened
himself to his newly acquired importance as host.

Thryng walked over to the bedside. "In the morning, when we are all
rested, I'll see what can be done for you," he said, taking the
proffered old hand in his. "I am not Dr. Hoyle, but he has taught me a
little. I studied and practised with him, you know."

"Hev ye? Then ye must know a heap. Hit's right like th' Lord sont ye.
You see suthin' 'peared like to give way whilst I war a-cuttin' light
'ud th' othah day, an' I went all er a heap 'crost a log, an' I reckon
hit hurt me some. I hain't ben able to move a foot sence, an' I lay out
thar nigh on to a hull day, whilst Hoyle here run clar down to Sally's
place to git her. He couldn't lif' me hisse'f, he's that weak; he tried
to haul me in, but when I hollered,--sufferin' so I war jes' 'bleeged to
holler,--he kivered me up whar I lay and lit out fer Sally, an' she an'
her man they got me up here, an' here I ben ever since. I reckon I never
will leave this bed ontwell I'm cyarried out in a box."

"Oh, no, not that! You're too much alive for that. We'll see about it
to-morrow. Good night."

"Hoyle may show you the way," said the girl, rising. "Your bed is in the
loom shed. I'm right sorry it's so cold. I put blankets there, and you
can use all you like of them. I would have given you Frale's place up
garret--only--he might come in any time, and--"

"Naw, he won't. He's too skeered 'at--" Hoyle's interruption stopped
abruptly, checked by a glance of his sister's eye.

"I hope you'll sleep well--"

"Sleep? I shall sleep like a log. I feel as if I could sleep for a week.
It's awfully good of you. I hope we haven't eaten all the supper, Hoyle
and I. Come, little chap. Good night." He took up his valise and
followed the boy, leaving her standing by the uncleared table, gazing
after him.

"Now you eat, Cassandry. You are nigh about perished you are that
tired," said her mother.

Then old Sally brought more pork and hot pone from the ashes, and they
sat down together, eating and sipping their black coffee in silence.
Presently Hoyle returned and began removing his clumsy shoes, by the
fire.

"Did he ax ye a heap o' questions, Hoyle?" queried the old woman
sharply.

"Naw. Did'n' ax noth'n'."

"Waal, look out 'at you don't let on nothin' ef he does. Talkin' may
hurt, an' hit may not."

"He hain't no government man, maw."

"Hit's all right, I reckon, but them 'at larns young to hold ther
tongues saves a heap o' trouble fer therselves."

After they had eaten, old Sally gathered the few dishes together and
placed all the splint-bottomed chairs back against the sides of the
room, and, only half disrobing, crawled into the far side of the bed
opposite to the mother's, behind the homespun curtain.

"To-morrow I reckon I kin go home to my old man, now you've come, Cass."

"Yes," said the girl in a low voice, "you have been right kind to
we-all, Aunt Sally."

Then she bent over her mother, ministering to her few wants; lifting her
forward, she shook up the pillow, and gently laid her back upon it, and
lightly kissed her cheek. The child had quickly dropped to sleep, curled
up like a ball in the farther side of his mother's bed, undisturbed by
the low murmur of conversation. Cassandra drew her chair close to the
fire and sat long gazing into the burning logs that were fast crumbling
to a heap of glowing embers. She uncoiled her heavy bronze hair and
combed it slowly out, until it fell a rippling mass to the floor, as she
sat. It shone in the firelight as if it had drawn its tint from the fire
itself, and the cold night had so filled it with electricity that it
flew out and followed the comb, as if each hair were alive, and made a
moving aureola of warm red amber about her drooping figure in the midst
of the sombre shadows of the room. Her face grew sad and her hands moved
listlessly, and at last she slipped from her chair to her knees and wept
softly and prayed, her lips forming the words soundlessly. Once her
mother awoke, lifted her head slightly from her pillow and gazed an
instant at her, then slowly subsided, and again slept.




CHAPTER III

IN WHICH AUNT SALLY TAKES HER DEPARTURE AND MEETS FRALE


The loom shed was one of the log cabins connected with the main building
by a roofed passage, which Thryng had noticed the evening before as
being an odd fashion of house architecture, giving the appearance of a
small flock of cabins all nestling under the wings of the old building
in the centre.

The shed was dark, having but one small window with glass panes near the
loom, the other and larger opening being tightly closed by a wooden
shutter. David slept late, and awoke at last to find himself thousands
of miles away from his dreams in this unique room, all in the deepest
shadow, except for the one warm bar of sunlight which fell across his
face. He drowsed off again, and his mind began piecing together
fragments and scenes from the previous day and evening, and immediately
he was surrounded by mystery, moonlit, fairylike, and white, a little
crooked being at his side looking up at him like some gnome creature of
the hills, revealed as a part of the enchantment. Then slowly resolving
and melting away after the manner of dreams, the wide spaces of the
mystery drew closer and warmer, and a great centre of blazing logs threw
grotesque, dancing lights among them, and an old face peered out with
bright, keen eyes, now seen, now lost in the fitful shadows, now pale
and appealing or cautiously withdrawn, but always watching--watching
while the little crooked being came and watched also. Then between him
and the blazing light came a dark figure silhouetted blackly against it,
moving, stooping, rising, going and coming--a sweet girl's head with
heavily coiled hair through which the firelight played with flashes of
its own color, and a delicate profile cut in pure, clean lines melting
into throat and gently rounded breast; like a spirit, now here, now
gone, again near and bending over him,--a ministering spirit bringing
him food,--until gradually this half wake, dreaming reminiscence
concentrated upon her, and again he saw her standing holding the candle
high and looking up at him,--a wondering, questioning spirit,--then
drooping wearily into the chair by the uncleared table, and again
waiting with almost a smile on her parted lips as he said "good night."
Good night? Ah, yes. It was morning.

Again he heard the continuous rushing noise to which he had listened in
the white mystery, that had soothed him to slumber the night before,
rising and falling--never ceasing. He roused himself with sudden energy
and bounded from his couch. He would go out and investigate. His sleep
had been sound, and he felt a rejuvenation he had not experienced in
many months. When he threw open the shutter of the large unglazed window
space and looked out on his strange surroundings, he found himself in a
new world, sparkling, fresh, clear, shining with sunlight and glistening
with wetness, as though the whole earth had been newly washed and
varnished. The sunshine streamed in and warmed him, and the air, filled
with winelike fragrance, stirred his blood and set his pulses leaping.

He had been too exhausted the previous evening to do more than fall into
the bed which had been provided him and sleep his long, uninterrupted
sleep. Now he saw why they had called this part of the home the loom
shed, for between the two windows stood a cloth loom left just as it had
been used, the warp like a tightly stretched veil of white threads, and
the web of cloth begun.

In one corner were a few bundles of cotton, one of which had been torn
open and the contents placed in a thick layer over the long bench on
which he had slept, and covered with a blue and white homespun
counterpane. The head had been built high with it, and sheets spread
over all. He noticed the blankets which had covered him, and saw that
they were evidently of home manufacture, and that the white spread which
covered them was also of coarse, clean homespun, ornamented in squares
with rude, primitive needlework. He marvelled at the industry here
represented.

As for his toilet, the preparation had been most simple. A shelf placed
on pegs driven between the logs supported a piece of looking-glass; a
splint chair set against the wall served as wash-stand and
towel-rack--the homespun cotton towels neatly folded and hung over the
back; a wooden pail at one side was filled with clear water, over which
hung a dipper of gourd; a white porcelain basin was placed on the chair,
over which a clean towel had been spread, and to complete all, a square
cut from the end of a bar of yellow soap lay beside the basin.

David smiled as he bent himself to the refreshing task of bathing in
water so cold as to be really icy. Indeed, ice had formed over still
pools without during the night, although now fast disappearing under the
glowing morning sun. Above his head, laid upon cross-beams, were bundles
of wool uncarded, and carding-boards hung from nails in the logs. In one
corner was a rudely constructed reel, and from the loom dangled the idle
shuttle filled with fine blue yarn of wool. Thryng thought of the worn
old hands which had so often thrown it, and thinking of them he hastened
his toilet that he might go in and do what he could to help the patient.
It was small enough return for the kindness shown him. He feared to
offer money for his lodgment, at least until he could find a way.

At last, full of new vigor and very hungry, he issued from his
sleeping-room, sadly in need of a shave, but biding his time, satisfied
if only breakfast might be forthcoming. He had no need to knock, for the
house door stood open, flooding the place with sunlight and frosty air.
The huge pile of logs was blazing on the hearth as if it had never
ceased since the night before, and the flames leaped hot and red up the
great chimney.

Old Sally no longer presided at the cookery. With a large cup of black
coffee before her, she now sat at the table eating corn-bread and bacon.
A drooping black sunbonnet on her head covered her unkempt, grizzly
hair, and a cob pipe and bag of tobacco lay at her hand. She was ready
for departure. Cassandra had returned, and her gratuitous neighborly
offices were at an end. The girl was stooping before the fire, arranging
a cake of corn-bread to cook in the ashes. A crane swung over the flames
on which a fat iron kettle was hung, and the large coffee-pot stood on
the hearth. The odor of breakfast was savory and appetizing. As David's
tall form cast a shadow across the sunlit space on the floor, the old
mother's voice called to him from the corner.

"Come right in, Doctah; take a cheer and set. Your breakfast's ready, I
reckon. How have you slept, suh?"

The girl at the fire rose and greeted him, but he missed the boy.
"Where's the little chap?" he asked.

"Cassandry sont him out to wash up. F'ust thing she do when she gets
home is to begin on Hoyle and wash him up."

"He do get that dirty, poor little son," said the girl. "It's like I
have to torment him some. Will you have breakfast now, suh? Just take
your chair to the table, and I'll fetch it directly."

"Won't I, though! What air you have up here! It makes me hungry merely
to breathe. Is it this way all the time?"

"Hit's this-a-way a good deal," said Sally, from under her sunbonnet,
"Oh, the' is days hit's some colder, like to make water freeze right
hard, but most days hit's a heap warmer than this."

"That's so," said the invalid. "I hev seen it so warm a heap o' winters
'at the trees gits fooled into thinkin' hit's spring an' blossoms all
out, an' then come along a late freez'n' spell an' gits their fruit all
killed. Hit's quare how they does do that-a-way. We-all hates it when
the days come warm in Feb'uary."

"Then you must have been glad to have snow yesterday. I was
disappointed. I was running away from that sort of thing, you know."

Thryng's breakfast was served to him as had been his supper of the
evening before, directly from the fire. As he ate he looked out upon the
usual litter of corn fodder scattered about near the house, and a few
implements of the simplest character for cultivating the small pocket of
rich soil below, but beyond this and surrounding it was a scene of the
wildest beauty. Giant forest trees, intertwined and almost overgrown by
a tangle of wild grapevines, hid the fall from sight, and behind them
the mountain rose abruptly. A continuous stream of clearest water, icy
cold, fell from high above into a long trough made of a hollow log.
There at the running water stood little Hoyle, his coarse cotton towel
hung on an azalia shrub, giving himself a thorough scrubbing. In a
moment he came in panting, shivering, and shining, and still wet about
the hair and ears.

"Why, you are not half dry, son," said his sister. She took the towel
from him and gave his head a vigorous rubbing. "Go and get warm, honey,
and sister'll give you breakfast by the fire." She turned to David:
"Likely you take milk in your coffee. I never thought to ask you." She
left the room and returned with a cup of new milk, warm and sweet. He
was glad to get it, finding his black coffee sweetened only with
molasses unpalatable.

"Don't you take milk in your coffee? How came you to think of it for
me?"

"I knew a lady at the hotel last summer. She said that up no'th 'most
everybody does take milk or cream, one, in their coffee."

"I never seed sech. Hit's clar waste to my thinkin'."

Cassandra smiled. "That's because you never could abide milk. Mothah
thinks it's only fit to make buttah and raise pigs on."


Old Sally's horse, a thin, wiry beast, gray and speckled, stood ready
saddled near the door, his bridle hanging from his neck, the bit
dangling while he also made his repast. When he had finished his corn
and she had finished her elaborate farewells at the bedside, and little
Hoyle had with much effort succeeded in bridling her steed, she stepped
quickly out and gained her seat on the high, narrow saddle with the ease
of a young girl. Meagre as a willow withe in her scant black cotton
gown, perched on her bony gray beast, and only the bowl of her cob pipe
projecting beyond the rim of her sunbonnet as indication that a face
might be hidden in its depths, with a meal sack containing in either end
sundry gifts--salt pork, chicken, corn-bread, and meal--slung over the
horse's back behind her, and with contentment in her heart, Aunt Sally
rode slowly over the hills to rejoin her old man.

Soon she left the main road and struck out into a steep, narrow trail,
merely a mule track arched with hornbeam and dogwood and mulberry trees,
and towered over by giant chestnuts and oaks and great white pines and
deep green hemlocks. Through myriad leafless branches the wind soughed
pleasantly overhead, unfelt by her, so completely was she protected by
the thickly growing laurel and rhododendron on either side of her path.
The snow of the day before was gone, leaving only the glistening wetness
of it on stones and fallen leaves and twigs underfoot, while in open
spaces the sun beat warmly down upon her.

The trail led by many steep scrambles and sharp descents more directly
to her home than the road, which wound and turned so frequently as to
more than double the distance. At intervals it cut across the road or
followed it a little way, only to diverge again. Here and there other
trails crossed it or branched from it, leading higher up the mountain,
or off into some gorge following the course of a stream, so that, except
to one accustomed to its intricacies, the path might easily be lost.

Old Sally paid no heed to her course, apparently leaving the choice of
trails to her horse. She sat easily on the beast and smoked her pipe
until it was quite out, when she stowed it away in the black cloth bag,
which dangled from her elbow by its strings. Spying a small sassafras
shrub leaning toward her from the bank above her head, she gave it a
vigorous pull as she passed and drew it, root and all, from its hold in
the soil, beat it against the mossy bank, and swished it upon her skirt
to remove the earth clinging to it. Then, breaking off a bit of the
root, she chewed it, while she thrust the rest in her bag and used the
top for a switch with which to hasten the pace of her nag.

The small stones, loosened when she tore the shrub from the bank,
rattled down where the soil had been washed away, leaving the steep
shelving rock side of the mountain bare, and she heard them leap the
smooth space and fall softly on the moss among the ferns and lodged
leaves below. There, crouched in the sun, lay a man with a black felt
hat covering his face. The stones falling about him caused him to raise
himself stealthily and peer upward. Descrying only the lone woman and
the gray horse, he gave a low peculiar cry, almost like that of an
animal in distress. She drew rein sharply and listened. The cry was
repeated a little louder.

"Come on up hyar, Frale. Hit's on'y me. Hu' come you thar?"

He climbed rapidly up through the dense undergrowth, and stood at her
side, breathing quickly. For a moment they waited thus, regarding each
other, neither speaking. The boy--he seemed little more than a
youth--looked up at her with a singularly innocent and appealing
expression, but gradually as he saw her impassive and unrelenting face,
his own resumed a hard and sullen look, which made him appear years
older. His forehead was damp and cold, and a lock of silken black hair,
slightly curling over it, increased its whiteness. Dark, heavy rings
were under his eyes, which gleamed blue as the sky between long dark
lashes. His arms dropped listlessly at his side, and he stood before
her, as before a dread judge, bareheaded and silent. He bore her look
only for a minute, then dropped his eyes, and his hand clinched more
tightly the rim of his old felt hat. When he ceased looking at her, her
eyes softened.

"I 'low ye mus' hev suthin' to say fer yourse'f," she said.

"I reckon." The corners of his mouth drooped, and he did not look up. He
made as if to speak further, but only swallowed and was silent.

"Ye reckon? Waal, why'n't ye say?"

"They hain't nothin' to say. He war mean an'--an'--he's dade. I reckon
he's dade."

"Yas, he's dade--an' they done had the buryin'." Her voice was
monotonous and plaintive. A pallor swept over his face, and he drew the
back of his hand across his mouth.

"He knowed he hadn't ought to rile me like he done. I be'n tryin' to
make his hoss go home, but I cyan't. Hit jes' hangs round thar. I done
brung him down an' lef' him in your shed, an' I 'lowed p'rhaps Uncle
Jerry'd take him ovah to his paw." Again he swallowed and turned his
face away. "The critter'd starve up yander. Anyhow, I ain't hoss
stealin'. Hit war mo'n a hoss 'twixt him an' me." From the low, quiet
tones of the two no one would have dreamed that a tragedy lay beneath
their words.

"Look a-hyar, Frale. Thar wa'n't nothin' 'twixt him an' you. Ye war
both on ye full o' mean corn whiskey, an' ye war quarrellin' 'bouts
Cass." A faint red stole into the boy's cheeks, and the blue gleam of
his eyes between the dark lashes narrowed to a mere line, as he looked
an instant in her face and then off up the trail.

"Hain't ye seed nobody?" he asked.

"You knows I hain't seed nobody to hurt you-uns 'thout I'd tell ye. Look
a-hyar, son, you are hungerin'. Come home with me, an' I'll get ye
suthin' to eat. Ef you don't, ye'll go back an' fill up on whiskey agin,
an' thar'll be the end of ye." He walked on a few steps at her side,
then stopped suddenly.

"I 'low I better bide whar I be. You-uns hain't been yandah to the fall,
have ye?"

"I have. You done a heap mo'n you reckoned on. When Marthy heered o' the
killin', she jes' drapped whar she stood. She war out doin' work 'at
you'd ought to 'a' been doin' fer her, an' she hain't moved sence. She
like to 'a' perished lyin' out thar. Pore little Hoyle, he run all the
way to our place he war that skeered, an' 'lowed she war dade, an' me
an' the ol' man went ovah, an' thar we found her lyin' in the yard, an'
the cow war lowin' to be milked, an' the pig squeelin' like hit war
stuck, fer hunger. Hit do make me clar plumb mad when I think how you
hev acted,--jes' like you' paw. Ef he'd nevah 'a' started that thar
still, you'd nevah 'a' been what ye be now, a-drinkin' yer own whiskey
at that. Come on home with me."

"I reckon I'm bettah hyar. They mount be thar huntin' me."

"I know you're hungerin'. I got suthin' ye can eat, but I 'lowed if
you'd come, I'd get you an' the ol' man a good chick'n fry." She took
from her stores, slung over the nag, a piece of corn-bread and a large
chunk of salt pork, and gave them into his hand. "Thar! Eat. Hit's
heart'nin'."

He was suffering, as she thought, and reached eagerly for the food, but
before tasting it he looked up again into her face, and the infantile
appeal had returned to his eyes.

"Tell me more 'bouts maw," he said.

"You eat, an' I'll talk," she replied. He broke a large piece from the
corn-cake and crowded the rest into his pocket. Then he drew forth a
huge clasp-knife and cut a thick slice from the raw salt pork, and
pulling a red cotton handkerchief from his belt, he wrapped it around
the remainder and held it under his arm as he ate.

"She hain't able to move 'thout hollerin', she's that bad hurted. Paw
an' I, we got her to bed, an' I been thar ever since with all to do
ontwell Cass come. Likely she done broke her hip."

"Is Cass thar now? Hu' come she thar?" Again the blood sought his
cheeks.

"Paw rode down to the settlement and telegrafted fer her. Pore thing!
You don't reckon what-all you have done. I wisht you'd 'a' took aftah
your maw. She war my own sister, 'nd she war that good she must 'a' went
straight to glory when she died. Your paw, he like to 'a' died too that
time, an' when he married Marthy Merlin, I reckoned he war cured o' his
ways; but hit did'n' last long. Marthy, she done well by him, an' she
done well by you, too. They hain't nothin' agin Marthy. She be'n a good
stepmaw to ye, she hev, an' now see how you done her, an' Cass givin' up
her school an' comin' home thar to ten' beastes an' do your work like
she war a man. Her family wa'n't brought up that-a-way, nor mine wa'n't
neither. Big fool Marthy war to marry with your paw. Hit's that-a-way
with all the Farwells; they been that quarellin' an' bad, makin' mean
whiskey an' drinkin' hit raw, killin' hyar an' thar, an' now you go
doin' the same, an' my own nephew, too." Her face remained impassive,
and her voice droned on monotonously, but two tears stole down her
wrinkled cheeks. His face settled into its harder lines as she talked,
but he made no reply, and she continued querulously: "Why'n't you pay
heed to me long ago, when I tol' ye not to open that thar still again?
You are a heap too young to go that-a-way,--my own kin, like to be hung
fer man-killin'."

"When did Cass come?" he interrupted sullenly.

"Las' evenin'."

"I'll drap 'round thar this evenin' er late night, I reckon. I have to
get feed fer my own hoss an' tote hit up er take him back--one. All I
fetched up last week he done et." He turned to walk away, but stood with
averted head as she began speaking again.

"Don't you do no such fool thing. You keep clar o' thar. Bring the hoss
to me, an' I'll ride him home. What you want o' the beast on the
mountain, anyhow? Hit's only like to give away whar ye'r' at. All you
want is to git to see Cass, but hit won't do you no good, leastways not
now. You done so bad she won't look at ye no more, I reckon. They is a
man thar, too, now." He started back, his hands clinched, his head
lifted, in his whole air an animal-like ferocity. "Thar now, look at ye.
'Tain't you he's after."

"'Tain't me I'm feared he's after. How come he thar?"

"He come with her las' evenin'--" A sound of horses' hoofs on the road
far below arrested her. They both waited, listening intently. "Thar they
be. Git," she whispered. "Cass tol' me ef I met up with ye, to say 'at
she'd leave suthin' fer ye to eat on the big rock 'hind the holly tree
at the head o' the fall." She leaned down to him and held him by the
coat an instant, "Son, leave whiskey alone. Hit's the only way you kin
do to get her."

"Yas, Aunt Sally," he murmured. His eyes thanked her with one look for
the tone or the hope her words held out.

Again the laugh, nearer this time, and again the wild look of haunting
fear in his face. He dropped where he stood and slipped stealthily as a
cat back to the place where he had lain, and crawling on his belly
toward a heap of dead leaves caught by the brush of an old fallen pine,
he crept beneath them and lay still. His aunt did not stir. Patting her
horse's neck, she sat and waited until the voices drew nearer, came
close beneath her as the road wound, and passed on. Then she once more
moved along toward her cabin.




CHAPTER IV

DAVID SPENDS HIS FIRST DAY AT HIS CABIN, AND FRALE MAKES HIS CONFESSION


Doctor Hoyle had built his cabin on one of the pinnacles of the earth,
and David, looking down on blue billowing mountain tops with only the
spaces of the air between him and heaven--between him and the
ocean--between him and his fair English home--felt that he knew why the
old doctor had chosen it.

Seated on a splint-bottomed chair in the doorway, pondering, he thought
first of his mother, with a little secret sorrow that he could not have
taken to his heart the bride she had selected for him, and settled in
his own home to the comfortable ease the wife's wealth would have
secured for him. It was not that the money had been made in commerce; he
was neither a snob nor a cad. Although his own connections entitled him
to honor, what more could he expect than to marry wealth and be happy,
if--if happiness could come to either of them in that way. No, his heart
did not lean toward her; it was better that he should bend to his
profession in a strange land. But not this, to live a hermit's life in a
cabin on a wild hilltop. How long must it be--how long?

Brooding thus, he gazed at the distance of ever paling blue, and
mechanically counted the ranges and peaks below him. An inaccessible
tangle of laurel and rhododendron clothed the rough and precipitous wall
of the mountain side, which fell sheer down until lost in purple shadow,
with a mantle of green, deep and rich, varied by the gray of the
lichen-covered rocks, the browns and reds of the bare branches of
deciduous trees, and the paler tints of feathery pines. Here and there,
from damp, springy places, dark hemlocks rose out of the mass, tall and
majestic, waving their plumy tops, giant sentinels of the wilderness.

Gradually his mood of brooding retrospect changed, and he knew himself
to be glad to his heart's core. He could understand why, out of the
turmoil of the Middle Ages, men chose to go to sequestered places and
become hermits. No tragedies could be in this primeval spot, and here he
would rest and build again for the future. He was pleased to sit thus
musing, for the climb had taken more strength than he could well spare.
His cabin was not yet habitable, for the simple things Doctor Hoyle had
accumulated to serve his needs were still locked in well-built
cupboards, as he had left them.

Thryng meant soon to go to work, to take out the bed covers and air
them, and to find the canvas and nail it over the framework beside the
cabin which was to serve as a sleeping apartment. All should be done in
time. That was a good framework, strongly built, with the corner posts
set deep in the ground to keep it firm on this windswept height, and
with a door in the side of the cabin opening into the canvas room. Ah,
yes, all that the old doctor did was well and thoroughly done.

His appetite sharpened by the climb and the bracing air, David
investigated the contents of one of those melon-shaped baskets which
Cassandra had given him when he started for his new home that morning,
with little Hoyle as his guide.

Ah, what hospitable kindness they had shown to him, a stranger! Here
were delicate bits of fried chicken, sweet and white, corn-bread, a
glass of honey, and a bottle of milk. Nothing better need a man ask; and
what animals men are, after all, he thought, taking delight in the mere
acts of eating and breathing and sleeping.

Utterly weary, he would not trouble to open the cot which lay in the
cabin, but rolled himself in his blanket on the wide, flat rock at the
verge of the mountain. Here, warmed by the sun, he lay with his face
toward the blue distance and slept dreamlessly and soundly,--very
soundly, for he was not awakened by a crackling of the brush and
scrambling of feet struggling up the mountain wall below his hard
resting-place. Yet the sound kept on, and soon a head appeared above the
rock, and two hands were placed upon it; then a strong, catlike spring
landed the lithe young owner of the head only a few feet away from the
sleeper.

It was Frale, his soft felt hat on the back of his head and the curl of
dark hair falling upon his forehead. For an instant, as he gazed on the
sleeping figure, the wild look of fear was in his eyes; then, as he
bethought himself of the words of Aunt Sally, "They is a man thar," the
expression changed to one more malevolent and repulsive, transforming
and aging the boyish face. Cautiously he crept nearer, and peered into
the face of the unconscious Englishman. His hands clinched and his lips
tightened, and he made a movement with his foot as if he would spurn him
over the cliff.

As suddenly the moment passed; he drew back in shame and looked down at
his hands, blood-guilty hands as he knew them to be, and, with lowered
head, he moved swiftly away.

He was a youth again, hungry and sad, stumbling along the untrodden way,
avoiding the beaten path, yet unerringly taking his course toward the
cleft rock at the head of the fall behind the great holly tree. It was
not the food Cassandra had promised him that he wanted now, but to look
into the eyes of one who would pity and love him. Heartsick and weary as
he never had been in all his young life, lonely beyond bearing, he
hurried along.

As he forced a path through the undergrowth, he heard the sound of a
mountain stream, and, seeking it, he followed along its rocky bed,
leaping from one huge block of stone to another, and swinging himself
across by great overhanging sycamore boughs, drawing, by its many
windings, nearer and nearer to the spot where it precipitated itself
over the mountain wall. Ever the noise of the water grew louder, until
at last, making a slight detour, he came upon the very edge of the
descent, where he could look down and see his home nestled in the cove
at the foot of the fall, the blue smoke curling upward from its great
chimney.

He seated himself upon a jutting rock well screened by laurel shrubs on
all sides but the one toward the fall. There, his knees clasped about
with his arms, and his chin resting upon them, he sat and watched.

Behind the leafage and tangle of bare stems and twigs, he was so far
above and so directly over the spot on which his gaze was fixed as to be
out of the usual range of sight from below, thus enabling him to see
plainly what was transpiring about the house and sheds, without himself
being seen.

Long and patiently he waited. Once a dog barked,--his own dog Nig. Some
one must be approaching. What if the little creature should seek him out
and betray him! He quivered with the thought. The day before he had
driven him down the mountain, beating him off whenever he returned.
Should the animal persist in tracking him, he would kill him.

He peered more eagerly down, and saw little Hoyle run out of the cow
shed and twist himself this way and that to see up and down the road.
Both the child and the dog seemed excited. Yes, there they were, three
horsemen coming along the highway. Now they were dismounting and
questioning the boy. Now they disappeared in the house. He did not move.
Why were they so long within? Hours, it seemed to Frale, but in reality
it was only a short search they were making there. They were longer
looking about the sheds and yard. Hoyle accompanied them everywhere, his
hands in his pockets, standing about, shivering with excitement.

All around they went peering and searching, thrusting their arms as far
as they could reach into the stacks of fodder, looking into troughs and
corn sacks, setting the fowls to cackling wildly, even hauling out the
long corn stalks from the wagon which had served to make Thryng's ride
the night before comfortable. No spot was overlooked.

Frequently they stood and parleyed. Then Frale's heart would sink within
him. What if they should set Nig to track him! Ah, he would strangle the
beast and pitch him over the fall. He would spring over after him before
he would let himself be taken and hanged. Oh, he could feel the
strangling rope around his neck already! He could not bear it--he could
not!

Thus cowering, he waited, starting at every sound from below as if to
run, then sinking back in fear, breathless with the pounding of his
heart in his breast. Now the voices came up to him painfully clear. They
were talking to little Hoyle angrily. What they were saying he could not
make out, but he again cautiously lifted his head and looked below.
Suddenly the child drew back and lifted his arm as if to ward off a
blow, but the blow came. Frale saw one of the men turn as he mounted his
horse to ride away, and cut the boy cruelly across his face and arm with
his rawhide whip. The little one's shriek of fright and pain pierced his
big brother to the heart and caused him to forget for the moment his own
abject fear.

He made as if he would leap the intervening space to punish the brute,
but a cry of anger died in his throat as he realized his situation. The
selfishness of his fear, however, was dispelled, and he no longer
cringed as before, but had the courage again to watch, awake and alert
to all that passed beneath him.

Hoyle's cry brought Cassandra out of the house flying. She walked up to
the man like an angry tigress. Frale rose to his knees and strained
eagerly forward.

"If you are such a coward you must hit something small and weak, you can
strike a woman. Hit me," she panted, putting the child behind her.

Muttering, the man rode sullenly away. "He no business hangin' roun'
we-uns, list'nin' to all we say."

Frale could not make out the words, but his face burned red with rage.
Had he been in hiding down below, he would have wreaked vengeance on the
man; as it was, he stood up and boldly watched them ride away in the
opposite direction from which they had come.

He sank back and waited, and again the hours passed. All was still but
the rushing water and the gentle soughing of the wind in the tops of the
towering pines. At last he heard a rustling and sniffing here and there.
His heart stood still, then pounded again in terror. They had--they had
set Nig to track him. Of course the dog would seek for his old friend
and comrade, and they--they would wait until they heard his bark of joy,
and then they would seize him.

He crept close to the rock where the water rushed, not a foot away, and
clinging to the tough laurel behind him, leaned far over. To drop down
there would mean instant death on the rocks below. It would be
terrible--almost as horrible as the strangling rope. He would wait until
they were on him, and then--nearer and nearer came the erratic trotting
and scratching of the dog among the leaves--and then, if only he could
grapple with the man who had struck his little brother, he would drag
him over with him. A look of fierce joy leaped in his eyes, which were
drawn to a narrow blue gleam as he waited.

Suddenly Nig burst through the undergrowth and sprang to his side, but
before the dog could give his first bark of delight the yelp was crushed
in his throat, and he was hurled with the mighty force of frenzy, a
black, writhing streak of animate nature into the rushing water, and
there swept down, tossed on the rocks, taken up and swirled about and
thrown again upon the rocks, no longer animate, but a part of nature's
own, to return to his primal elements.

It was done, and Frale looked at his hands helplessly, feeling himself a
second time a murderer. Yet he was in no way more to blame for the first
than for this. As yet a boy untaught by life, he had not learned what to
do with the forces within him. They rose up madly and mastered him. With
a man's power to love and hate, a man's instincts, his untamed nature
ready to assert itself for tenderness or cruelty, without a man's
knowledge of the necessity for self-control, where some of his kind
would have been inert and listless, his inheritance had made him intense
and fierce. Loving and gentle and kind he could be, yet when stirred by
liquor, or anger, or fear,--most terrible.

His deed had been accomplished with such savage deftness that none
pursuing could have guessed the tragedy. They might have waited long in
the open spaces for the dog's return or the sound of his joyous yelp of
recognition, but the sacrifice was needless. The affectionate creature
had been searching on his own behalf, careless of the blows with which
his master had driven him from his side the day before.

Trembling, Frale crouched again. The silence was filled with pain for
him. The moments swept on, even as the water rushed on, and the sun
began to drop behind the hills, leaving the hollows in deepening purple
gloom. At last, deeming that the search for the time must have been
given up, he crept cautiously toward the great holly tree, not for food,
but for hope. There, back in the shadow, he sat on a huge log, his head
bowed between his hands, and listened.

Presently the silence was broken by a gentle stirring of the fallen
leaves, not erratically this time, only a steady moving forward of human
feet. Again Frale's heart bounded and the red sought his cheek, but now
with a new emotion. He knew of but one footstep which would advance
toward his ambush in that way. Peering out from among the deepest
shadows, he watched the spot where Cassandra had promised food should be
placed for him, his eyes no longer a narrow slit of blue, but wide and
glad, his face transformed from the strain of fear with eager joy.

Soon she emerged, walking wearily. She carried a bundle of food tied in
a cloth, and an old overcoat of rough material trailed over one arm.
These she deposited on the flat stone, then stood a moment leaning
against the smooth gray hole of the holly tree, breathing quickly from
the exertion of the steep climb.

Her eyes followed the undulating line of the mountain above them, rising
tree-fringed against the sky, to where the highest peak cut across the
setting sun, haloed by its long rays of gold. No cloud was there, but
sweeping down the mountain side were the earth mists, glowing with
iridescent tints, draping the crags and floating over the purple
hollows, the verdure of the pines showing through it all, gilded and
glorified.

Cassandra waiting there might have been the dryad of the tree come out
to worship in the evening light and grow beautiful. So Thryng would have
thought, could he have seen her with the glow on her face, and in her
eyes, and lighting up the fires in her hair; but no such classic dream
came to the youth lingering among the shadows, ashamed to appear before
her, bestowing on her a dumb adoration, unformed and wordless.

Because his friend had maudlinly boasted that he was the better man in
her eyes, and could any day win her for himself, he had killed him.
Despite all the anguish the deed had wrought in his soul, he felt
unrepentant now, as his eyes rested on her. He would do it again, and
yet it was that very boast that had first awakened in his heart such
thought of her.

For years Cassandra had been as his sister, although no tie of blood
existed between them, but suddenly the idea of possession had sprung to
life in him, when another had assumed the right as his. Frale had not
looked on her since that moment of revelation, of which she was so
ignorant and so innocent. Now, filled with the shame of his deed and his
desires, he stood in a torment of longing, not daring to move. His knees
shook and his arms ached at his sides, and his eyes filled with hot
tears.

Quickly the sun dropped below the edge of the mountain. Cassandra drew a
long sigh, and the glow left her face. She looked an instant lingeringly
at the articles she had brought, and turned sadly away. Then he took a
step toward her with hands outstretched, forgetful of his shame, and
all, except that she was slipping away from him. Arrested by the sound
of his feet among the leaves, she spoke.

"Frale, are you there?" Her voice was low as if she feared other ears
than his might hear.

He did not move again, and speak he could not, for remembrance rushed
back stiflingly and overwhelmed him. Descrying his white face in the
shadow, a pity as deep as his shame filled her heart and drew her
nearer.

"Why, Frale, come out here. No one can see you, only me."

Still tongue-tied by his emotion, he came into the light and stood near
her. In dismay she looked up in his face. The big boy brother who had
taken her to the little Carew Crossing station only two months before,
rough and prankish as the colt he drove, but gentle withal, was gone. He
who stood at her side was older. Anger had left its mark about his
mouth, and fear had put a strange wildness in his eyes--but--there was
something else in his reckless, set lips that hurt her. She shrank from
him, and he took a step closer. Then she placed a soothing hand on his
arm and perceived he was quivering. She thought she understood, and the
soft pity moistened her eyes and deepened in her heart.

"Don't be afraid, Frale; they're gone long ago, and won't come back--not
for a while, I reckon."

He smiled faintly, never taking his eyes from her face. "I hain't
afeared o' them. I hev been, but--" He shook her hand from his arm and
made as if he would push her away, then suddenly he leaned toward her
and caught her in his arms, clasping her so closely that she could feel
his wildly beating heart.

"Frale, Frale! Don't, Frale. You never used to do me this way."

"No, I never done you this-a-way. I wisht I had. I be'n a big fool." He
kissed her, the first kisses of his young manhood, on brow and cheeks
and lips, in spite of her useless writhings. He continued muttering as
he held her: "I sinned fer you. I killed a man. He said he'd hev you. He
'lowed he'd go down yander to the school whar you war at an' marry you
an' fetch you back. I war a fool to 'low you to go thar fer him to
foller an' get you. I killed him. He's dade."

The short, interrupted sentences fell on her ears like blows. She ceased
struggling and, drooping upon his bosom, wept, sobbing heart-brokenly.

"Oh, Frale!" she moaned, "if you had only told me, I could have given
you my promise and you would have known he was lying and spared him and
saved your own soul." He little knew the strength of his arms as he held
her. "Frale! I am like to perish, you are hurting me so."

He loosed her and she sank, a weary, frightened heap, at his feet. Then
very tenderly he gathered her in his arms and carried her to the great
flat rock and placed her on the old coat she had brought him.

"You know I wouldn't hurt you fer the hull world, Cass." He knelt beside
her, and throwing his arms across her lap buried his face in her dress,
still trembling with his unmastered emotion. She thought him sobbing.

"Can you give me your promise now, Cass?"

"Now? Now, Frale, your hands are blood-guilty," she said, slowly and
hopelessly.

He grew cold and still, waiting in the silence. His hands clutched her
clothing, but he did not lift his head. He had shed blood and had lost
her. They might take him and hang him. At last he told her so, brokenly,
and she knew not what to do.

Gently she placed her hand on his head and drew the thick silken hair
through her fingers, and the touch, to his stricken soul, was a
benediction. The pity of her cooled the fever in his blood and swept
over his spirit the breath of healing. For the first time, after the
sin and the horror of it, after the passion and its anguish, came
tears. He wept and wiped his tears with her dress.

Then she told him how her mother had been hurt. How Hoyle had driven the
half-broken colt and the mule all the way to Carew's alone, to bring her
home, and how he had come nigh being killed. How a gentleman had helped
her when the colt tried to run and the mule was mean, and how she had
brought him home with her.

Then he lifted his head and looked at her, his haggard face drawn with
suffering, and the calmness of her eyes still further soothed and
comforted him. They were filled with big tears, and he knew the tears
were for him, for the change which had come upon him, lonely and
wretched, doomed to hide out on the mountain, his clothes torn by the
brambles and soiled by the red clay of the holes into which he had
crawled to hide himself. He rose and sat at her side and held her head
on his shoulder with gentle hand.

"Pore little sister--pore little Cass! I been awful mean an' bad," he
murmured. "Hit's a badness I cyan't 'count fer no ways. When I seed that
thar doctah man--I reckon hit war him I seed lyin' asleep up yander on
Hangin' Rock--a big tall man, right thin an' white in the face--" he
paused and swallowed as if loath to continue.

"Frale!" she cried, and would have drawn away but that he held her.

"I didn't hurt him, Cass. I mount hev. I lef' him lie thar an' never
woke him nor teched him, but--I felt hit here--the badness." He struck
his chest with his fist. "I lef' thar fast an' come here. Ever sence I
killed Ferd, hit's be'n follerin' me that-a-way. I reckon I'm cursed to
hell-fire fer hit now, ef they take me er ef they don't--hit's all one;
hit's thar whar I'm goin' at the las'."

"Frale, there is a way--"

"Yes, they is one way--only one. Ef you'll give me your promise, Cass,
I'll get away down these mountains, an' I'll work; I'll work hard an'
get you a house like one I seed to the settlement, Cass, I will. Hit's
you, Cass. Ever sence Ferd said that word, I be'n plumb out'n my hade.
Las' night I slep' in Wild Cat Hole, an' I war that hungered an' lone, I
tried to pray like your maw done teached me, an' I couldn' think of
nothin' to say, on'y just, 'Oh, Lord, Cass!' That-a-way--on'y your
name, Cass, Cass, all night long."

"I reckon Satan put my name in your heart, Frale; 'pears to me like it
is sin."

"Naw! Satan nevah put your name thar. He don't meddle with sech as you.
He war a-tryin' to get your name out'n my heart, that's what he war
tryin', fer he knowed I'd go bad right quick ef he could. Hit war your
name kep' my hands off'n that doctah man thar on the rock. Give me your
promise now, Cass. Hit'll save me."

"Then why didn't it save you from killing Ferd?" she asked.

"O Gawd!" he moaned, and was silent.

"Listen, Frale," she said at last. "Can't you see it's sin for you and
me to sit here like this--like we dared to be sweethearts, when you have
shed blood for this? Take your hands off me, and let me go down to
mothah."

Slowly his hold relaxed and his head drooped, but he did not move his
arms. She pushed them gently from her and stood a moment looking down at
him. His arms dropped upon the stone at his side, listless and empty,
and again her pitying soul reached out to him and enveloped him.

"Frale, there is just one way that I can give you my promise," she said.
He held out his arms to her. "No, I can't sit that way; you can see
that. The good book says, 'Ye must repent and be born again.'" He
groaned and covered his face with his hands. "Then you would be a new
man, without sin. I reckon you have suffered a heap, and repented a
heap--since you did that, Frale?"

"I'm 'feared--I'm 'feared ef he war here an' riled me agin like he done
that time--I'm 'feared I'd do hit agin--like he war talkin' 'bouts you,
Cass." He rose and stood close to her.

The soft dusk was wrapping them about, and she began to fear lest she
lose her control over him. She took up the bundle of food and placed it
in his hand.

"Here, take this, and the coat, too, Frale. Come down and have suppah
with mothah and me to-night, and sleep in your own bed. They won't
search here for one while, I reckon, and you'll be safah than hiding in
Wild Cat Hole. Hoyle heard them say they reckoned you'd lit off down
the mountain, and were hiding in some near-by town. They'll hunt you
there first; come."

She walked on, and he obediently followed. "When we get nigh the house,
I'll go first and see if the way is clear. You wait back. If I want you
to run, I'll call twice, quick and sharp, but if I want you to come
right in, I'll call once, low and long."

After that no word was spoken. They clambered down the steep, winding
path, and not far from the house she left him. She wondered Nig did not
bound out to greet her, but supposed he must be curled up near the
hearth in comfort. Frale also thought of the dog as he sat cowering
under the laurel shrubs, and set his teeth in anguish and sorrow.

"Cass'll hate hit when she finds out," he muttered.

After a moment, waiting and listening, he heard her long, low call float
out to him. Falling on his hurt spirit, it sounded heavenly sweet.




CHAPTER V

IN WHICH CASSANDRA GOES TO DAVID WITH HER TROUBLE, AND GIVES FRALE HER
PROMISE


After his sleep on Hanging Rock, David, allured by the sunset, remained
long in his doorway idly smoking his pipe, and ruminating, until a
normal and delightful hunger sent him striding down the winding path
toward the blazing hearth where he had found such kindly welcome the
evening before. There, seated tilted back against the chimney side, he
found a huge youth, innocent of face and gentle of mien, who rose as he
entered and offered him his chair, and smiled and tossed back a falling
lock from his forehead as he gave him greeting.

"This hyar is Doctah Thryng, Frale, who done me up this-a-way. He 'lows
he's goin' to git me well so's I can walk again. How air you, suh? You
certainly do look a heap better'n when you come las' evenin'."

"So I am, indeed. And you?" David's voice rang out gladly. He went to
the bed and bent above the old woman, looking her over carefully. "Are
you comfortable? Do the weights hurt you?" he asked.

"I cyan't say as they air right comfortable, but ef they'll help me to
git 'round agin, I reckon I can bar hit."

Early that morning, with but the simplest means, David had arranged
bandages and weights of wood to hold her in position.

She was so slight he hoped the broken hip might right itself with
patience and care, more especially as he learned that her age was not so
advanced as her appearance had led him to suppose.

Now all suspicion of him seemed to have vanished from the household.
Hoyle, happy when the fascinating doctor noticed him, leaned against his
chair, drinking in his words eagerly. But when Thryng drew him to his
knee and discovered the cruel mark across his face and asked how it had
happened, a curious change crept over them all. Every face became as
expressionless as a mask; only the boy's eyes sought his brother's,
then turned with a frightened look toward Cassandra as if seeking help.

Thryng persisted in his examination, and lifted the boy's face toward
the light. If the big brother had done this deed, he should be made to
feel shame for it. The welt barely escaped the eye, which was swollen
and discolored; and altogether the face presented a pitiable appearance.

As David talked, the hard look which had been exorcised for a time by
the gentle influence of that home, and more than all by the sight of
Cassandra performing the gracious services of the household, settled
again upon the youth's face. His lips were drawn, and his eyes ceased
following Cassandra, and became fixed and narrowed on one spot.

"You have come near losing that splendid eye of yours, do you know that,
little chap?" Hoyle grinned. "It's a shame, you know. I have something
up at the cabin would help to heal this, but--" he glanced about the
room--"What are those dried herbs up there?"

"Thar is witch hazel yandah in the cupboard. Cass, ye mount bile some up
fer th' doctah," said the mother. "Tell th' doctah hu-come hit happened,
son; you hain't afeared of him, be ye?" A trampling of horse's hoofs was
heard outside. "Go up garret to your own place, Frale. What ye bid'n
here fer?" she added, in a hushed voice, but the youth sat doggedly
still.

Cassandra went out and quickly returned. "It's your own horse, Frale.
Poor beast! He's limping like he's been hurt. He's loose out there. You
better look to him."

"Uncle Carew rode him down an' lef' him, I reckon." Frale rose and went
out, and David continued his care of the child.

"How was it? Did your brother hurt you?"

"Naw. He nevah hurted me all his life. Hit--war my own se'f--"

Cassandra patted the child on his shoulder. "He can't beah to tell
hu-come he is hurted this way, he is that proud. It was a mean, bad,
coward man fetched him such a blow across the face. He asked little son
something, and when Hoyle nevah said a word, he just lifted his arm and
hit him, and then rode off like he had pleased himself." A flush of
anger kindled in her cheeks. "Nevah mind, son. Doctah can fix you up all
right."

A sigh of relief trembled through the boy's lips, and David asked no
more questions.

"You hain't goin' to tie me up that-a-way, be you?" He pointed to the
bed whereon his mother lay, and they all laughed, relieving the tension.

"Naw," shrilled the mother's voice, "but I reckon doctah mount take off
your hade an' set hit on straight agin."

"I wisht he could," cried the child, no whit troubled by the suggestion.
"I'd bar a heap fer to git my hade straight like Frale's." Just then his
brother entered the room. "You reckon doctah kin take off my hade an'
set hit straight like you carry yours, Frale?" Again they all laughed,
and the big youth smiled such a sweet, infantile smile, as he looked
down on his little brother, that David's heart warmed toward him.

He tousled the boy's hair as he passed and drew him along to the chimney
side, away from the doctor. "Hit's a right good hade I'm thinkin' ef hit
be set too fer round. They is a heap in hit, too, more'n they is in
mine, I reckon."

"He's gettin' too big to set that-a-way on your knee, Frale. Ye make a
baby of him," said the mother. The child made an effort to slip down,
but Frale's arm closed more tightly about him, and he nestled back
contentedly.

So the evening passed, and Thryng retired early to the bed in the loom
shed. He knew something serious was amiss, but of what nature he could
not conjecture, unless it were that Frale had been making illicit
whiskey. Whatever it was, he chose to manifest no curiosity.

In the morning he saw nothing of the young man, and as a warm rain was
steadily falling, he was glad to get the use of the horse, and rode away
happily in the rain, with food provided for both himself and the beast
sufficient for the day slung in a sack behind him.

"Reckon ye'll come back hyar this evenin'?" queried the old mother, as
he adjusted her bandages before leaving.

"I'll see how the cabin feels after I have had a fire in the chimney all
day."

As he left, he paused by Cassandra's side. She was standing by the spout
of running water waiting for her pail to fill. "If it happens that you
need me for--anything at all, send Hoyle, and I'll come immediately.
Will you?"

She lifted her eyes to his gratefully. "Thank you," was all she said,
but his look impelled more. "You are right kind," she added.

Hardly satisfied, he departed, but turned in his saddle to glance back
at her. She was swaying sidewise with the weight of the full pail,
straining one slender arm as she bore it into the house. Who did all the
work there, he wondered. That great youth ought to relieve her of such
tasks. Where was he? Little did he dream that the eyes of the great
youth were at that moment fixed darkly upon him from the small pane of
glass set in under the cabin roof, which lighted Frale's garret room.

David stabled the horse in the log shed built by Doctor Hoyle for his
own beast,--for what is life in the mountains without a horse,--then
lingered awhile in his doorway looking out over the billows of ranges
seen dimly through the fine veil of the falling rain. Ah, wonderful,
perfect world it seemed to him, seen through the veil of the rain.

The fireplace in the cabin was built of rough stone, wide and high, and
there he made him a brisk fire with fat pine and brushwood. He drew in
great logs which he heaped on the broad stone hearth to dry. He piled
them on the fire until the flames leaped and roared up the chimney, so
long unused. He sat before it, delighting in it like a boy with a
bonfire, and blessed his friend for sending him there, smoking a pipe in
his honor. Among the doctor's few cooking utensils he found a stout iron
tea-kettle and sallied out again in the wet to rinse it and fill it with
fresh water from the spring. He had had only coffee since leaving
Canada; now he would have a good cup of decent tea, so he hung the
kettle on the crane and swung it over the fire.

In his search for his tea, most of his belongings were unpacked and
tossed about the room in wild disorder, and a copy of _Marius the
Epicurean_ was brought to light. His kettle boiled over into the fire,
and immediately the small articles on his pine table were shoved back in
confusion to make room for his tea things, his bottle of milk, his corn
pone, and his book.

Being by this time weary, he threw himself on his couch, and
contentment began--his hot tea within reach, his door wide open to the
sweetness of the day, his fire dancing and crackling with good cheer,
and his book in his hand. Ah! The delicious idleness and rest! No
disorders to heal--no bones to mend--no problems to solve; a little
sipping of his tea--a little reading of his book--a little luxuriating
in the warmth and the pleasant odor of pine boughs burning--a little
dreamy revery, watching through the open door the changing lights on the
hills, and listening to an occasional bird note, liquid and sweet.

The hour drew near to noon and the sky lightened and a rift of deep blue
stretched across the open space before him. Lazily he speculated as to
how he was to get his provisions brought up to him, and when and how he
might get his mail, but laughed to think how little he cared for a
hundred and one things which had filled his life and dogged his days ere
this. Had he reached Nirvana? Nay, he could still hunger and thirst.

A footstep was heard without, and a figure appeared in his doorway,
quietly standing, making no move to enter. It was Cassandra, and he was
pleased.

"My first visitor!" he exclaimed. "Come in, come in. I'll make a place
for you to sit in a minute." He shoved the couch away from before the
fire, and removing a pair of trousers and a heap of hose from one of his
splint-bottomed chairs, he threw them in a corner and placed it before
the hearth. "You walked, didn't you? And your feet are wet, of course.
Sit here and dry them."

She pushed back her sunbonnet and held out to him a quaint little basket
made of willow withes, which she carried, but she took no step forward.
Although her lips smiled a fleeting wraith of a smile that came and went
in an instant, he thought her eyes looked troubled as she lifted them to
his face.

He took the basket and lifted the cover. "I brought you some pa'triges,"
she said simply.

There lay three quail, and a large sweet potato, roasted in the ashes on
their hearth as he had seen the corn pone baked the evening before, and
a few round white cakes which he afterwards learned were beaten biscuit,
all warm from the fire.

"How am I ever to repay you people for your kindness to me?" he said.
"Come in and dry your feet. Never mind the mud; see how I've tracked it
in all the morning. Come."

He led her to the fire, and replenished it, while she sat passively
looking down on the hearth as if she scarcely heeded him. Not knowing
how to talk to her, or what to do with her, he busied himself trying to
bring a semblance of order to the cabin, occasionally dropping a remark
to which she made no response. Then he also relapsed into silence, and
the minutes dragged--age-long minutes, they seemed to him.

In his efforts at order, he spread his rug over the couch, tossed a
crimson cushion on it and sundry articles beneath it to get them out of
his way, then occupied himself with his book, while vainly trying to
solve the riddle which his enigmatical caller presented to his
imagination.

All at once she rose, sought out a few dishes from the cupboard, and,
taking a neatly smoothed, coarse cloth from the basket, spread it over
one end of the table and arranged thereon his dinner. Quietly David
watched her, following her example of silence until forced to speak.
Finally he decided to question her, if only he could think of questions
which would not trespass on her private affairs, when at last she broke
the stillness.

"I can't find any coffee. I ought to have brought some; I'll go fetch
some if you'll eat now. Your dinner'll get cold."

He showed her how he had made tea and was in no need of coffee. "We'll
throw this out and make fresh," he said gayly. "Then you must have a cup
with me. Why, you have enough to eat here for three people!" She seemed
weary and sad, and he determined to probe far enough to elicit some
confidence, but the more fluent he became, the more effectively she
withdrew from him.

"See here," he said at last, "sit by the table with me, and I will eat
to your heart's content. I'll prepare you a cup of tea as I do my own,
and then I want you to drink it. Come."

She yielded. His way of saying "Come" seemed like a command to be
obeyed.

"Now, that is more like." He began his dinner with a relish. "Won't you
share this game with me? It is fine, you know."

He could not think her silent from embarrassment, for her poise seemed
undisturbed except for the anxious look in her eyes. He determined to
fathom the cause, and since no finesse availed, there remained but one
way,--the direct question.

"What is it?" he said kindly. "Tell me the trouble, and let me help
you."

She looked full into his eyes then, and her lips quivered. Something
rose in her throat, and she swallowed helplessly. It was so hard for her
to speak. The trouble had struck deeper than he dreamed.

"It is a trouble, isn't it? Can't you tell it to me?"

"Yes. I reckon there isn't any trouble worse than ours--no, I reckon
there is nothing worse."

"Why, Miss Cassandra!"

"Because it's sin, and--and 'the wages of sin is death.'" Her tone was
hopeless, and the sadness of it went to his heart.

"Is it whiskey?" he asked.

"Yes--it's whiskey 'stilling and--worse; it's--" She turned deathly
white. Too sad to weep, she still held control of her voice. "It's a
heap worse--"

"Don't try to tell me what it is," he cried. "Only tell me how I may
help you. It's not your sin, surely, so you don't have to bear it."

"It's not mine, but I do have to bear it. I wish my bearing it was all.
Tell me, if--if a man has done--such a sin, is it right to help him get
away?"

"If it is that big brother of yours, whom I saw last night, I can't
believe he has done anything so very wicked. You say it is not the
whiskey?"

"Maybe it was the whiskey first--then--I don't know exactly how came
it--I reckon he doesn't himself. I--he's not my brothah--not rightly,
but he has been the same as such. They telegraphed me to come home
quick. Bishop Towahs told me a little--all he knew,--but he didn't know
what all was it, only some wrong to call the officahs and set them aftah
Frale--poor Frale. He--he told me himself--last evening." She paused
again, and the pallor slowly left her face and the red surged into her
cheeks and mounted to the waves of her heavy hair.

"It is Frale, then, who is in trouble! And you wish me to help him get
away?" She looked down and was silent. "But I am a stranger, and know
nothing about the country."

He pushed his chair away from the table and leaned back, regarding her
intently.

"Oh, I am afraid for him." She put her hand to her throat and turned
away her face from his searching eyes, in shame.

"I prefer not to know what he has done. Just explain to me your plan,
and how I can help. You know better than I."

"I can't understand how comes it I can tell you; you are a strangah to
all of us--and yet it seems like it is right. If I could get some
clothes nobody has evah seen Frale weah--if--I could make him look
different from a mountain boy, maybe he could get to some town down the
mountain, and find work; but now they would meet up with him before he
was halfway there."

Thryng rose and began pacing the room. "Is there any hurry?" he
demanded, stopping suddenly before her.

"Yes."

"Then why have you waited all this time to tell me?"

She lifted her eyes to his in silence, and he knew well that she had not
spoken because she could not, and that had he not ventured with his
direct questions, she would have left him, carrying her burden with her,
as hopelessly silent as when she came.

He sat beside her again and gently urged her to tell him without further
delay all she had in her mind. "You feel quite sure that if he could get
down the mountain side without being seen, he would be safe; where do
you mean to send him? You don't think he would try to return?"

"Why--no, I reckon not--if--I--" Her face flamed, and she drew on her
bonnet, hiding the crimson flush in its deep shadow. She knew that
without the promise he had asked, the boy would as surely return as that
the sun would continue to rise and set.

"He must stay," she spoke desperately and hurriedly. "If he can just
make out to stay long enough to learn a little--how to live, and will
keep away from bad men--if I--he only knows enough to make mean corn
liquor now--but he nevah was bad. He has always been different--and he
is awful smart. I can't think how came he to change so."

Taking the empty basket with her, she walked toward the door, and David
followed her. "Thank you for that good dinner," he said.

"Aunt Sally fetched the pa'triges. Her old man got them for mothah, and
she said you sure ought to have half. Sally said the sheriff had gone
back up the mountain, and I'm afraid he'll come to our place again this
evening. Likely they're breaking up Frale's 'still' now."

"Well, that will be a good deed, won't it?"

The huge bonnet had hid her face from him, but now she lifted her eyes
frankly to his, with a flash of radiance through her tears. "I reckon,"
was all she said.

"Are they likely to come up here, do you think, those men?"

"Not hardly. They would have to search on foot here. It's out of their
way; only no place on the mountain is safe for Frale now."

"Send him to me quickly, then. I have cast my lot with you mountain
people for some time to come, and your cause shall be mine."

She paused at the door with grateful words on her lips unuttered.

"Don't stop for thanks, Miss Cassandra; they are wasted between us. You
have opened your doors to me, a stranger, and that is enough. Hurry,
don't grieve--and see here: I may not be able to do anything, but I'll
try; and if I can't get down to-night, won't you come again in the
morning and tell me all about it?"

Instantly he thought better of his request, yet who was here to
criticise? He laughed as he thought how firmly the world and its
conventions held him. Sweet, simple-hearted child that she was, why,
indeed, should she not come? Still he called after her. "If you are too
busy, send Hoyle. I may be down to see your mother, anyway."

She paused an instant in her hurried walk. "I'll be right glad to come,
if I can help you any way."

He stood watching her until she passed below his view, as her long easy
steps took her rapidly on, although she seemed to move slowly. Then he
went back to his fire, and her words repeated themselves insistently in
his mind--"I'll be right glad to come, if I can help you any way."

Aunt Sally was seated in the chimney-corner smoking, when Cassandra
returned. "Where is he?" she cried.

"He couldn't set a minute, he was that restless. He 'lowed he'd go up to
the rock whar you found him las' evenin'."

Without a word, Cassandra turned and fled up the steep toward the head
of the fall. Every moment, she knew, was precious. Frale met her halfway
down and took her hand, leading her as he had been used to do when she
was his "little sister," and listened to her plans docilely enough.

"I mean you to go down to Farington, to Bishop Towahs'. He will give you
work." She had not mentioned Thryng.

Frale laughed.

"Don't, Frale. How can you laugh?"

"I ra'ly hain't laughin', Cass. Seems like you fo'get how can I get down
the mountain; but I reckon I'll try--if you say so."

Then she explained how the doctor had sent for him to come up there
quickly, and how he would help him. "You must go now, Frale, you hear?
Now!"

Again he laughed, bitterly this time. "Yas--I reckon he'll be right glad
to help me get away from you. I'll go myse'f in my own way."

Under the holly tree they had paused, and suddenly she feared lest the
boy at her side return to his mood of the evening before. She seized his
hand again and hurried him farther up the steep.

"Come, come!" she cried. "I'll go with you, Frale."

"Naw, you won't go with me neithah," he said stubbornly, drawing back.

"Frale!" she pleaded. "Hear to me."

"I'm a-listenin'."

"Frale, I'm afraid. They may be on their way now. For all we know they
may be right nigh."

"I've done got used to fearin' now. Hit don't hurt none. On'y one thing
hurts now."

"I've been up to see Doctor Thryng, and he's promised he'll fix you up
some way so that if anybody does see you, they--they'll think you belong
somewhere else, and nevah guess who you be. Frale, go."

He held her, with his arm about her waist, half carrying her with him,
instead of allowing her to move her own free gait, and she tried vainly
with her fingers to pull his hands away; but his muscles were like iron
under her touch. He felt her helplessness and liked it. Her voice shook
as she pleaded with him.

"Oh, Frale! Hear to me!" she wailed.

"I'll hear to you, ef you'll hear to me. Seems like I've lost my fear
now. I hain't carin' no more. Ef I should see the sheriff this minute,
an' he war a-puttin' his rope round my neck right now, I wouldn't care
'thout one thing--jes' one thing. I'd walk straight down to hell fer
hit,--I reckon I hev done that,--but I'd walk till I drapped, an' work
till I died for hit." He stood still a moment, and again she essayed to
move his hands, but he only held her closer.

"Oh, hurry, Frale! I'm afraid. Oh, Frale, don't!"

"Be ye 'feared fer me, Cass?"

"You know that, Frale. Leave go, and hear to me."

"Be ye 'feared 'nough to give me your promise, Cass?"

"Take your hand off me, Frale."

"We'll go back. I 'low they mount es well take me first as last. I
hain't no heart lef' in me. I don't care fer that thar doctah man
he'pin' me, nohow," he choked.

"Leave me go, and I'll give you promise for promise, Frale. I can't make
out is it sin or not; but if God can forgive and love--when you turn and
seek Him--the Bible do say so, Frale, but--but seem like you don't
repent your deed whilst you look at me like that way." She paused,
trembling. "If you could be sorry like you ought to be, Frale, and turn
your heart--I could die for that."

He still held her, but lifted one shaking hand above his head.

"Before God, I promise--"

"What, Frale? Say what you promise."

He still held his hand high. "All you ask of me, Cass. Tell me word by
word, an' I'll promise fair."

"You will repent, Frale?"

"Yas."

"You will not drink?"

"I will not drink."

"You will heed when your own heart tells you the right way?"

"I will heed when my heart tells me the way: hit will be the way to you,
Cass."

"Oh, don't say it that way, Frale. Now say, 'So help me God,' and don't
think of me whilst you say it."

"Put your hand on mine, Cass. Lift hit up an' say with me that word."
She placed her palm on his uplifted palm. "So help me, God," they said
together. Then, with streaming tears, she put her arms about his neck
and gently drew his face down to her own.

"I'll go back now, Frale, and you do all I've said. Go quick. I'll write
Bishop Towahs, and he'll watch out for you, and find you work. Let
Doctah Thryng help you. He sure is a good man. Oh, if you only could
write!"

"I'll larn."

"You'll have a heap more to learn than you guess. I've been there, and I
know. Don't give up, Frale, and--and stay--"

"I hain't going to give up with your promise here, Cass; kiss me."

She did so, and he slowly released her, looking back as he walked away.

"Oh, hurry, Frale! Don't look back. It's a bad omen." She turned, and
without one backward glance descended the mountain.




CHAPTER VI

IN WHICH DAVID AIDS FRALE TO MAKE HIS ESCAPE


Elated by his talk with Cassandra, Frale walked eagerly forward, but as
he neared Thryng's cabin he moved more slowly. Why should he let that
doctor help him? He could reach Farington some way--travelling by night
and hiding in the daytime. But David was watching for him and strolled
down to meet him.

"Good morning. Your sister says there is no time to lose. Come in here,
and we'll see if we can find a way out of this trouble."

Having learned not to expect any response to remarks not absolutely
demanding one, and not wishing the silence to dominate, David talked on,
as he led Frale into the cabin and carefully closed the door behind
them.

Thryng's intuition was subtle and his nature intense and strong. He had
been used to dealing with men, and knew that when he wished to, he
usually gained his point. Feeling the antagonism in Frale's heart toward
himself, he determined to overcome it. Be it pride, jealousy, or what
not, it must give way.

He had learned only that morning that circumlocution or pretence of any
sort would only drive the youth further into his fortress of silence,
and close his nature, a sealed well of turbid feeling, against him;
therefore he chose a manner pleasantly frank, taking much for granted,
and giving the boy no chance to refuse his help, by assuming it to have
been already accepted.

"We are about the same size, I think? Yes. Here are some things I laid
out for you. You must look as much like me as possible, and as unlike
yourself, you know. Sit here and we'll see what can be done for your
head."

"You're right fair, an' I'm dark."

"Oh, that makes very little difference. It's the general appearance we
must get at. Suppose I try to trim your hair a little so that lock on
your forehead won't give you away."

"I reckon I can do it. Hit's makin' you a heap o' trouble."

David was pleased to note the boy's mood softening, and helped him on.

"I'm no hand as a barber, but I'll try it a little; it's easier for me
to get at than for you." He quickly and deftly cut away the falling
curl, and even shaved the corners of the forehead a bit, and clipped the
eyebrows to give them a different angle. "All this will grow again, you
know. You only want it to last until the storm blows over."

The youth surveyed himself in the mirror and smiled, but grimly. "I do
look a heap different."

"That's right; we want you to look like quite another man. And now for
your chin. You can use a razor; here is warm water and soap. This suit
of clothes is such as we tramp about in at home, different from anything
you see up here, you know. I'll take my pipe and book and sit there on
the rock and keep an eye out, lest any one climb up here to look around,
and you can have the cabin all to yourself. You see what to do; make
yourself look as if you came from my part of the world." Thryng glanced
at his watch. "Work fast, but take time enough to do it well. Say half
an hour,--will that do?"

"Yas, I reckon."

Then David left him, and the moments passed until an hour had slipped
away, but still the youth did not appear, and he was on the point of
calling out to him, when he saw the twisted form of little Hoyle
scrambling up through the underbrush.

"They're comin'," he panted, with wild and frightened eyes fixed on
David's face. "I see 'em up the road, an' I heered 'em say they was
goin' to hunt 'round the house good, an' then s'arch the cabin ovah
Hanging Rock." The poor child burst into tears. "Do you 'low they'll
shoot Frale, suh?"

"They'd not reached the house when you saw them?"

"They'll be thar by now, suh," sobbed the boy.

"Then run and hide yourself. Crawl under the rock--into the smallest
hole you can. They mustn't see that you have been here, and don't be
frightened, little man. We'll look after Frale."

The child disappeared like a squirrel in a hole, and Thryng went to the
cabin door and knocked imperatively. It was opened instantly, and Frale
stood transformed, his old, soiled garments lying in a heap at his side
as if he had crept out of his chrysalis. A full half hour he had been
lingering, abashed at himself and dreading to appear. The slight growth
of adolescence was gone from lip and chin, and Thryng was amazed and
satisfied.

"Good," he cried. "You've done well."

The youth smiled shamefacedly, yet held his head high. With the heavy
golf stockings, knee breeches, and belted jacket, even to himself he
seemed another man, and an older man he looked by five years.

"Now keep your nerve, and square your shoulders and face the world with
a straight look in the eye. You've thrown off the old man with these."
David touched the heap of clothing on the floor with his foot. "Hoyle is
here. He says the men are on their way here and have stopped at the
house."

Instead of turning pale as Thryng had expected, a dark flush came into
Frale's face, and his hand clinched. It was the ferocity of fear, and
not the deadliness of it, which seized him with a sort of terrible
anger, that David felt through his silence.

"Don't lose control of yourself, boy," he said, placing his hand gently
on his shoulder and making his touch felt by the intimate closing of his
slender fingers upon the firmly rounded, lean muscles beneath them.

"Follow my directions, and be quick. Put your own clothes in this bag."
He hastily tossed a few things out of his pigskin valise. "Cram them in;
that's right. Don't leave a trace of yourself here for them to find.
Pull this cap over your eyes, and walk straight down that path, and pass
them by as if they were nothing to you. If they speak to you, of course
nod to them and pass on. But if they ask you a question, say politely,
'Beg pardon?' just like that, as though you did not
understand--and--wait. Don't hurry away from them as if you were afraid
of them. They won't recognize you unless you give yourself away by your
manner. See? Now say it over after me. Good! Take these cigars." He
placed his own case in the boy's vest pocket.

"Better leave 'em free, suh. I don't like to take all your things
this-a-way." He handed back the case, and put them loose in his pocket.

"Very well. If you smoke, just light this and walk on, and if they ask
you anything about yourself, if you have seen a chap of the sort,
understand, offer them each a cigar, and tell them no. Don't say 'I
reckon not,' for that will give you away, and don't lift your cap, or
they will see how roughly your hair is cut. Touch it as if you were
going to lift it, only--so. I would take care not to arrive at the house
while they are there; it will be easier for you to meet them on the
path. It will be the sooner over."

Thryng held out his hand, and Frale took it awkwardly, then turned away,
swallowing the thanks he did not know how to utter. For the time being,
David had conquered.

The lad took a few steps and then turned back. "I'd like to thank you,
suh, an' I'd like to pay fer these here--I 'low to get work an' send the
money fer 'em."

"Don't be troubled about that; we'll see later. Only remember one thing.
I don't know what you've done, nor why you must run away like this--I
haven't asked. I may be breaking the laws of the land as much as you in
helping you off. I am doing it because, until I know of some downright
evil in you, I'm bound to help you, and the best way to repay me will be
for you to--you know--do right."

"Are you doin' this fer her?" He looked off at the hills as he spoke,
and not at the doctor.

"Yes, for her and for you. Don't linger now, and don't forget my
directions."

The youth turned on the doctor a quick look. Thryng could not determine,
as he thought it over afterward, if there was in it a trace of
malevolence. It was like a flash of steel between them, even as they
smiled and again bade each other good-by.

For a time all was silent around Hanging Rock. Thryng sat reading and
pondering, expecting each moment to hear voices from the direction Frale
had taken. He could not help smiling as he thought over his attempt to
make this mountain boy into the typical English tourist, and how unique
an imitation was the result.

He called out to comfort Hoyle's fearful little heart: "Your brother's
all safe now. Come out here until we hear men's voices."

"I better stay whar I be, I reckon. They won't talk none when they get
nigh hyar."

"Are you comfortable down there?"

"Yas, suh."

Hoyle was right. The two men detailed for this climb walked in silence,
to give no warning of their approach, until they appeared in the rear of
the cabin, and entered the shed where Frale's horse was stabled. Sure
were they then that its owner was trapped at last.

They were greatly surprised at finding the premises occupied. David
continued his reading, unconcerned until addressed.

"Good evenin', suh."

He greeted them genially and invited them into his cabin, determined to
treat them with as royal hospitality as was in his power. To offer them
tea was hardly the thing, he reasoned, so he stirred up the fire, while
descanting on the beauty of the location and the health-giving quality
of the air, and when his kettle was boiling, he brought out from his
limited stores whiskey, lemons, and sugar, and proceeded to brew them so
fine a quality of English toddy as to warm the cockles of their hearts.

Questioning them on his own account, he learned how best to get his
supplies brought up the mountains, and many things about the region
interesting to him. At last one of them ventured a remark about the
horse and how he came by him, at which he explained very frankly that
the widow down below had allowed him the use of the animal for his keep
until her son returned.

They "'lowed he wa'n't comin' back to these parts very soon," and David
expressed satisfaction. His evident ignorance of mountain affairs
convinced them that nothing was to be gained from him, and they asked no
direct questions, and finally took their departure, with a high opinion
of their host, and quite content.

Then David called his little accomplice from his hiding-place, took him
into his cabin, and taught him to drink tea with milk and sugar in it,
gave him crisp biscuits from his small remainder in store, and, still
further to comfort his heart, searched out a card on which was a
picture of an ocean liner on an open sea, with flags flying, great rolls
of vapor and smoke trailing across the sky, with white-capped waves
beneath and white clouds above. The boy's eyes shone with delight. He
twisted himself about to look up in Thryng's face as he questioned him
concerning it, and almost forgot Frale in his happiness, as he trudged
home hugging the precious card to his bosom.

Contentedly Thryng proceeded to set his abode in order after the
disarray of the morning, undisturbed by any question as to the equity of
his deed. His mind was in a state of rebellion against the usual
workings of the criminal courts, and, biassed by his observation of the
youth, he felt that his act might lead as surely toward absolute
justice, perhaps more surely, than the opposite course would have done.

Erelong he found a few tools carefully packed away, as was the habit of
his old friend, and the labor of preparing his canvas room began. But
first a ladder hanging under the eaves of the cabin must be repaired,
and long before the slant rays of the setting sun fell across his
hilltop, he found himself too weary to descend to the Fall Place, even
with the aid of his horse. With a measure of discouragement at his
undeniable weakness, he led the animal to water where a spring bubbled
sweet and clear in an embowered hollow quite near his cabin, then
stretched himself on the couch before the fire, with no other light than
its cheerful blaze, too exhausted for his book and disinclined even to
prepare his supper.

After a time, David's weariness gave place to a pleasant drowsiness, and
he rose, arranged his bed, and replenished the fire, drank a little hot
milk, and dropped into a wholesome slumber as dreamless and sweet as
that of a tired child.

Such a sense of peace and retirement closed around him there alone on
his mountain, that he slept with his cabin door open to the sweet air,
crisp and cold, lulled by the murmuring of the swaying pine tops
without, and the crackling and crumbling of burning logs within. Rolled
in his warm Scotch rug, he did not feel the chill that came as his fire
burned lower, but slept until daybreak, when the clear note of a
Carolina wren, thrice repeated close to his open door, sounded his
reveille.

Deeply inhaling the cold air, he lay and mused over the events of the
previous day. How quickly and naturally he had been drawn into the
interests of his neighbors below him, and had absorbed the peculiar
atmosphere of their isolation, making a place for himself, shutting out
almost as if they had never existed the harassments and questionings of
his previous life. Was it a buoyancy he had received from his mountain
height and the morning air? Whatever the cause, he seemed to have
settled with them all, and arrived at last where his spirit needed but
to rest open and receptive before its Creator to be swept clear of the
dross of the world's estimates of values, and exalted with aspiration.

Every long breath he drew seemed to make his mental vision clearer. God
and his own soul--was that all? Not quite. God and the souls of men and
of women--of all who came within his environment--a world made
beautiful, made sweet and health-giving for these--and with them to know
God, to feel Him near. So Christ came to be close to humanity.

A mist of scepticism that had hung over him and clouded the later years
of his young manhood suddenly rolled away, dispelled by the splendor of
this triumphant thought, even as the rays of the rising sun came at the
same moment to dispel the earth mists and flood the hills with light.
Light; that was it! "In Him is no darkness at all."

Joyously he set himself to the preparation for the day. The true meaning
of life was revealed to him. The discouragement of the evening before
was gone. Yet now should he sit down in ecstatic dreaming? It must be
joy in life--movement--in whatever was to be done, whether in satisfying
a wholesome hunger, in creating warmth for his body, or in conquering
the seeds of decay and disease therein, and keeping it strong and full
of reactive power for his soul's sake.

It was a revelation to him of the eternal God, wonder-working and
all-pervading. Now no longer with a haunting sense of fear would he
search and learn, but with a glad perception of the beautiful
orderliness of the universe, so planned and arranged for the souls of
men when only they should learn how to use their own lives, and attune
themselves to give forth music to the touch of the God of Love.

A cold bath, the pure air, and his abstemiousness of the previous
evening gave him a compelling hunger, and it was with satisfaction he
discovered so large a portion of his dinner of yesterday remaining to be
warmed for his morning meal. What he should do later, when dinner-time
arrived, he knew not, and he laughed to think how he was living from
hour to hour, content as the small wren fluting beside his door his
care-free note. Ah, yes! "God's in His heaven, all's right with the
world."

The wren's note reminded him of a slender box which always accompanied
his wanderings, and which had come to light rolled in the jacket which
he had given Frale as part of his disguise. He opened it and took
therefrom the joints of a silver flute. How long it had lain untouched!

He fitted the parts and strolled out to the rock, and there, as he gazed
at the shifting, subtle beauty spread all before him and around him, he
lifted the wandlike instrument to his lips and began to play. At first
he only imitated the wren, a few short notes joyously uttered; then, as
the springs of his own happiness welled up within him, he poured forth a
tumultuous flood of trills--a dancing staccato of mounting notes,
shifting and falling, rising, floating away, and then returning in
silvery echoes, bringing their own gladness with them.

The pæan of praise ended, the work of the day began, and he set himself
with all the nervous energy of his nature to the finishing of his canvas
room. Again, ere the completion of the task, he found he had been
expending his strength too lavishly, but this time he accepted his
weariness more philosophically, glad if only he might labor and rest as
the need came.

Nearly the whole of the glorious day was still left him. In moving his
couch nearer the door, he found his efforts impeded by some heavy object
underneath it, and discovered, to his surprise and almost dismay, the
identical pigskin valise which Frale had taken away with him the day
before. How came it there? No one, he was certain, had been near his
cabin since Hoyle had trotted home yesterday, hugging his picture to his
breast.

David drew it out into the light and opened it. There on the top lay
the cigars he had placed in the youth's pocket, and there also every
article of wearing apparel he had seen disappear down the laurel-grown
path on Frale's lithe body twelve hours or more ago. He cast the
articles out upon the floor and turned them over wonderingly, then
shoved them aside and lay down for his quiet siesta. He would learn from
Cassandra the meaning of this. He hoped the young man had got off
safely, yet the fact of finding his kindly efforts thus thrust back upon
him disturbed him. Why had it been done? As he pondered thereon, he saw
again the steel-blue flash in the young man's eyes as he turned away,
and resolved to ask no questions, even of Cassandra.




CHAPTER VII

IN WHICH FRALE GOES DOWN TO FARINGTON IN HIS OWN WAY


Frale felt himself exalted by the oath he had sworn to Cassandra, as if
those words had lifted the burden from his heart, and taken away the
stain. As he walked away in his disguise, it seemed to him that he had
acted under an irresistible spell cast upon him by this Englishman, who
was to bide so near Cassandra--to be seen by her every day--to be
admired by her, while he, who had the first right, must hide himself
away from her, shielding himself in that man's clothes. Fine as they
seemed to him, they only abashed him and filled him with a sense of
obligation to a man he dreaded.

Like a child, realizing his danger only when it was close upon him, his
old recklessness returned, and he moved down the path with his head held
high, looking neither to the right nor to the left, planning how he
might be rid of these clothes and evade his pursuers unaided. The men,
climbing toward him as he descended, hearing his footsteps above them,
parted and stood watching, only half screened by the thick-leaved
shrubs, not ten feet from him on either side; but so elated was he, and
eager in his plans, that he passed them by, unseeing, and thus Thryng's
efforts saved him in spite of himself; for so amazed were they at the
presence of such a traveller in such a place that they allowed him to
pass unchallenged until he was too far below them to make speech
possible. Later, when they found David seated on his rock, they assumed
the young man to be a friend, and thought no further of it.

Frale soon left the path and followed the stream to the head of the
fall, where he lingered, tormented by his own thoughts and filled with
conflicting emotions, in sight of his home.

To go down to the settlement and see the world had its allurements, but
to go in this way, never to return, never to feel again the excitement
of his mountain life, evading the law and conquering its harassments,
was bitter. It had been his joy and delight in life to feel himself
masterfully triumphant over those set to take him, too cunning to be
found, too daring and strong to be overcome, to take desperate chances
and win out; all these he considered his right and part of the game of
life. But to slink away like a hunted fox followed by the dogs of the
law because, in a blind frenzy, he had slain his own friend! What if he
had promised to repent; there was the law after him still!

If only his fate were a tangible thing, to be grappled with! To meet a
foe and fight hand to hand to the death was not so hard as to yield
himself to the inevitable. Sullenly he sat with his head in his hands,
and life seemed to stretch before him, leading to a black chasm. But one
ray of light was there to follow--"Cass, Cass." If only he would accept
the help offered him and go to the station, take his seat in the train,
and find himself in Farington, while still his pursuers were scouring
the mountains for him, he might--he might win out. Moodily and
stubbornly he resisted the thought.

At last, screened by the darkness, he turned out his soiled and torn
garments, and divesting himself of every article Thryng had given him,
he placed them carefully in the valise. Then, relieved of one
humiliation, he set himself again on the path toward Hanging Rock cabin.

As he passed the great holly tree where Cassandra had sat beside him, he
placed his hand on the stone and paused. His heart leaned toward her. He
wanted her. Should he go down to her now and refuse to leave her? But
no. He had promised. Something warm splashed down upon his hand as he
bent over the rock. He sprang up, ashamed to weep, and, seizing the
doctor's valise, plunged on through the shadows up the steep ascent.

He had no definite idea of how he would explain his act, for he did not
comprehend his own motives. It was only a wordless repugnance that
possessed him, vague and sullen, against this man's offered friendship;
and his relief was great when he found David asleep before his open
door.

Stealthily he entered and placed his burden beneath the couch, gazed a
moment at the sleeping face whereon the firelight still played, and
softly crept away. Cassandra should know that she had no need to thank
the Englishman for his freedom.

Then came the weary tramp down the mountain, skulking and hiding by day,
and struggling on again by night--taking by-paths and unused
trails--finding his uncertain way by moonlight and starlight--barked at
by dogs, and followed by hounds baying loudly whenever he came near a
human habitation--wading icy streams and plunging through gorges to
avoid cabins or settlements--keeping life in him by gnawing raw turnips
which had been left in the fields ungathered, until at last, pallid,
weary, dirty, and utterly forlorn, he found himself, in the half-light
of the dawn of the fourth day, near Farington. Shivering with cold, he
stole along the village street and hid himself in the bishop's grounds
until he should see some one astir in the house.

The bishop had sat late the night before, half expecting him, for he had
received Cassandra's letter, also one from Thryng. Neither letter threw
light on Frale's deed, although Cassandra's gave him to understand that
something more serious than illicit distilling had necessitated his
flight. David's was a joyous letter, craving his companionship whenever
his affairs might bring him near, but expressing the greatest
contentment.

When Black Carrie went out to unlock the chicken house door and fetch
wood for her morning fire, she screamed with fright as the young man in
his wretched plight stepped before her.

"G'long, yo--pore white trash!" she cried.

"I'm no poor white trash," he murmured. "Be Bishop Towah in the house?"

"Co'se he in de haouse. Whar yo s'poses he be dis time de mawnin'?" She
made with all haste toward her kitchen, bearing her armful of wood,
muttering as she went.

"I reckon I'll set hyar ontwell he kin see me," he said, dropping to the
doorstep in sheer exhaustion. And there he was allowed to sit while she
prepared breakfast in her own leisurely way, having no intention of
disturbing her "white folkses fer no sech trash."

The odor of coffee and hot cakes was maddening to the starving boy, as
he watched her through the open door, yet he passively sat, withdrawn
into himself, seeking in no way either to secure a portion of the food
or to make himself known. After a time, he heard faintly voices beyond
the kitchen, and knew the family must be there at breakfast, but still
he sat, saying nothing.

At last the door of the inner room was burst open, and a child ran out,
demanding scraps for her puppy.

"I may! I may, too, feed him in the dining room. Mamma says I may, after
we're through."

"Go off, honey chile, mussin' de flo' like dat-a-way fer me to clean up
agin. Naw, honey. Go out on de stoop wif yer fool houn' dog." And the
tiny, fair girl with her plate of scraps and her small black dog leaping
and dancing at her heels, tumbled themselves out where Frale sat.

Scattering her crusts as she ran, she darted back, calling: "Papa, papa!
A man's come. He's here." The small dog further emphasized the fact by
barking fiercely at the intruder, albeit from a safe distance.

"Yas," said Carrie, as the bishop came out, led by his little daughter,
"he b'en hyar sence long fo' sun-up."

"Why didn't you call me?" he said sternly.

"Sho--how I know anybody wan' see yo, hangin' 'roun' de back do'? He
ain' say nuthin', jes' set dar." She continued muttering her crusty
dislike of tramps, as the bishop led his caller through her kitchen and
sent his little daughter to look after her puppy.

He took Frale into his private study, and presently returned and himself
carried him food, placing it before him on a small table where many a
hungry caller had been fed before. Then he occupied himself at his desk
while he quietly observed the boy. He saw that the youth was too worn
and weak to be dealt with rationally at first, and he felt it difficult
to affix the thought of a desperate crime upon one so gentle of mien and
innocent of face; but he knew his people well, and what masterful
passions often slept beneath a mild and harmless exterior.

Nor was it the first time he had been called upon to adjust a conflict
between his own conscience and the law. Often in his office of priest he
had been the recipient of confidences which no human pressure of law
could ever wrest from him. So now he proceeded to draw from Frale his
full and free confession.

Very carefully and lovingly he trespassed in the secret chambers of this
troubled soul, until at last the boy laid bare his heart.

He told of the cause of his anger and his drunken quarrel, of his
evasion of his pursuers and his vow with Cassandra before God, of his
rejection of Doctor Thryng's help and his flight by night, of his
suffering and hunger. All was told without fervor,--a simple passive
narration of events. No one could believe, while listening to him, that
storms of passion and hatred and fear had torn him, or the overwhelming
longing he had suffered at the thought of Cassandra.

But when the bishop touched on the subject of repentance, the hidden
force was revealed. It was as if the tormenting spirit within him had
cried out loudly, instead of the low, monotonous tone in which he
said:--

"Yas, I kin repent now he's dade, but ef he war livin' an' riled me agin
that-a-way like he done--I reckon--I reckon God don't want no repentin'
like I repents."

It was steel against flint, the spark in the narrow blue line of his
eyes as he said the words, and the bishop understood.

But what to do with this man of the mountains--this force of nature in
the wild; how guard him from a far more pernicious element in the
civilized town life than any he would find in his rugged solitudes?

And Cassandra! The bishop bowed his head and sat with the tips of his
fingers pressed together. The thought of Cassandra weighed heavily upon
him. She had given her promise, with the devotion of her kind, to save;
had truly offered herself a living sacrifice. All hopes for her growth
into the gracious womanhood her inheritance impelled her toward,--her
sweet ambitions for study, gone to the winds--scattered like the
fragrant wild rose petals on her own hillside--doomed by that promise to
live as her mother had lived, and like other women of her kin, to age
before her time with the bearing of children in the midst of toil too
heavy for her--dispirited by privation and the sorrow of relinquished
hopes. Oh, well the bishop knew! He dreaded most to see the beautiful
light of aspiration die out of her eyes, and her spirit grow sordid in
the life to which this untamed savage would inevitably bring her. "What
a waste!"

And again he repeated the words, "What a waste!" The youth looked up,
thinking himself addressed, but the bishop saw only the girl. It was as
if she rose and stood there, dominant in the sweet power of her girlish
self-sacrifice, appealing to him to help save this soul. Somehow, at the
moment, he failed to appreciate the beauty of such giving. Almost it
seemed to him a pity Frale had thus far succeeded in evading his
pursuers. It would have saved her in spite of herself had he been taken.

But now the situation was forced upon the bishop, either to give him up,
which seemed an arbitrary taking into his own hands of power which
belonged only to the Almighty, or to shield him as best he might, giving
heed to the thought that even if in his eyes the value of the girl was
immeasurably the greater, yet the youth also was valued, or why was he
here?

He lifted his head and saw Frale's eyes fixed upon him sadly--almost as
if he knew the bishop's thoughts. Yes, here was a soul worth while.
Plainly there was but one course to pursue, and but one thread left to
hold the young man to steadfast purpose. Using that thread, he would
try. If he could be made to sacrifice for Cassandra some of his physical
joy of life, seeking to give more than to appropriate to himself for his
own satisfaction--if he could teach him the value of what she had
done--could he rise to such a height, and learn self-control?

The argument for repentance having come back to him void, the bishop
began again. "You tell me Cassandra has given you her promise? What are
you going to do about it?"

"Hit's 'twixt her an' me," said the youth proudly.

"No," thundered the bishop, all the man in him roused to beat into this
crude, triumphant animal some sense of what Cassandra had really done.
"No. It's betwixt you and the God who made you. You have to answer to
God for what you do." He towered above him, and bending down, looked
into Frale's eyes until the boy cowered and looked down, with lowered
head, and there was silence.

Then the bishop straightened himself and began pacing the room. At last
he came to a stand and spoke quietly. "You have Cassandra's promise;
what are you going to do about it?"

Frale did not move or speak, and the bishop felt baffled. What was going
on under that passive mask he dared not think. To talk seemed futile,
like hammering upon a flint wall; but hammer he must, and again he
tried.

"You have taken a man's life; do you know what that means?"

"Hangin', I reckon."

"If it were only to hang, boy, it might be better for Cassandra. Think
about it. If I help you, and shield you here, what are you going to do?
What do you care most for in all this world? You who can kill a man and
then not repent."

"He hadn't ought to have riled me like he done; I--keer fer her."

"More than for Frale Farwell?"

The boy looked vaguely before him. "I reckon," was all he said.

Again the bishop paced the floor, and waited.

"I hain't afeared to work--right hard."

"Good; what kind of work can you do?" Frale flushed a dark red and was
silent. "Yes, I know you can make corn whiskey, but that is the devil's
work. You're not to work for him any more."

Again silence. At last, in a low voice, he ventured: "I'll do any kind
o' work you-all gin' me to do--ef--ef only the officers will leave me
be--an' I tol' Cass I'd larn writin'."

"Good, very good. Can you drive a horse? Yes, of course."

Frale's eyes shone. "I reckon."

The bishop grew more hopeful. The holy greed for souls fell upon him.
The young man must be guarded and watched; he must be washed and
clothed, as well as fed, and right here the little wife must be
consulted. He went out, leaving the youth to himself, and sought his
brown-eyed, sweet-faced little wisp of a woman, where she sat writing
his most pressing business letters for him.

"Dearest, may I interrupt you?"

"In a minute, James; in a minute. I'll just address these."

He dropped into a deep chair and waited, with troubled eyes regarding
her. "There!" She rubbed vigorously down on the blotter. "These are all
done, every blessed one, James. Now what?"

In an instant she was curled up, feet and all, like a kitten in his lap,
her small brown head, its wisps of fine, straight hair straying over
temples and rounded cheeks, tucked comfortably under his chin; and thus
every point was carefully talked over.

With many exclamations of anxiety and doubt, and much discreet
suggestion from the small adviser, it was at last settled. Frale was to
be properly clothed from the missionary boxes sent every year from the
North. He should stay with them for a while until a suitable place could
be found for him. Above all things he must be kept out of bad company.

"Oh, dear! Poor Cassandra! After all her hopes--and she might have done
so much for her people--if only--" Tears stood in the brown eyes and
even ran over and dropped upon the bishop's coat and had to be carefully
wiped off, for, as he feelingly remarked,--

"I can't go about wearing my wife's tears in plain view, now, can I?"

And then Doctor Hoyle's young friend--she must hear his letter. How
interesting he must be! Couldn't they have him down? And when the bishop
next went up the mountain, might she accompany him? Oh, no. The trip was
not too rough. It was quite possible for her. She would go to see
Cassandra and the old mother. "Poor Cassandra!"

But the self-respecting old stepmother and her daughter did not allow
these kind friends to trespass on any missionary supplies, for Uncle
Jerry was despatched down the mountain with a bundle on the back of his
saddle, which was quietly left at the bishop's door; and Frale next
appeared in a neat suit of homespun, home woven and dyed, and home-made
clothing.




CHAPTER VIII

IN WHICH DAVID THRYNG MAKES A DISCOVERY


Standing on the great hanging rock before his cabin, Thryng imagined
himself absolutely solitary in the centre of a wide wilderness. Even the
Fall Place, where lived the Widow Farwell, although so near, was not
visible from this point; but when he began exploring the region about
him, now on foot and now on horseback, he discovered it to be really a
country of homes.

Every mule path branching off into what seemed an inaccessible wild led
to some cabin, often set in a hollow on a few acres of rich soil,
watered by a never failing spring, where the forest growth had been cut
away to make cultivation possible. Sometimes the little log house would
be perched like a lonely eagle's nest on a mere shelflike ledge jutting
out from the mountain wall, but always below it or above it or off at
one side he found the inevitable pocket of rich soil accumulated by the
wash of years, where enough corn and cow-peas could be raised for
cattle, and cotton and a few sheep to provide material for clothing the
family, with a few fowls and pigs to provide their food.

Here they lived, those isolated people, in quiet independence and
contented poverty, craving little and often having less, caring nothing
for the great world outside their own environment, looking after each
other in times of sickness and trouble, keeping alive the traditions of
their forefathers, and clinging to the ancient family feuds and
friendships from generation to generation.

David soon learned that they had among themselves their class
distinctions, certain among them holding their heads high, in the
knowledge of having a self-respecting ancestry, and training their
children to reckon themselves no "common trash," however much they
deprecated showing the pride that was in them.

Many days passed after Frale's departure before David learned more of
the young man's unhappy deed. He had gone down to give the old mother
some necessary care and, finding her alone, remained to talk with her.
Pleased with her quaint expressions and virile intellect, he led her on
to speak of her youth; and one morning, weary of the solitude and
silence, she poured out tales of Cassandra's father, and how, after his
death, she "came to marry Farwell." She told of her own mother, and the
hard times that fell upon them during the bitter days of the Civil War.

The traditions of her family were dear to her, and she was well pleased
to show this young doctor who had found the key to her warm, yet
reserved, heart that she "wa'n't no common trash," and her "chillen
wa'n't like the run o' chillen."

"Seems like I'm talkin' a heap too much o' we-uns," she said, at last.

"No, no. Go on. You say you had no school; how did you learn? You were
reading your Bible when I came in."

"No. Thar wa'n't no schools in my day, not nigh enough fer me to go to.
Maw, she could read, an' write, too, but aftah paw jined the ahmy, she
had to work right ha'd and had nothin' to do with. Paw, he had to jine
one side or t'othah. Some went with the North and some went with the
South,--they didn't keer much. The' wa'n't no niggahs up here to fight
ovah. But them war cruel times when the bushwackers come searchin'
'round an' raidin' our homes. They were a bad lot--most of 'em war
desertahs from both ahmies. We-uns war obleeged to hide in the bresh or
up the branch--anywhar we could find a place to creep into. Them were
bad times fer the women an' chillen left at home.

"Maw used to save ev'y scrap of papah she could find with printin' on
hit to larn we-uns our lettahs off'n. One time come 'long a right decent
captain and axed maw could she get he an' his men suthin' to eat. He had
nigh about a dozen sogers with him; an' maw, she done the bes' she
could,--cooked corn-bread, an' chick'n an' sich. I c'n remember how he
sot right on the hearth where you're settin' now, an' tossed flapjacks
fer th' hull crowd.

"He war right civil when he lef', an' said he'd like to give maw
suthin', but they hadn't nothin' but Confed'rate money, an' hit wa'n't
worth nothin' up here; an' maw said would he give her the newspapah he
had. She seed the end of hit standin' out of his pocket; an' he laughed
and give hit out quick, an' axed her what did she want with hit; and she
'lowed she could teach me a heap o' readin' out o' that papah, an' he
laughed again, an' said likely, fer that hit war worth more'n the money.
All the schoolin' I had war just that thar papah, an' that old
spellin'-book you see on the shelf; I c'n remembah how maw come by that,
too."

"Tell me how she came by the spelling-book, will you?"

"Hit war about that time. Paw, he nevah come home again. I cyan't
remembah much 'bouts my paw. Maw used to say a heap o' times if she only
had a spellin'-book like she used to larn out'n, 'at she could larn
we-uns right smart. Well, one day one o' the neighbors told her 'at he'd
seed one at Gerret's, ovah t'othah side Lone Pine Creek, nigh about
eight mile, I reckon; an' she 'lowed she'd get hit. So she sont we-uns
ovah to Teasley's mill--she war that scared o' the Gorillas she didn't
like leavin' we-uns home alone--an' she walked thar an' axed could she
do suthin' to earn that thar book; an' ol' Miz Gerret, she 'lowed if
maw'd come Monday follerin' an' wash fer her, 'at she mount have hit.
Them days we-uns an' the Teasleys war right friendly. The' wa'n't no
feud 'twixt we-uns an' Teasleys then--but now I reckon thar's bound to
be blood feud." She spoke very sadly and waited, leaving the tale of the
spelling-book half told.

"Why must there be 'blood feud' now? Why can't you go on in the old
way?"

"Hit's Frale done hit. He an' Ferd'nan' Teasley, they set up 'stillin'
ovah in Dark Cornder yandah. Hit do work a heap o' trouble, that thar. I
reckon you-uns don't have nothin' sich whar you come from?"

"We have things quite as bad. So they quarrelled, did they?"

"Yaas, they quarrelled, an' they fit."

"No doubt they had been drinking."

"Yas, I reckon."

"But just a drunken quarrel between those two ought not to affect all
the rest. Couldn't you patch it up among you, and keep the boy at home?
You must need his help on the place."

"We need him bad here, but the' is no way fer to make up an' right a
blood feud. Frale done them mean. He lifted his hand an' killed his
friend. Hit war Sunday evenin' he done hit. They had been havin' a
singin' thar at the mill, an' preachah, he war thar too, an' all war
kind an' peaceable; an' Ferd an' Frale, they sot out fer thar
'still'--Ferd on foot an' Frale rid'n' his horse--the one you have
now--they used to go that-a-way, rid'n' turn about--one horse with them
an' one horse kep' alluz hid nigh the 'still' lest the gov'nment men
come on 'em suddent like. Frale, he war right cute, he nevah war come up
with.

"'Pears like they stopped 'fore they'd gone fer, disputin' 'bouts
somethin'. Ol' Miz Teasley say she heered ther voices high an' loud, an'
then she heered a shot right quick, that-a-way, an' nothin' more; an'
she sont ol' man Teasley an' the preachah out, an' the hull houseful
follered, an' thar they found Ferd lyin' shot dade--an' Frale--he an'
the horse war gone. Ferd, he still held his own gun in his hand tight,
like he war goin' to shoot, with the triggah open an' his fingah on
hit--but he nevah got the chance. Likely if he had, hit would have been
him a-hidin' now, an' Frale dade. I reckon so."

Thryng listened in silence. It made him think of the old tales of the
Scottish border. So, in plain words, the young man was a murderer. With
deep pity he recalled the haunted look in Frale's eyes, and the sadness
that trembled around Cassandra's lips as she said, "I reckon there is no
trouble worse than ours." A thought struck him, and he asked:--

"Do you know what they quarrelled about?"

"He nevah let on what-all was the fuss. Likely he told Cass, but she is
that still. Hit's right hard to raise a blood feud thar when we-uns an'
the Teasleys alluz war friends. She took keer o' me when my chillen
come, an' I took keer o' her with hern. Ferd'nan' too, he war like my
own, fer I nursed him when she had the fever an' her milk lef' her. Cass
war only three weeks old then, an' he war nigh on a year, but that
little an' sickly--he like to 'a' died if I hadn't took him." She paused
and wiped away a tear that trickled down the furrow of her thin cheek.
"If hit war lef' to us women fer to stir 'em up, I reckon thar wouldn't
be no feuds, fer hit's hard on we-uns when we're friendly, an' Ferd like
my own boy that-a-way."

"But perhaps--" David spoke musingly--"perhaps it was a woman who
stirred up the trouble between them."

The widow looked a moment with startled glance into his face, then
turned her gaze away. "I reckon not. The' is no woman far or near as I
evah heern o' Frale goin' with."

Still pondering, David rose to go, but quickly resumed his seat, and
turned her thoughts again to the past. He would not leave her thus sad
at heart.

"Won't you finish telling me about the spelling-book?"

"I forget how come hit, but maw didn't leave we chillen to Teasleys'
that day she went to do the washin'. Likely Miz Teasley war sick--anyway
she lef' us here. She baked corn-bread--hit war all we had in the house
to eat them days, an' she fotched water fer the day, an' kivered up the
fire. Then she locked the door an' took the key with her, an' tol'
we-uns did we hear a noise like anybody tryin' to get in, to go up
garret an' make out like thar wa'n't nobody to home. The' war three o'
us chillen. I war the oldest. We war Caswells, my fam'ly. My little
brothah Whitson, he war sca'cely more'n a baby, runnin' 'round pullin'
things down on his hade whar he could reach, an Cotton war mos' as much
keer--that reckless."

She paused and smiled as she recalled the cares of her childhood, then
wandered on in her slow narration. "They done a heap o' things that day
to about drive me plumb crazy, an' all the time we was thinkin' we
heered men talkin' or horses trompin' outside, an' kep' ourselves right
busy runnin' up garret to hide.

"Along towa'ds night hit come on to snow, an' then turned to rain, a
right cold hard rain, an' we war that cold an' hungry--an' Whit, he
cried fer maw,--an' hit come dark an' we had et all the' war to eat long
before, so we had no suppah, an' the poor leetle fellers war that cold
an' shiverin' thar in the dark--I made 'em climb into bed like they war,
an' kivered 'em up good, an' thar I lay tryin' to make out like I war
maw, gettin' my arms 'round both of 'em to oncet. Whit cried hisself to
sleep, but Cotton he kep' sayin' he heered men knockin' 'round outside,
an' at last he fell asleep, too. He alluz war a natch'ly skeered kind o'
child.

"Then I lay thar still, list'nin' to the rain beat on the roof, an'
thinkin' would maw ever get back again, an' list'nin' to hear her
workin' with the lock--hit war a padlock on the outside--an' thar I must
o' drapped off to sleep that-a-way, fer I didn't hear nothin', no more
until I woke up with a soft murmurin' sound in my ears, an' thar I seed
maw. The rain had stopped an' hit war mos' day, I reckon, with a mornin'
moon shinin' in an' fallin' on her whar she knelt by the bed, clost nigh
to me. I can see hit now, that long line o' white light streamin' acrost
the floor an' fallin' on her, makin' her look like a white ghost spirit,
an' her two hands held up with that thar book 'twixt 'em.

"I knew hit war maw, fer I'd seed her pray before, but I war skeered fer
all that. I lay right still an' held my breath, an' heered her thank the
Lord fer keerin' fer we-uns whilst she war gone, an' fer 'lowin' her to
get that thar book.

"I don't guess she knew I seed her, fer she got up right still an' soft,
like not to wake we-uns, an' began to light the fire an' make some yarb
tea. She war that wet an' cold I could see her hand shake whilst she
held the match to the light'ud stick. Them days maw made coffee out'n
burnt corn-bread, an' tea out'n dried blackberry leaves an' sassafrax
root." She paused and turned her face toward the open door. David
thought she had lost somewhat the appearance of age; certainly, what
with the long rest, and Cassandra's loving care, she had no longer the
weary, haggard look that had struck him when he saw her first.

Following the direction of her gaze, he went to the shelf and took down
the old spelling-book, and turned the leaves, now limp and worn. So this
was Cassandra's inheritance--part of it--the inward impulse that would
urge to toil all day, then walk miles in rain and darkness through a
wilderness, and thank the Lord for the privilege--to own this book--not
for herself, but for the generations to come. David touched it
reverently, glad to know so much of her past, and turned to the old
mother for more.

"Have you anything else--like this?"

Her sharp eyes sparkled as she looked narrowly at him. "I have suthin'
'at I hain't nevah told anybody livin' a word of, not even Doctah
Hoyle--only he war some differ'nt from you. But I'm gettin' old, an' I
may as well tell you. Likely with all your larnin' you can tell me is
it any good to Cass. She be that sot on all sech." She fumbled at her
throat a moment and drew from the bosom of her gown a leather
shoe-lacing, from which dangled an iron key. Slowly she undid the knot,
and handed it toward him.

"I nevah 'low nobody on earth to touch that thar box, an' the' ain't a
soul livin' knows what's in hit. I been gyardin' them like they war
gold, fer they belonged to my ol' man--the first one--Cassandra's
fathah; but I reckon if I die the' won't nobody see any good in them
things. If you'll onlock that thar padlock on that box yander, you'll
find it wropped in a piece o' gingham. My paw's mothah spun an' wove
that gingham--ol' Miz Caswell. They don't many do work like that
nowadays. They lived right whar we a' livin' now."

David unlocked the chest and lifted the heavy lid.

"Hit's down in the further cornder--that's hit, I reckon. Just step to
the door, will you, an' see is they anybody nigh."

He went to the door, but saw no one; only from the shed came an
intermittent rat-tat-tat.

"I don't see any one, but I hear some one pounding."

"Hit's only Hoyle makin' his traps." She sighed, then slowly and
tenderly untied the parcel and placed in his hands two small
leather-bound books. Tied to one by a faded silk cord which marked the
pages was a thin, worn ring of gold.

"That ring war his maw's, an' when we war married, I wore hit, but when
I took Farwell fer my ol' man, I nevah wore hit any more, fer he 'lowed,
bein' hit war gold that-a-way, we'd ought to sell hit. That time I took
the lock off'n the door an' put hit on that thar box. Hit war my
gran'maw's box, an' I done wore the key hyar evah since. Can you tell
what they be? Hit's the quarest kind of print I evah see. He used to
make out like he could read hit. Likely he did, fer whatevah he said, he
done."

It seemed to her little short of a miracle that any one could read it,
but David soon learned that her confidence in her first "old man" was
unlimited.

"What-all's in hit?" She grew restless while he carefully and silently
examined her treasure, the true significance of which she so little
knew. Filled with amazement and with a keen pleasure, he took the books
to the light. The print was fine, even, and clear.

"What-all be they?" she reiterated. "Reckon the're no good?"

David smiled. "In one way they're all the good in the world, but not for
money, you know."

"No, I don't guess. Can you read that thar quare printin'?"

"Yes. The letters are Greek, and these books are about a hundred years
old."

"Be they? Then they won't be much good to Cass, I reckon. He sot a heap
by them, but I war 'feared they mount be heathen. Greek--that thar be
heathen. Hain't hit?"

David continued, speaking more to himself than to her. "They were
published in London in eighteen twelve. They have been read by some one
who knew them well, I can see by these marginal notes."

"What be they?" Her curiosity was eager and intent.

"They are explanations and comments, written here on the
margin--see?--with a fine pen."

"His grandpaw done that thar. What be they about, anyhow?"

"They are very old poems written long before this country was
discovered."

"An' that must 'a' been before the Revolution. His grandpaw fit in that.
The' is somethin' more in thar. I kept hit hid, fer Farwell, he war
bound to melt hit up fer silver bullets. He 'lowed them bullets war
plumb sure to kill. Reckon you can find hit? Thar 'tis." Her eyes shone
as Thryng drew out another object also wrapped in gingham. "Hit's a
teapot, I guess, but Farwell, he got a-hold of hit an' melted off the
spout to make his silvah bullets. That time I hid all in the box an' put
on the bolt an' lock whilst he war away 'stillin'. The' is one bullet
left, but I reckon Frale has hit."

David took it from her hand and turned it about. "Surely! This is a
treasure. Here is a coat of arms--but it is so worn I can't make out the
emblem. Was this your husband's also? Is there anything else?"

"That's all. Yes, they war hisn. I war plumb mad at Farwell. I nevah
could get ovah what he done, all so't he mount sure kill somebody.
Likely he meant them bullets fer the revenue officers, should they come
up with him."

"It would have been a great pity if he had destroyed this mark. I
think--I'm not sure--but if it's what I imagine, it is from an old
family in Wales."

"I reckon you're right, fer they were Welsh--his paw's folks way back.
He used to say the' wa'n't no name older'n hisn since the Bible. I told
him 'twar time he got a new one if 'twere that old, but he said he
reckoned a name war like whiskey--hit needed a right smart o' age to
make hit worth anything."

Thryng laid the antique silver pot on the bed beside the old mother's
hand and again took up the small volumes. As he held them, a thought
flashed through his mind, yet hardly a thought,--it was more of an
illumination,--like a vista suddenly opened through what had seemed an
impenetrable, impalpable wall, beyond which lay a joy yet to be, but
before unseen. In that instant of time, a vision appeared to him of what
life might bring, glorified by a tender light as of red fire seen
through a sweet, blue, obscuring mist, and making thus a halo about the
one figure of the vision outlined against it, clear and fine.

"'Pears like you find somethin' right interestin' in that book; be you
readin' hit?"

"I find a glorious prophecy. Was your first husband born and raised here
as you were?"

"Not on this spot; but he was born an' raised like we-uns here in the
mountains--ovah th'other side Pisgah. I seed him first when I wa'n't
more'n seventeen. He come here fer--I don't rightly recollect what, only
he had been deer huntin' an' come late evenin' he drapped in. He had
lost his dog, an' he had a bag o' birds, an' he axed maw could she cook
'em an' give him suppah, an' maw, she took to him right smaht.

"Aftah suppah--I remember like hit war last evenin'--he took gran'paw's
old fiddle an' tuned hit up an' sot thar an' played everything you evah
heered. He played like the' war birds singin' an' rain fallin', an' like
the wind when hit goes wailin' round the house in the pine tops--soft
an' sad--like that-a-way. Gran'paw's old fiddle. I used to keer a heap
fer hit, but one time Farwell got religion, an' he took an' broke hit
'cause he war 'feared Frale mount larn to play an' hit would be a
temptation of the devil to him."

"Well, I say! That was a crime, you know."

"Yes. Sometimes I lay here an' say what-all did I marry Farwell fer,
anyway. Well--every man has his failin's, the' say, an' Farwell, he sure
had hisn."

"May I keep these books a short time? I will be very careful of them.
You know that, or you would not have shown them to me."

"You take them as long as you like. Hit ain't like hit used to be. Books
is easy come by these days--too easy, I reckon. Cassandry, she brung a
whole basketful of 'em with her. Thar they be on that cheer behin' my
spinnin'-wheel."

"Was the basket full of books? So, that was why it was so heavy. Might I
have a look at them?"

"Look 'em ovah all you want to. She won't keer, I reckon. She hain't had
a mite o' time since she come home to look at 'em."

But David thought better of it. He would not look in her basket and pry
among her treasures without her permission.

"When is she coming back?" he asked, awakened to desire further
knowledge of the silent girl's aspirations.

"Soon, I reckon. She's been a right smart spell longah now 'n she 'lowed
she'd be. Hit's old man Irwin. He's been hurted some way. She went ovah
to see could Aunt Sally Carew go an' help Miz Irwin keer fer him--she's
a fool thing, don't know nothin'. They sont down fer me--but here I be,
so she rode the colt ovah fer Sally."

David wrapped and tied the piece of silver as he had found it. As he
replaced it in the box, he discovered the pieces of the broken fiddle
loosely tied in a sack, precious relics of a joy that was past.
Carefully he locked the box and returned the key, but the books he
folded in the strip of gingham and carried away with him.

"I'll be back to-night or in the morning. If she doesn't return, send
Hoyle for me. You mustn't be too long alone. Shall I mend the fire?"

He threw on another log, then lifted her a little and brought her a
glass of cool water, and climbed back to his cabin, walking lightly and
swiftly.




CHAPTER IX

IN WHICH DAVID ACCOMPANIES CASSANDRA ON AN ERRAND OF MERCY


Filled with the enthusiasm of his thoughts, David climbed too rapidly,
and now he found he must take the more gradual rise of the mule trail
without haste. His cap thrust in his pocket, the breeze lifted his hair
and dried the perspiration which would still come with any too eager
exertion. But why should he care? Even to be alive these days was joy.
This was continually the refrain of his heart, nor had he begun to
exhaust his resources for entertainment in his solitary life.

Never were the days too long. Each was filled with such new and lively
interest as to preclude the thought of ennui. To provide against it, he
had sent for books--more than he had had time to read in all the busy
days of the last three years. These and his microscope and his surgical
instruments had been brought him on a mule team by Jerry Carew, who did
his "toting" for him, fetching all he needed for work or comfort, in
this way, from the nearest station where goods could be sent until the
hotel opened in the early summer. Not that he needed them, but that, as
an artist loves to keep a supply of paints and canvas, or a writer--even
when idle--is happier to know that he has at hand plenty of pens and
blank paper, he liked to have them.

Thus far he had felt no more need of his books than he had for his
surgical instruments, but now he was glad he had them for the sake of
the girl who was "that sot on all such." He would open the box the
moment he had eaten, and look them over. The little brother should take
them down to her one at a time--or better--he would take them himself
and watch the smile which came so rarely and sweetly to play about her
lips, and in her eyes, and vanish. Surely he had a right to that for his
pains.

He heard the sound of rapid hoof beats approaching across the level
space from the cabin above him, and looking up, as if conjured from his
innermost thought, he saw her coming, allowing the colt to swing along
as he would. Her bonnet hung by the strings from her arm, her hair blew
in crinkling wisps across her face, and the rapid exercise had brought
roses into the creamy whiteness of her skin. She kept to the brow of the
ridge and would have passed him unseeing, her eyes fixed on the distant
hills, had he not called to her in his clear Alpine jodel.

She reined in sharply and, slipping from the saddle, walked quickly to
him, leading the colt, which was warm and panting as if he had carried
her a good distance at that pace.

"Oh, Doctor Thryng, we need you right bad. That's why I took this way
home. Have you been to the house?"

"Yes. I have just come from there."

"Is mother all right?"

"Doing splendidly." He waited, and she lifted her face to him anxiously.

"We need you bad, Doctor."

"Yes--but not you--you're not--" he began stupidly.

"It's Mr. Irwin. I went there to see could I help any, and seemed like I
couldn't get here soon enough. When I found you were not at home, I was
that troubled. Can--can you go up there and see why I can't rest for
thinking he's a heap worse than he reckons? He thinks he's better,
but--but--"

"Come in and rest and tell me about it."

"Mistress Irwin isn't quite well, and I must go back as soon as I can
get everything done at home. I must get dinner for mother and Hoyle. You
have been that kind to mother--I thought--I thought--if you could only
see him--they can't spare him to die."

"Indeed, I'll go, gladly. But you must tell me more, so that I may know
what to take with me. What is the matter with the man? Is he ill or
hurt? Let me--oh, you are an independent young woman."

She had turned from him to mount, and he stepped forward with
outstretched hand to aid her, but, in a breath, not seeing his offer,
she placed her two hands on the horn of the saddle, and from the slight
rise of ground whereon she stood, with one agile spring, landed easily
in the saddle and wheeled about.

"He's been cutting trees to clear a patch for corn, and some way he hurt
his foot, and he's been lying there nigh a week with the misery. Last
evening she sent one of the children for mother, not knowing she was bad
herself, so I went for Aunt Sally; but she was gone, so I rode on to the
Irwins to see could I help. He said he wasn't suffering so much to-day,
and it made my heart just stop to hear that, when he couldn't lift
himself. You see, my stepfather--he--he was shot in the arm, and right
soon when the misery left him, he died, so I didn't say much--but on the
way home I thought of you, and I came here fast. We know so little here
on the mountains," she added sadly, as she looked earnestly down at him.

"You have acted wisely. Just ride on, Miss Cassandra, and I will follow
as soon as--"

"Come down with me now and have dinnah at our place. Then we can start
togethah."

"Thank you, I will. You are more expert in the art of dinner getting
than I am, so we will lose less time." He laughed and was rewarded with
the flash of a grateful smile as she started on without another word.

It took David but a few minutes to select what articles he suspected,
from her account, might be required. He hurried his preparations, and,
being his own groom, stable boy, and man-of-all-work, he was very busy
about it.

As a strain of music or a floating melody will linger in the background
with insistent repetition, while the brain is at the same time busily
occupied with surface affairs, so he found himself repeating some of her
quaint phrases, and seeing her eyes--the wisps of wind-blown hair--and
the smile on her lips, as she turned away, like an accompaniment to all
he was thinking and doing.

Soon, equipped for whatever the emergency might demand, he was at the
widow's door. His horse nickered and stretched out his nose toward
Cassandra's colt as if glad to have once more a little horse
companionship. Side by side they stood, with bridles slipped back and
hung to their saddles, while they crunched contentedly at the corn on
the ear, which Hoyle had brought them.

While at dinner, Cassandra showed David her books, pleased that he
asked to see them. "I brought them to study, should I get time. It's
right hard to give up hope--" she glanced at her mother and lowered her
voice. "To stop--anyhow--I thought I might teach Hoyle a little."

"Ah, these are mostly school-books," he said, glancing them over.

"Yes, I was at school this time--near Farington it was. Once I stayed
with Bishop Towahs and helped do housework. I could learn a heap
there--between times. They let me have all the books I wanted to read."
She looked lovingly at her few precious school-books. "I haven't touched
these since I got back--we're that busy."

Then she resumed her work about the house, cooking at the fireplace,
waiting upon David, and serving her mother, while directing Hoyle what
to do, should she be detained that night. He demurred and hung about
her, begging her not to stay.

"I won't, son, without I can't help it. You won't care so much
now--mother's not bad like she was."

"Yas, I will," he mourned.

"I reckon I'll have to call you 'baby' again," said his mother. "You're
gettin' that babyfied since Cass come back doin' all fer ye. You has a
heap o' company. Thar's the cow to keer fer, 'n' ol' Pete hollerin' at
ye, an' the chickens tellin' how many aigs they've laid fer ye. Run now.
Thar's ol' Frizzle cacklin'. Get the aig, an' we'll send hit to the pore
sick man. Thar, Cass," she added, as Hoyle ran out, half ashamed, to do
her bidding--"hit's your own fault fer makin' such a baby of him. I 'low
you betteh take 'long a few fresh aigs; likely they'll need 'em, so
triflin' they be. I don't guess you'll find a thing in the house fer him
to eat."

Cassandra packed one of her oddly shaped little baskets, as her mother
suggested, for the sadly demoralized and distracted family to which they
were going, and tucked in with the rest the warm, newly laid egg Hoyle
brought her, smiling indulgently, and kissing his upturned face as she
took it from him.

Toward David she was always entirely simple and natural, except when
abashed by his speech, which seemed to her most elaborate and sometimes
mystifying. She would pause and gaze on him an instant when he extended
to her a courtesy, as if to give it its exact value. Not that she in the
least distrusted him, quite the contrary, but that she was wholly unused
to hearing phrased courtesies, or enthusiasms expressed in the form of
words.

She had seen something of it in the bishop's pretty complimentary
pleasantries with his wife, but David's manner of handing her a chair,
offering her a suggestion--with a "May I be allowed?" was foreign to
her, and she accepted such remarks with a moment's hesitation and a
certain aloofness hardly understood by him.

He found himself treating her with a measure of freedom from the
constraint which men often place upon themselves because of the
recognition of the personal element which will obtrude between them and
femininity in general. He recognized the reason for this in her absolute
lack of coquetry toward him, but analyze the phenomenon, as yet, he
could not.

To her he was a being from another world, strange and delightful, but
set as far from her as if the sea divided them. She turned toward him
sweet, expectant eyes. She listened attentively, gropingly sometimes.
She would understand him if she could,--would learn from him and trust
him implicitly,--but her femininity never obtruded itself. Her
personality seemed to be enclosed within herself and never to lean
toward him with the subtile flattery men feel and like to awaken, but
which they often fear to arouse when they wish to remain themselves
unstirred. Her dignified poise and perfect freedom from all arts to
attract his favor and attention pleased him, but while it gave him the
safe and unconstrained feeling when with her, it still piqued his man's
nature a little to see her so capable of showing tenderness to her own,
yet so unstirred by himself.

Cassandra had never been up to his cabin when he was there, until
to-day, since the morning she came to consult him about Frale, nor had
that young man's name been uttered between them. David had said nothing
to her of the return of the valise, not wishing to touch on the subject
unless she gave the opportunity for him to ask what she knew about it.
Now, since his morning's talk with her mother had envisioned an ideal,
and shown a glory beyond, he was glad to have this opportunity of being
alone with her and of sounding her depths.

For a long time they rode in silence, and he remembered her mother's
words, "He may have told Cass, but she is that still." She carried her
basket carefully before her on the pommel of her saddle. Gradually the
large sunbonnet which quite hid her face slipped back, and the sun
lighted the bronze tints of her hair. As he rode at her side he studied
her watchfully, so simply dressed in homespun material which had faded
from its original color to a sort of turquoise green. The stuff was
heavy and clung closely to her figure, and she rode easily, perched on
her small, old-fashioned side-saddle, swaying with lithe movement to the
motion of her horse. She wore no wrap, only a soft silk kerchief knotted
about her neck, the fluttering ends of which caressed her chin.

Her cheeks became rosy with the exercise, and her gray eyes, under the
green pines and among the dense laurel thickets, took on a warm,
luminous green tint like the hue of her dress. David at last found it
difficult to keep his eyes from her,--this veritable flower of the
wilderness,--and all this time no word had been spoken between them. How
impersonal and far away from him she seemed! While he was filled with
interest in her and eager to learn the secret springs of her life, she
was riding on and on, swaying to her horse as a flower on its slender
stem sways in a breeze, as undisturbed by him as if she were not a human
breathing girl, subject to man's dominating power.

Was she, then, so utterly untouched by his masculine presence? he
wondered. If he did not speak first, would she keep silent forever?
Should he wait and see? Should he will her to speak and of herself
unfold to him?

Suddenly she turned and looked clearly and pleasantly in his eyes.
"We'll be on a straight road for a piece after this hill; shall we hurry
a little then?"

"Certainly, if you think best. You set the pace, and I'll follow." Again
silence fell.

"Do you feel in a hurry?" he asked at length.

"I would like to get there soon. We can't tell what might be." She
pressed her hand an instant to her throat and drew in her breath as if
something hurt her.

"What is it?" he asked, drawing his horse nearer.

"Nothing. Only I wish we were there now."

"You are suffering in anticipation, and it isn't necessary. Better not,
indeed. Think of something else."

"Yes, suh." The two little words sounded humbly submissive. He had never
been so baffled in an endeavor to bring another soul into a mood
responsive to his own. This gentle acquiescence was not what he wished,
but that she should reveal herself and betray to him even a hint--a
gleam--of the deep undercurrent of her life.

Suddenly they emerged on the crest of a narrow ridge from which they
could see off over range after range of mountain peaks on one side,
growing dimmer, bluer, and more evanescent until lost in a heavenly
distance, and on the other side a valley dropping down and down into a
deep and purple gloom richly wooded and dense, surrounded by precipices
topped with scrubby, wind-blown pines and oaks--a wild and rocky descent
into mystery and seclusion. Here and there a slender thread of smoke,
intensely blue, rose circling and filtering through the purple density
against a black-green background of hemlocks.

Contrasted with the view on the other side, so celestially fair, this
seemed to present something sinister, yet weirdly beautiful--a baffling,
untamed wilderness. Along this ridge the road ran straight before them
for a distance, stony and bleak, and the air swept over it sweet and
strong from the sea, far away.

"Wait--wait a moment," he called, as his panting horse rounded the last
curve of the climb, and she had already put her own to a gallop. She
reined in sharply and came back to him, a glowing vision. "Stand a
moment near me. We'll let our horses rest a bit and ourselves, too.
There is strength and vitality in this air; breathe it in deeply. What
joy to be alive!"

She came near, and their horses held quiet communion, putting their
noses together contentedly. Cassandra lifted her head high and turned
her face toward the billowed mountains, and did what Thryng had not
known her to do, what he had wondered if she ever did-- She
laughed--laughed aloud and joyously.

"Why do you laugh?" he asked, and laughed with her.

"I'm that glad all at once. I don't know why. If the mountains could
feel and be glad, seems like they'd be laughing now away off there by
the sea. I wonder will I ever see the ocean."

"Of course you will. You are not going to live always shut up in these
mountains. Laugh again. Let me hear you."

But she turned on him startled eyes. "I clean forgot that poor man down
below, so like to die I am 'most afraid to get back there. Look down. It
must have been in a place like that where Christian slew Apollyon in the
dark valley, like I was reading to Hoyle last night."

"Does he live down in there? I mean the man Irwin--not Apollyon. He's
dead, for Christian slew him."

"Yes, the Irwins live there. See yonder that spot of cleared red ground?
There's their place. The house is hid by the dark trees nigh the red
spot. Can you make it out?"

"Yes, but I call that far."

"It's easy riding. Shall we go on? I'm that frightened--we'd better
hurry."

"Is that your way when you are afraid to do a thing; you hurry to do it
all the more?"

"Seems like we have to a heap of times. Seems like if I were only a man,
I could be brave, but being a girl so, it is right hard."

She started her horse to a gallop, and side by side they hurried over
the level top of the ridge--to Thryng an exhilarating moment, to her a
speeding toward some terrible, unknown trial.




CHAPTER X

IN WHICH CASSANDRA AND DAVID VISIT THE HOME OF DECATUR IRWIN


Soon the way became steep and difficult and the path so narrow they were
forced to go single file. Then Cassandra led and David followed. They
passed no dwellings, and even the little home to which they were going
was lost to view. He wondered if she were not weary, remembering that
she had been over the distance twice before that day, and begged her, as
he had done when they set out, to allow him to carry the basket, but
still she would not.

"I never think of it. I often carry things this way.--We have to here in
the mountains." She glanced back at him and smiled. "I reckon you find
it hard because you are not used to living like we do; we're soon there
now, see yonder?"

A turn in the path brought them in sight of the cabin, set in its bare,
desolate patch of red soil. About the door swarmed unkempt children of
all sizes, as bees hang out of an over-filled hive, the largest not more
than twelve years old, and the youngest carried on the mother's arm. It
was David's first visit to one of the poorest of the mountain homes, and
he surveyed the scene before him with dismay.

Below the house was a spring, and there, suspended from the
long-reaching branch of a huge beech tree, now leafless and bare, a
great, black iron pot swung by a chain over a fire built on the ground
among a heap of stones. On a board at one side lay wet, gray garments,
twisted in knots as they had been wrung out of the soapy water. The
woman had been washing, and the vapor was rising from the black pot of
boiling suds, but, seeing their approach, she had gone to her door, her
babe on her arm and the other children trooping at her heels and
clinging to her skirts. They peered up from under frowzy, overhanging
locks of hair like a group of ragged, bedraggled Scotch terriers.

The mother herself seemed scarcely older than the oldest, and Thryng
regarded her with amazement when he noticed her infantile, undeveloped
face and learned that she had brought into the world all those who
clustered about her. His amazement grew as he entered the dark little
cabin and saw that they must all eat and sleep in its one small room,
which they seemed to fill to overflowing as they crowded in after him,
accompanied by three lean hounds, who sniffed suspiciously at his
leggings.

Far in the darkest corner lay the father on a pallet of corn-husks
covered with soiled bedclothing. The windows were mere holes in the
walls, unglazed, unframed, and closed at night or in bad weather by
wooden shutters, when the room was lighted only by the flames from the
now black and empty fireplace. Here, while mother and children were out
by "the branch" washing, the injured man lay alone, stoically patient,
declaring that his "laig" was some better, that he did not feel "so much
misery in hit as yesterday."

Thryng had seen much squalor and wretchedness, but never before in a
home in the country where women and children were to be found. For a
moment he looked helplessly at the silent, staring group, and at the
man, who feebly tried to indicate to his wife the extending of some
courtesy to the stranger.

"Set a cheer, Polly," he said weakly, offering his great hand. "You are
right welcome, suh. Are you visitin' these parts?"

"This is the doctor I was telling you about, Cate,--Doctor Thryng. I
begged him to come up and see could he do anything for you," said
Cassandra. Then she urged the woman to go back to her work and take the
children with her. "Doctor and I will look after your old man awhile."
She succeeded in clearing the place of all but one lean hound, who
continued to stand by his master and lick his hand, whining presciently,
and one or two of the children, who lingered around the door to peer in
curiously at the doctor.

A shutter near the bed was tightly closed and, in struggling to open it,
Cassandra discovered it was broken at the hinges and had been nailed in
place. David flew to her assistance and, wrenching out the nails, tore
it free, letting in a flood of light upon the wretchedness around them.
Then he turned his attention to the patient, a man of powerful frame,
but lean almost to emaciation, who watched the young physician's face
silently with widely opened blue eyes, their pale color intensified by
the surrounding shock of matted, curling, vividly red hair and beard.

It required but a few moments to ascertain that the man's condition was
indeed critical. Cassandra had gone out and now returned with her hands
full of dry pine sticks. Bending on one knee before the empty fireplace,
she arranged them and hung a kettle over them full of fresh water. David
turned and watched her light the fire.

"Good. We shall need hot water immediately. How long since you have
eaten?" he asked the man.

"He hain't eat nothing all day," said the wife, who had returned and
again stood in the door with all her flock, gazing at him. Then the
woman grew plaintively garrulous about the trouble she had had "doin'
fer him," and begged David to tell her "could he he'p 'im." At last
Thryng put a hurried end to her talk by saying he could do
nothing--nothing at all for her old man, unless she took herself and the
children all away. She looked terror-stricken, and her mouth drew
together in a stubborn, resentful line as if in some way he had
precipitated ill luck upon them by his coming. Cassandra at once took
her basket and walked out toward the stream, and they all followed,
leaving David and the father in sole possession of the place.

Then he turned to the bed and began a kindly explanation. He found the
man more intelligent and much more tractable than the woman, but it was
hard to make him believe that he must inevitably lose either his life or
his foot, and that they had not an hour--not a half hour--to spare, but
must decide at once. David's manner, gentle, 

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