Drifting Down Lost Creek

II.

FOLLOWING the voice of the Lord, Cynthia took her way along a sandy bridle-path that penetrates the dense forests of Pine Mountain. The soft spring wind, fluttering in beneath her sun-bonnet, found the first wild-rose blooming on her thin cheek. A new light shone like a steadfast star in her deep brown eyes. “ I hev took a-holt,” she said resolutely, “ an’ I ’ll never gin it up. ’T war n’t his deed, an’ I ’ll prove that, agin his own word ; I dunno how, — but I ’ll prove it.”

The woods seemed to open at last, for the brink of the ridge was close at hand. As the trees were marshaled down the steep declivity, she could see above their heads the wide and splendid mountain landscape, with the benediction of the spring upon it, with the lofty peace of the unclouded sky above it, with an impressive silence pervading it that was akin to a holy solemnity.

There was a rocky, barren slope to the left, and among the brambly ledges sheep were feeding. As the flock caught her attention she experienced a certain satisfaction. “ They hed sheep in the Lord’s lifetime,” she observed. “ He gins a word bout ’n them more ’n enny other critter.” And she sat down on a rock, among the harmless creatures, and was less lonely and forlorn.

A little log house surmounted the slope. It was quaintly awry, like most of the mountaineers’ cabins, and the ridgepole, with its irregularly projecting clapboards serrating the sky behind it, described a negligently oblique line. The clay chimney had a leaning tendency, and was propped to its duty by a long pole. There was a lofty martin-house, whence the birds whirled fitfully. The rail fence inclosing the dooryard was only a few steps from the porch. Upon the cabin rested the genial afternoon sunshine. It revealed the spinningwheel that stood near the wall ; the shelf close to the door, with a pail of water and a gourd for the incidentally thirsty; the idle churn, its dasher on another shelf to dry ; a rooster strutting familiarly in at the open door; and a newly hatched brood picking about among the legs of the splint-bottomed chairs, under the guidance of a matronly old “ Dominicky ” hen. In one of the chairs sat a man, emaciated, pallid, swathed in many gay-colored quilts, and piping querulously in a high, piercing key to a worn and weary woman, who came to the fence and looked down the hill as he feebly pointed.

“ Cynthy — Cynthy Ware ! ” she called out; “ air that you-uns ? ”

Cynthia hesitated, then arose and went forward a few steps. “ It be me,” she said, as if making an admission.

Copyright, 1884, by HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & Co.

“ Kem up hyar. Jube’s wantin’ ter know why ye hain’t been hyar ter inquire arter him.” The woman waited at the gate, and opened it for her visitor. She looked hardly less worn and exhausted than the broken image of a man in the chair. “ Jube counts up every critter in the mountings ez kems ter inquire arter him,” she added, in a lower voice. “ ’Pears like ter me ez it air ’bout time fur worldly pride ter hev loosed a-holt on him ; but Satan kin foster guile whar thar ain’t enough life left fur nuthin’ else, an’ pore Jube hev never been so gin over ter the glory o’ this world ez now.”

“ He ’pears ter be gittin’ on some,” said the girl, although she hardly recognized in the puny, pallid apparition among the muffling quilts the rough and hale mountaineer she had known.

“Fust-rate!” weakly piped out the constable. “ I eat a haffen pone o’ bread fur dinner! ” Then he turned fractiously to his wife: “Jane Elmiry, ain’t ye goin’ ter git me that thar fraish aig ter whip up in whiskey, like the doctor said ? ”

“’T ain’t time yit, Jube,” replied the patient wife. “ The doctor ’lowed ez the aig must be spang fraish ; an’ ez old Topknot lays ter the minit every day, I’m a-waitin’ on her.”

The wasted limbs under the quilts squirmed around vivaciously. “ An’ yander’s the darned critter,” he cried, spying old Topknot leisurely pecking about under a lilac bush, “ a-feedin’ around ez complacent an’ sati’fied ez ef I war n’t a-settin’ hyar waitin’ on her lazy bones! Cynthy, I’m jes’ a-honing arter suthin’ ter eat all the time, an’ that’s what makes me ’low ez I’m gittin’ well; though Jane Elmiry” — he glared fiercely at his meek wife — “ hev somehows los’ her knack at cookin’, an’ sometimes I can’t eat my vittles when they air fetched ter me.”

He fell back in his chair, his tangled, overgrown hair hardly distinguishable from his tangled, overgrown beard. His eyes roved restlessly about the quiet landscape. A mist was gathering over the eastern ranges; shot with the sunlight, it was but a silken and filmy suggestion of vapor. A line of vivid green in the valley marked the course of Lost Creek by the willows and herbage fringing its banks. A gilded bee, with a languorous drone, drifted in and out of the little porch, and the shadow of the locust above it was beginning to lengthen. The tree was in bloom, and Cynthia picked up a fallen spray as she sat down on the step. Jubal glanced casually at her; then, with the egotism of an invalid, his mind reverted to himself.

“ Why hain’t ye been hyar ter inquire arter me, Cynthy, —you-uns, or yer dad, or yer mam, or somebody ? I hain’t been lef’ ter suffer, though, ’thout folkses axin’ arter me, I tell ye! The miller hev been hyar day arter day. Baker Teal, what keeps the store yander ter the Settlemint, hev rid over reg’lar. Tom Peters kems ez sartain ez the sun. An’ the jestice o’ the peace,” he winked weakly in triumph, “Squair Bates, hev been hyar nigh on ter wunst a week. The sheriff or one o’ the dep’ties hain’t been sca’ce round hyar, nuther. An’ some other folkses — I name no names — sends me all the liquor I kin drink from a still ez they say grows in a hollow rock round hyar somewhar’. They sends me all I kin drink, an’ Jane Elmiry, too. I don’t want but a little, but Jane Elmiry air a tremenjious toper, ye know ! ” He laughed in a shrill falsetto at his joke, and his wife smiled, but faintly, for she realized that the invalid’s pleasant mood was brief. “ Ef I hed a-knowed how pop’lar I be, I’d hev run fur jestice o’ the peace stidder constable. But nex’ time thar ‘ll be a differ; that hain’t the las’ ’lection this world will ever see, Cynthy.” Then, as his eyes fell upon her once more, he remembered his question. “ Why n’t ye been hyar ter inquire arter me? ”

The girl was confused by his changed aspect, his eager, restless talk, his fierce girding at his patient wife, and lost what scanty tact she might have otherwise claimed.

“ The folkses ez rid by hyar tole us how ye be a-gittin’ on. An’ we-uns ’lowed ez mebbe ye would n’t want ter see us, bein’ ez we war always sech friends with ’Vander, an’ ” —

The woman stopped her by a hasty gesture and a look of terror. They did not escape the invalid’s notice.

“ What ails ye, Jane Elmiry ? ” he cried, angrily. “ Ye act like ye war destracted ! ”

A sudden fit of coughing impeded his utterance, and gave his wife the opportunity for a whispered aside. “ He hain’t spoke ’Vander’s name sence he war hurt. The doctor said he war n’t ter talk about his a-gittin’ hurt, an’ the man ez done it. The doctor ’lowed ’t would fever him an’ put him out ’n his head, an’ he must jes’ think ’bout ’u gittin’ well all the time, an’ sech.”

Jubal Tynes had recovered his voice and his temper. “ I hain’t got no grudge agin ’Vander,” he declared, in his old, bluff way, “ nur ’Vander’s friends, nuther. It air jes’ that dad-burned idjit, ’Lijah, ez I despise. Jane Elmiry, ain’t that old Topknot ez I hear a-cacklin’ ? Waal, waal, sir, dad-burn that thar lazy, idle poultry! Air she a-stalkin’ round the yard yit ? Go, Jane Elmiry, an’ see whar she be. Ef she hain’t got sense enough ter git on her nest an’ lay a aig when desirable, she hain’t got sense enough ter keep out ’n a chicken pie.”

“ I mought skeer her off ’n her nest,” his wife remonstrated.

But the imperious invalid insisted. She rose reluctantly; as she stepped off the porch she cast an imploring glance at Cynthia.

The girl was trembling. The mere mention of the deed to its victim had unnerved her. She felt it was perhaps a safe transition from the subject to talk about the idiot brother. “ I hev hearn folks ’low ez ’Lijah oughter be locked up, but I dunno,” she said.

The man fixed a concentrated gaze upon her. “ Waal, ain’t he ? ”

“ ’Lijah ain’t locked up,” she faltered, bewildered.

His face fell. Unaccountably enough, his pride seemed grievously cut down. “ Waal, ’Lijah ain’t ’sponsible, I know,” he reasoned ; “ but bein’ ez he treated me this way, an’ me a important off’cer o’ the law, ’pears-like ’t would a-been more respec’ful ef they hed committed him ter jail ez insane, or sent him ter the ’sylum, fur they take some crazies at the State’s expense.” He paused thoughtfully. He was mortified, hurt. “ But shucks ! ” he exclaimed presently, “let him treat haffen the county ez he done me, ef he wants ter. I ain’t a-keerin’.”

Cynthia’s head was awhirl. She could hardly credit her senses.

“ How war it that ’Lijah treated youuns ? ” she gasped.

In his own turn he stared, amazed. “ Cynthy, ’pears like ye hev los’ yer mind! How did ’Lijah treat me? Waal, ’Lijah whacked me on the head with his brother’s sledge, an’ split my skull, an’ the folks say some o’ my brains oozed out. I hev got more of ’em now, though, than ye hev. Ye look plumb bereft. What ails the gal ? ”

“ Air ye sure — sure ez that war the happening of it? — ’kase ’Vander tells a differ. He ’lowed ez ’t war him ez hit ye with the sledge. An’ nobody suspicioned ’Lijah.”

Jubal Tynes looked very near death now. His pallid face was framed in long elf-locks ; he thrust his head forward, till his emaciated throat and neck were distinctly visible, and his lower jaw dropped in astonishment. “ God A’mighty ! ” he ejaculated, “ why hev ’Vander tole sech a lie ? Sure! Why, I seen ’Lijah! ’Vander never tetched the sledge, an’ ’Vander never tetched me.”

“ Ye hev furgot, mebbe,” she urged, feverishly. “ ’T war in the dark.”

“ Listen at the gal argufyin’ with me ! ” he exclaimed, angrily. “ I seen ’Lijah, I tell ye, in the light o’ the forge fire. T war n’t more ’n a few coals, but ez ’Lijah swung his arm it fanned the fire, an’ it lept up. I seen his face in the glow, an’ the sledge in his hand. ’Lijah war hid a-hint the hood. ’Vander war t’ other side o’ the anvil. I gripped with ’Lijah. I seen him plain, He hit me twict. I never los’ my senses till the second lick. Then I dropped. What ails ’Vander ter tell sech a lie ? Ef I hed a-died, stidder gittin’ well so powerful peart, they ’d hev hung him, sure.”

“Mebbe he thought they’d hang ’Lijah ! ” she gasped, appalled at the magnitude of the sacrifice.

“ ’Lijah ain’t ’sponsible ter the law,” said Jubal Tynes, with his magisterial aspect, “ bein’ ez he air a ravin’ crazy, ez oughter be locked up.”

“ I reckon ’Vander never knowed ez that war true,” she rejoined, reflectively. “The ’torney gineral tole Pete Blenkins, when ’Vander war convicted of receivin’ of stolen goods, ez how ’Vander war toler’ble ignorant, an’ knowed powerful little ’bout the law o’ the land. He done it, I reckon, ter pertect the idjit.”

Jubal Tynes made no rejoinder. He had fallen back in his chair, so frail, so exhausted by the unwonted excitement, that she was alarmed anew, realizing how brief his time might be.

“Jubal Tynes,” she said, leaning forward and looking up at him imploringly, “ ef I war ter tell what ye hev tole me, nobody would believe me, ’kase — ‘kase ’Vander an’ me hev kep’ company some. Hed n’t ye better tell it ter the Squair ez how ’Vander never hit ye, but said he did, ter git the blame shet o’ the idjit ’Lijah, ez ain’t ’sponsible, nohows ? Ain’t thar no way ter make it safe fur’ Vander? They ’lowed he would n’t hev been convicted of receivin’ of stolen goods ’ceptin’ fur the way the jury thought he behaved ’bout resistin’ arrest an’ hittin’ ye with the sledge.”

The sick man’s eyes were aflame. “ Ye ’low ez I’m goin’ ter die, Cynthy Ware ! ” he cried, with sudden energy. “I ’ll gin ye ter onderstand ez I feel ez strong ez a ox ! I won’t do nuthin’ fur ’Vander. Let him stan’ or fall by the lie he hev tole ! I feel ez solid ez Pine

Mounting! I won’t do nuthin’ ez ef I war a-goin’ ter die, —like ez ef I war a chicken with the pip — an’ whar air that old hen ez war nominated ter lay a aig, ter whip up in whiskey, an’ ain’t done it ? ”

A sudden wild cackling broke upon the air. The red rooster, standing by the gate, stretched up his long neck to listen, and lifted his voice in jubilant sympathy. Jubal Tynes looked around at Cynthia with a laugh. Then his brow darkened, and his mind reverted to his refusal.

“ Ye jes’ onderstan’,” he reiterated, “ ez I won’t do nuthin’ like ez ef I war goin’ ter die.”

She got home as best she could, weeping and wringing her hands much of the way, feeling baffled and bruised, and aghast at the terrible perplexities that crowded about her.

Jubal Tynes had a bad night. He was restless and fretful, and sometimes, when he had been still for a while, and seemed about to sink into slumber, he would start up abruptly, declaring that he could not “ git shet of studyin’ ’bout ’n ’Vander an’ ’Lijah an’ the sledge,” and violently wishing that Cynthia Ware had died before she ever came interrupting him about ’Vander and ’Lijah and the sledge. Toward morning exhaustion prevailed. He sank into a deep, dreamless sleep, from which he woke refreshed and interested in the matter of breakfast.

That day a report went the excited rounds of the mountain that he had made a sworn statement before Squire Bates, denying that Evander Price had resisted arrest, exonerating him from all connection with the injuries supposed to have been received at his hands, and inculpating only the idiot Elijah. This was supplemented by Dr. Patton’s affidavit as to his patient’s mental soundness and responsibility.

It aroused Cynthia’s flagging spirit to an ecstasy of energy. Her strength was as fictitious as the strength of delirium, but it sufficed. Opposition could not baffle it. Obstacles but multiplied its expedients. She remembered that the trained and astute attorney for the State had declared to Pete Blenkins, after the trial, that the prosecution had no case against Evander Price for receiving stolen goods, and must have failed but for the prejudice of the jury. It was proved to them by his own confession that he had resisted arrest and assaulted the officer of the law, and circumstantial evidence had a light task, with this auxiliary, to establish other charges. Now, she thought, if the jury that convicted him, the judge who sentenced him, and the governor of the State were cognizant of this stupendous self-sacrifice of fraternal affection, could they, would they, still take seven years of his life from him ? At least, they should know of it, — she had resolved on that. She hardly appreciated the difficulty of the task before her. She was densely ignorant. She lived in a primitive community. Such a paper as a petition for executive clemency had never been drawn within its experience. She could not have discovered that this proceeding was practicable, except for the pride of office and legal lore of Jubal Tynes. He joyed in displaying his learning; but beyond the fact that such a paper was possible, and sometimes successful, and that she had better see the lawyer at the Settlement about it, he suggested nothing of value. So she tramped a matter of ten miles along the heavy, sandy road, through the dense and lonely woods ; and weary, but flushed with joyous hope, she came upon the surprised lawyer at the Settlement. He was a man who built the great structure of justice upon a foundation of fees. He listened to her, noted the poverty of her aspect, and recommended her to secure the cooperation of the convict’s immediate relatives. And so, patiently, she went back again, along the dank and darkening mountain road.

The home of her lover was not an inviting abode. When she had turned from the thoroughfare into a vagrant, irresponsible-looking path, winding about in the depths of the forest, it might have seemed that in a group which presently met her eyes the animals were the more emotional, alert, and intelligent element. The hounds came huddling over the rickety fence, and bounded about her in tumultuous recognition. An old sow, with a litter of shrill soprano pigs, started up from a clump of weeds, in maternal anxiety and doubt of the intruder’s intentions. The calf peered between the rails in mild wonder at this break in the monotony. An old man sat motionless on the fence, with an aspect as sober and business-like as if he did it for a salary. The porch was occupied by an indiscriminate collection of household effects, — cooking utensils, garments, broken chairs, — and an untidy, disheveled woman. An old crone, visible within the door, was leisurely preparing the evening meal. Cynthia’s heart warmed at the sight of the familiar place. The tears started to her sympathetic eyes. “ I hev kem ter tell ye all ’bout ’n ’Vander! ” she cried impulsively, when she was welcomed to a chair and a view of the weed-grown “ gyarden-spot.”

But the disclosure of her scheme did not waken responsive enthusiasm. The old man, still dutifully riding the fence, conservatively declared that the law o’ the land war a mighty tetchy contrivance, an’ he did n’t feel called on ter meddle with it. They mought jail the whole fambly, ez fur ez he knew, an’ then who would work the gyarden-spot, ez war thrivin’ now, an’ the peas fullin’ up cornsider’ble ? Mrs. Price ’lowed ez she lied no call ter holp sot the law on ’Lijah agin ’Vander’s word. She did n’t know what the folks would do ter ’Lijah ef Jube died, sence he hed swore ez he hed done afore Squair Bates. Some told her ez ‘Lijah war purtected by bein’ a idjit, but she war n’t sati’fied ’bout ’n that. ’Lijah war sane enough ter be toler’ble skeered when he hearn ’bout ’n it all, an’ hed tuk ter shettin’ hisself up in the shed-room when strangers kem about. And indeed Cynthia had an unpleasant impression that the idiot was looking out suspiciously at her from a crack in the door; but he precipitately slammed it when she turned her head, to make sure. The old crone paused in her preparations for supper, that she might apply all her faculties to argument. “ I don’t ’pear ter reason how the gov’nor will pardon ’Vander fur receivin’ of stolen goods jes’ ’kase’t war n’t him ez bruk Jube Tynes’s head,” she declared. “ ’Vander war jailed fur receivin’ stolen goods, — nobody never keered nothin’ fur Jube Tynes’s head! I hev knowed the Tynes fambly time out ’n mind,” she continued, raising her voice in shrill contempt. “ I knowed Jubal Tynes, an’ his daddy afore him. An’ now ter kem talkin’ ter me ’bout the gov’nor o’ Tennessee keeria’ fur Jube Tynes’s nicked head ! I don’t keer nothin’ ’bout Jube Tynes’s nicked head ; an’ let ’em tell the gov’nor that fur me, an’ see what he will think then ! ”

Poor Cynthia! It had never occurred to her to account herself gifted beyond her fellows and her opportunities. The simple events of their primitive lives had never before elicited the contrast. It gave her no satisfaction. She only experienced a vague, miserable wonder that she should have perceptions beyond their range of vision, should be susceptible of emotions which they could never share. She realized that she could get no material aid here, and she went away at last without asking for it.

Her little all was indeed little, — a few chickens, some “ spun - truck,” a sheep that she had nursed from an orphaned lamb, a “ cag ” of apple-vinegar, and a bag of dried fruit, — but it had its value to the mountain lawyer; and when he realized that this was indeed “ all,” he drew the petition in consideration thereof, and appended the affidavits of Jubal Tynes and Dr. Patton.

“ She ain’t got a red head on her for nothin’,” he said to himself, in admiration of her astuteness in insisting that, as a part of his services, he should furnish her with a list of the jury that convicted Evander Price.

“ For every man of ’em hev got ter sot his name ter that thar petition,” she averred.

He even offered, when his energy and interest were aroused, to take the paper with him to Sparta when he next attended circuit court. There, he promised, he would secure some influential signatures from the members of the bar and other prominent citizens.

When she was fairly gone he forgot his energy and interest. He kept the paper three months. He did not once offer it for a signature. When she demanded its return, it was mislaid, lost.

Oratory is a legal requisite in that region. The lawyer might have taken some fine points from her unconscious eloquence, inspired by love and grief and despair, her scathing arraignment of his selfish neglect, her upbraidings and alternate appeals. They overwhelmed him, in some sort, and yet he was roused into sufficient activity to hunt up the lost manuscript. She went away with it, leaving him in rueful meditation. “She hain’t got a red head on her for nothin’,” he said, remembering her pungent rhetoric.

But as he glanced out of the door, and saw her trudging down the road, all her grace and pliant, swaying languor lost in convulsive, awkward haste and a feeble, jerky gait, he laughed.

For poor Cynthia had become indeed a grotesque figure. Only Time can pose a crusader to picturesque advantage. The man or woman with a great and noble purpose bears about with it a pitiful little personality that reflects none of its lustre. Cynthia’s devotion, her courage, her endurance in righting this wrong, were not so readily apparent, when in the valley she went tramping from one juror’s house to another’s, as her travel-stained garments, her wild, eager eye, her incoherent, anxious speech, her bare, swollen feet, — for sometimes she was fain to carry her coarse shoes in her hands, for relief in the long journeyings. Her father had refused to aid “ sech a fool yerrand,” and had locked up his mare in the shed. Without a qualm, he had beheld Cynthia resolutely set out on foot. “She’ll be back afore the cows kem home,” he said, with a laughing nod at his wife. But they came lowing home and clanking their mellow bells in many and many a red sunset before they again found Cynthia waiting for them on the hanks of Lost Creek.

The descent to a lower level was a painful experience to the little mountaineer. She was “ sifflicated ” by the denser atmosphere of the “ valley country,” and exhausted by the heat; but when she could think only of her mission she was hopeful, elated, and joyously kept on her thorny way. Sometimes, however, the dogs barked at her, and the children hooted after her, and the men and women she met looked askance upon her, and made her humbly conscious of her disheveled, dusty attire, her awkward, hobbling gait, her lean, hungry, worn aspect. Occasionally somebody asked for her story, and listened incredulously and with sarcastic comments. Once, as she went on her way she heard her interlocutor call out to some one at the back of the house, “ Becky, take them clothes in off ’n the line, an’ take ’em in quick! ” And although her physical sufferings were great, she had some tears to shed for sorrow’s sake.

Always she got a night’s lodging at the house of one or another of the twelve jurymen, whose names were gradually affixed to the petition. But they too had questions that were hard to answer. “ Are you kin of his ? ” they would ask, impressed by her hardships and her self-immolation. And when she would answer, “ No,” she would fancy that the shelter they gave her was not in confidence, but for mere humanity. They were poor men, mostly, but one of them stopped his plowing to lend her his horse to the next house, and another gave her a lift of ten miles in his wagon. He it was who told her, in rehearsing the country-side gossip, that the governor was canvassing the State for reëlection, and had made an appointment to speak at Sparta the following day.

A new idea flashed into her mind. Her sudden resolution fairly frightened her. She cowered before it, as they drove along between the fields of yellowing corn, all in the gairish sunshine, spreading so broadly over the broad plain. That night she lay awake thinking of it, while the cold drops started upon her brow. Before daybreak she was up and trudging along the road to Sparta. It was still early when she entered the little town of the mountain bench, set in the flickering mists and chill, matutinal sunshine, and encompassed on every hand by the mighty ranges. A flag floated from the roof of the court-house, and there was an unusual stir in the streets. Excited groups were talking at every corner, and among a knot of men, standing near, one riveted her attention. He had been spoken of in her hearing as the governor of the State. Bold with the realization of the opportunity, she pushed through the staring crowd and thrust the much-thumbed petition into his hand. Me cast a surprised glance upon her, then looked at the paper. “ All right; I ‘ll examine it,” he said hastily, and folding it he turned away. In his political career he had studied many faces. Despite her ignorance, her poverty, and the low, criminal atmosphere of her mission, he read in her eyes the dignity of her endeavor, the nobility of her nature, and the prosaic martyrdom of her toilsome experience. He suddenly turned back to reassure her. “ Rely on it,” he said heartily, “ I ‘ll do what I can.”

Her pilgrimage was accomplished; there was nothing more but to turn her face to the mountains. It seemed to her at times as if she should never reach them. They were weary hours before she came upon Lost Creek, loitering down the sunlit valley, to vanish in the grewsome caverns beneath the range. The sumach leaves were crimsoning along its banks. The scarlet-oak emblazoned the mountain side. Above the encompassing heights the sky was blue, and the mountain air tasted like wine. Never a crag or chasm so sombre but flaunted some swaying vine or long tendriled moss, gilded and gleaming yellow. Buckeyes were falling, and the ashy “ Indian pipes ” silvered the roots of the trees. In every marshy spot glowed the scarlet cardinal-flower, and the goldenrod had sceptred the season. Now and again the forest quiet was broken by the patter of acorns from the chestnut-oaks, and the mountain swine were abroad for the plenteous mast. Overhead she heard the faint, weird cry of wild geese winging southward. The whole aspect of the scene was changed, save that of Pine Mountain. There it stood, solemn, majestic, mysterious, masked by its impenetrable growth, and hung about with duskier shadows wherever a ravine indented the slope. The spirit within it was chanting softly, softly. For the moment she felt the supreme exaltation of the mountains. It lifted her heart. And when a sudden fluctuating red glare shot out over the murky shades, and the dull sighing of the bellows reached her ear from the forge on the mountain’s brink, and the air was presently vibrating with the clinking of the hand-hammer and the clanking of the sledge, and the crags clamored with the old familiar echoes, she realized that she had done all she sought to do ; that she had gone forth helpless but for her own brave spirit; that she had returned helpful and hopeful ; and that here was her home, and she loved it. This enabled her better to endure the anger and the reproaches of her relatives, and the curiosity and covert suspicion of the whole country side.

Evander’s people regarded the situation with grave misgivings. “ I hope ter the mercy-seat,” quavered old man Price, “ ez Cynthy Ware hain’t gone an’ actially sot the gov’nor o’ Tennessee more ’n ever agin that pore critter ; but I misdoubts,” — he shook his head piteously, as he perched on the fence, — “I misdoubts.”

“ An’ the insurance o’ that thar gal! ” cried Mrs. Price. She never hed no call ter meddle with ’Vander.”

Cynthia’s mother entertained this view also, but for a different reason. “ ’T war no consarn o’ Cynthy’s, nohow,” she said, advising with her daughter Maria. “ Cynthy air neither kith nor kin o’ ’Vander, who air safer an’ likelier in the pen’tiary ’n ennywhar else, ’kase it leaves her no ch’ice but Jeemes Blake, ez she hed better take whilst he air in the mind fur it, an’ whilst she kin git him.”

Jubal Tynes wished that he could have foreseen that Cynthia would meet the governor, for he could have told her exactly what to say; and this, he was confident, would have secured the pardon then. And it was clearly the opinion of the “ mounting,” expressed in the choice coteries assembled at the mill, the blacksmith-shop, the Settlement, and the stillhouse, that a young gal like Cynthy had transcended all the bounds of propriety in this wild junketing after “ gov’nors an’ sech through all the valley country, whar she war n’t knowed from a gatepost, nor her dad nuther.”

There were, however, doubters, who disparaged the whole account of the journey as a fable, and circulated a whisper that the petition had never been presented. This increased to open incredulity as time wore on, to ridicule, to taunts, for no words came of the petition for pardon and no word of the prisoner.

The bleak winter wore away ; spring budded and bloomed into summer ; summer was ripening into autumn, and every day — as the corn yellowed and the thickly swathed ears hung far from the stalk, and the drone of the locust was loud in the grass, and the deep, slumberous glow of the sunshine suffused every open spot — Cynthia, with the return of the season, was vividly reminded of her weary ploddings, with bleeding feet and aching head, between such fields along the lengthening valley roads. The physical anguish she remembered seemed light — seemed naught — to the anguish of suspense which racked her now. Sometimes she felt impelled to a new endeavor. Then her strong common sense checked the useless impulse. She had done all that could be done. She had planted the seed. She had worked and watched, and beheld it spring up and put forth and grow into fair proportions. Only time might bring its full fruition.

The autumn was fading; cold rains set in, and veined the rocky chasms with alien torrents ; the birds had all flown, when suddenly the Indian summer, with its golden haze and its great red sun, its purple distances and its languorous joy, its balsamic perfumes and its vagrant day-dreams, slipped down upon the gorgeous crimson woods, and filled them with its glamour and its poetry.

On one of these days — a perfect day — a great sensation pervaded Pine Mountain. Word went the rounds that a certain notorious horse-thief, who had served out his term in the penitentiary, had stopped at the blacksmith-shop on his way home, glad enough of the prospect of being there once more ; “an’ ez pious in speech as the rider, mighty nigh,” declared the dwellers about Pin Mountain, unfamiliar with his aspect as a penitent and discounting his repentance. It was a long story he had to tell about himself, and he enjoyed posing as the central figure in the curious crowd that had gathered about him. He seemed for the time less like a criminal than a great traveler, so strange and full of interest to the simple mountaineers were his experiences and the places he had seen. He stood leaning against the anvil, as he talked, looking out through the barn-like door upon the amplitude of the great landscape before him ; its mountains so dimly, delicately blue in the distance, so deeply red and brown and yellow nearer at hand, and still closer, shaded off by the dark plumy boughs of the pines on either side of the ravine above which the forge was perched. Deep in the valley, between them all, Lost Creek hied along, veining the purple haze with lines of palpitating silver. It was only when the material for personal narration was quite exhausted that he touched, though with less zest, on other themes.

“Waal, — now, ’Vander Price,” he drawled, shifting his great cowhide boots one above another. “ I war ’stonished when I hearn ez ’Vander war in fur receivin’ of stolen goods. Shucks ! ” — his little black eyes twinkled beneath the drooping brim of a white wool hat, and his wide, flat face seemed wider and flatter for a contemptuous grin, — “I can’t onderstand how a man kin git his own cornsint ter go cornsortin’ with them ez breaks inter stores and dwellin’s an’ sech, an’ hankerin’ arter store-fixin’s an’ store-truck. Live stock air a differ. The beastis air temptin’, partic’lar ef they air young an’ hev got toler’ble paces.” Perhaps a change in the faces of his audience admonished him, for he qualified: ‘‘The beastis air temptin’—ter the ungodly. I hev gin over sech doin’s myself, ’kase we hed a toler’ble chaplain yander in the valley ” (he alluded thus equivocally to his late abode), “ an’ I sot under the preachin’ a good while. But store-truck ! — Shucks ! Waal, the gyards ’lowed ez ’Vander war a turrible feller ter take keer on, when they war a-fetchin’ him down ter Nashvul. He jes’ seemed desolated. One minit he’d fairly cry, ez ef every sob would take his life; an’ the nex’ he’d be squarin’ off ez savage, an’ tryin’ ter hit the gyards in the head. He war ironed, hand an’ foot.”

There was no murmur of sympathy. All listened with stolid curiosity, except Cynthia, who was leaning against the open door. The tears forced their way, and silently flowed, unheeded, down her cheeks. She fixed her brown eyes upon the man as he went on : —

“ But when they struck the railroad, an’ the critter seen the iron engine ez runs by steam, like I war a-tellin’ ye about, he jes’ stood rooted ter the spot in amaze; they could sca’cely git him budged away from thar. They ’lowed they hed never seen sech joy ez when he war travelin’ on the steam-kyars ahint it. When they went a-skeetin’ along ez fast an’ ez steady ez a turkeybuzzard kin fly, ’Vander would jes’ look fust at one o’ the gyards an’ then at t’other, a-smilin’ an’ tickled nearly out ’n his senses. An’ wunst he said, ‘ Ef this ain’t the glory o’ God revealed in the work o’ man, what is ? ’ The gyards ’lowed he acted so cur’ous they would hev b’lieved he war a plumb ijit, ef it hed n’t a-been fur what happened arterward at the Pen.”

“ Waal, what war it ez happened at the Pen ? ” demanded Pete Blenkins. His red face, suffused with the glow of the smouldering forge-fire, was a little wistful, as if he grudged his quondam striker these unique sensations.

“ They put him right inter the forge at the Pen, an’ he tuk ter the work like a pig ter carrots.” The ex-convict paused for a moment, and cast his eye disparagingly about the primitive smithy. “ They do a power o’ work thar, Pete, ez you-uns never drempt of.”

“ Shucks ! ” rejoined Pete incredulously, yet a trifle ill at ease.

“’Vander war a good blacksmith fur the mountings, but they sot him ter l’arnin’ thar. They ‘lowed, though, ez he war pearter ’n the peartest. He got ter be powerful pop’lar with all the gyards an’ authorities, an’ sech. He war plumb welded ter his work, — he sets more store by metal than by grace. He ’lowed ter me ez he would n’t hev missed bein’ thar fur nothin’ ! ’Vander air a powerful cur’ous critter : he ’lowed ter me ez one year in the forge at the Pen war wuth a hunderd years in the mountings ter him.”

Poor Cynthia ! Her eyes, large, luminous, and sweet, with the holy rapture of a listening saint, were fixed upon the speaker’s evil, uncouth face. Evander had not then been so unhappy!

“ But when they hired out the convict labor ter some iron works’ folks, ’Vander war glad ter go, ’kase he’d git ter l’arn more yit ’bout workin’ in iron an’ sech. An’ he war powerful outed when he hed ter kem back, arter ten months, from them works. He hed tuk his stand in metal thar, too. An’ he hed fixed some sort ’n contrivance ter head rivets quicker ’n cheaper ’n it air ginerally done ; an’ he war afeard ter try ter git it ‘ patented,’ ez he calls it, ’kase he b’lieved the Pen could claim it ez convict labor, though some said not. Leastwise, he determinated ter hold on ter his idee till his term war out. But he war powerful interrupted in his mind, fur fear somebody else would think up the idee, too, an’ patent it fust. He war powerful irked by the Pen arter he kem back from the iron works. He ’lowed ter me ez he war fairly crazed ter git back ter ’em. He ’lowed ez he hed ruther see that thar big shed an’ the red-hot puddler’s balls a-trundlin’ about, an’ all the wheels a-whurlin’, an’ the big shears a-bitin’ the metal ez nip, an’ the tremenjious hammer a-poundin’ away, an’ all the dark night around split with lines o’ fire, than to see the hills o’ heaven ! It ’pears to me mo’ like hell! But jes’ when ’Vander war honing arter them works ez ef it would kill him ter bide away from thar, his pardon kem. He fairly lept an’ shouted fur joy ! ”

“ His pardon ! ” cried Cynthia.

“Air ’Vander pardoned fur true?” exclaimed a chorus of mountaineers.

The ex-convict stared about him in surprise. “ Ain’t you-uns knowed that afore ? ’Vander hev been out ’n the Pen a year.”

A year ! A vague, chilly premonition thrilled through Cynthia. “ Whar be he now ? ” she asked.

“ Yander ter them iron works. He lit out straight. I seen him las’ week, when I war travelin’ from my cousin Jerry’s house, whar I went ez soon ez I got out ’n the Pen. The steam-kyars stopped at a station ez be nigh them iron works, an’ I met up with ’Vander on the platform. That’s how I fund out all I hev been a-tellin’ ye, ’kase we did n’t hev no time ter talk whilst we war in the Pen ; they don’t allow no chin-choppin’ thar. When ’Vander war released the folks at the iron works tuk him ter work on weges, an’ gin him eighty dollars a month.”

There was an outburst of incredulity.

“ Waal, sir ! ”

“ Tim’thy, ye kerry that mouth o’ yourn too wide open, an’ it leaks out all sorts o’ lies ! ”

“ We-uns know ye of old, Tim’thy !”

“ Pine Mounting hain’t furgot ye yit!”

“ I would n’t gin eighty dollars fur ’Vander Price, hide, horns, an’ taller ! ” declared Pete Blenkins, folding his big arms over his leathern apron, and looking about with the air of a man who has placed his valuation at extremely liberal limits.

“ I knowed ye would n’t b’lieve that, but it air gospel-true,” protested the exconvict. “ Thar is more money a-goin’ in the valley ’n thar is in the mountings, an’ folks pays more fur work. Besides that, ’Vander hev got a patent, ez he calls it, fur his rivet contrivance, an’ he ’lows ez it hev paid him some a’ready. It’ll sorter stiffen up the backbone o’ that word ef I tell ye ez he ’lowed ez he hed jes’ sent two hunderd dollars ter Squair Bates ter lift the mortgage off ’n old man Price’s house an’ land, an’ two hunderd dollars more ter be gin ter his dad ez a presint. An’ Squair Bates acted ’cordin’ ter ’Vander’s word, an’ lifted the mortgage, an’ handed old man Price the balance. An’ what do ye s’pose old man Price done with the money? He went right out an’ buried it in the woods, fur fear he’d be pulled out ’n his bed fur it, some dark night, by lawless ones. He’ll never find it agin, I reckon. The idjit hed more sense. I seen ’Lijali diggin’ fur it, ez I rid by thar ter-day.”

“ Did ’Vander ’low when he air comin’ back ter Pine Mounting?” asked Pete Blenkins. “ He hev been gone two year an’ a half now.”

“ I axed him that word. An’ he said he mought kem back ter see his folks nex’ year, mebbe, or the year arter that. But I misdoubts. He air so powerful tuk up with metal an’ iron, an’ sech, an’ so keen ’bout his ’ventions, ez he calls ’em, ez he seemed mighty glad ter git shet o’ the mountings. ’Vander ’lows ez you-uns dunno nothin’ ’bout iron up hyar, Pete.”

It was too plain. Cynthia could not deceive herself. He had forgotten her. His genius, once fairly evoked, possessed him, and faithfully his ambitions served it. His love, in comparison, was but a little thing, and he had left it in the mountains, — the mountains that he did not regret, that had barred him so long from all he valued, that had freed him him at last only through the prison doors. His love had been an unavowed love, and there was no duty broken. For the first time she wondered if he ever knew that she cared for him, — if he never remembered. And then she was suddenly moved to ask, “ Did he ’low ter you-uns who got his pardon fur him ? ”

“ I axed that word when las’ I seen him, an’ the critter said he actially hed never tuk time ter think ’bout ’n that. He ’lowed he war so tickled ter git away from the pen’tiary right straight ter the iron works an’ the consarn he hed made ter head rivets so peart, ez he never wondered bout ’n it. He made sure, though, now he hed kem ter study bout ’n it, ez his dad hed done it, or it mought hev been gin him fur good conduc’ an’ sech.”

“ ’T war Cynthy Ware hyar ez done some of it,” explained Pete Blenkins, “ though Jubal Tynes stirred himself right smart.”

As Cynthia walked slowly back to her home in the gorge, she did not feel that she had lavished a noble exaltation and a fine courage in vain ; that the subtlest essence of a most ethereal elation was expended as the motive power of a result that was at last flat, and sordid, and most material. She did not murmur at the cruelty of fate that she should be grieving for his woes while he was so happy, so blithely busy. She did not regret her self-immolation. She did not grudge all that love had given him ; she rejoiced that it was so sufficient, so nobly ample. She grudged only the wasted feeling, and she was humbled when she thought of it.

The sun had gone down, but the light yet lingered. The evening star trembled above Pine Mountain. Massive and darkling it stood against the red west. How far, ah, how far, stretched that mellow crimson glow, all adown Lost Creek Valley, and over the vast mountain solitudes on either hand! Even the eastern ranges were rich with this legacy of the dead and gone day, and purple and splendid they lay beneath the rising moon. She looked at it with full and shining eyes.

“I dunno how he kin make out ter furgit the mountings,” she said; and then she went on, hearing the crisp leaves rustling beneath her tread, and the sharp bark of a fox in the silence of the night-shadowed valley.

Mrs. Ware had predicted bitter things of Cynthia’s future, more perhaps in anger than with discrect foresight. Now, when her prophecy was in some sort verified, she shrank from it, as if with the word she had conjured up the fact. And her pride was touched in that her daughter should have been given the “ go-by,” as she phrased it. All the mountain — nay, all the valley — would know of it. “ Law, Cynthy,” she exclaimed, aghast, when the girl had rehearsed the news, “ what be ye a-goin’ ter do ? ”

“ I’m a-goin’ ter weavin’,” said Cynthia. She already had the shuttle in her hand. It was a useful expression for a broken heart, as she was expert at the loom.

She became so very skillful, with practice, that it was generally understood to be mere pastime when she would go to help a neighbor through the weaving of the cloth for the children’s clothes. She went about much on this mission ; for although there were children at home, the work was less than her industry, and she seemed “ter hev a craze fur stirrin’ about, an’ war a toler’ble oneasy critter.” She was said to have “ broken some sence ’Vander gin her the go-by, like he done,” and was spoken of at the age of twenty-one as a “ settled single woman ; ” for early marriages are the rule in the mountains. When first her father and then her mother died, she cared for all the household, and the world went on much the same. The monotony of her tragedy made it unobtrusive. Perhaps no one on Pine Mountain remembered aright how it had all come about, when after an absence of ten years Evander Price suddenly reappeared among them.

Old man Price had, in the course of nature, ceased to sit upon the fence, — he could hardly be said to have lived. The fence itself was decrepit; the house was falling to decay. The money which Evander had sent from time to time, that it might be kept comfortable, had been safely buried in various localities and in separate installments, as the remittances had come. To this day the youth of Pine Mountain, when afflicted with spasms of industry and, as unaccustomed, the lust for gold, dig for it in likely spots as unavailingly as the idiot once sought it. Evander took the family with him to his valley home, and left the little hut for the owl and the gopher to hide within, for the redberried vines to twine about the rotting logs, for the porch to fall in the wind, for silence to enter therein and make it a dwelling-place.

“How will yer wife like ter put up with the idjit?” asked Pete Blenkins of his old striker.

“ She ’ll he obleeged ter like it! ” retorted Evander, with an angry flash in his eyes, presaging contest.

It revealed the one dark point in his prospects. The mountaineers were not so slow-witted as to overlook it, but Evander had come to be the sort of man whom one hardly likes to question. He had a traveling companion, however, who hailed from the same neighborhood, and who talked learnedly of coal measures, and prodded and digged and bought leagues of land for a song, — much of it dearly bought. He let fall a hint that in marrying, Evander had contrived to handicap himself. “ He would do wonders but for that woman ! ”

The mountain auditors could hardly grasp the finer points of the incompatibility ; they could but dimly appreciate that the kindling scintilla of a discovery in mechanics, more delicately poised on practicability than a sunbeam on a cobweb, could have a tragic extinction in a woman’s inopportune peevishness or selfish exactions.

In Evander’s admiration of knowledge and all its infinite radiations, he had been attracted by a woman far superior to himself in education and social position, although not in this world’s goods. She was the telegraph operator at the station near the iron works. She had felt that there was a touch of romance and self-abnegation in her fancy for him, and this titillated her more tutored imagination. His genius was held in high repute at the iron works, and she had believed him a rough diamond. She did not realize how she could have appreciated polished facets and a brilliant lustre and a conventional setting until it was too late. Then she began to think this genius of hers uncouth, and she presently doubted if her jewel were genuine. For although of refined instincts, he had been rudely reared, while she was in some sort inured to table manners and toilet etiquette and English grammar. She could not be content with his intrinsic worth, but longed for him to prove his value to the world, that it might not think she had thrown herself away. In moments of disappointment and depression his prison record bore heavily upon her, and there was a breach when, in petulance, she had once asked, If he were indeed innocent in receiving the stolen goods, why had he not proven it? She urged him to much striving to be rich; and she would fain travel the old beaten road to wealth in the iron business, and scorned experiments and new ideas and inventions, that took money out without the certainty of putting it in. And she had been taught, and was an adept in specious argument. He could not answer her; he could only keep doggedly on his own way; but obstinacy is a poor substitute for ardor. Though he had done much, he had done less than he had expected, — far, far less in financial results than she had expected. His ambitions were still hot within him, but they were worldly ambitions now. They scorched his more delicate sensibilities, and seared his freshest perceptions, and set his heart afire with sordid hopes. He was often harassed by a lurking doubt of his powers ; he vaguely sought to measure them ; and he began to fear that this in itself was a sign of the approach to their limits. He could still lift his eyes to great heights, but alas for the wings, —alas !

He had changed greatly. He had become nervous, anxious, concentrated, yet not less affectionate. He said much about his wife to his old friends, and never a word but loyal praise. “ Em’ly air school-l’arned fur true, an’ kin talk ekal ter the rider.”

The idiot ’Lijah was welcome at his side, and the ancient yellow cur, that used to trot nimbly after him in the old days, was rejoiced to limp feebly at his heels. He came over, one morning, and sat on the rickety little porch with Cynthia, and talked of her father and mother; but he had forgotten the mare, whose death she also mentioned, and the fact that old Suke’s third calf was traded to M’ria Baker. His recollections were all vague, although at some reminiscence of hers he laughed jovially, and ’lowed that “ in them days, Cynthy, ye an’ me hed a right smart notion of keeping company tergether.” He did not notice how pale she was, and that there was often a slight spasmodic contraction of her features. She was busy with her spinning-wheel, as she placidly replied, “ Yes, — though I always ’lowed ez I counted on livin’ single.”

It was only a fragmentary attention that he accorded her. He was full of his plans and anxious about rains, lest a rise in Caney Fork should detain him in the mountains ; and he often turned and surveyed the vast landscape with a hard, callous glance of worldly utility. He saw only weather signs. The language of the mountains had become a dead language. Oh, how should he read the poem that the opalescent mist traced in an illuminated text along the dark, gigantic growths of Pine Mountain !

At length he was gone, and forever, and Cynthia’s heart adjusted itself anew. Sometimes, to be sure, it seems to her that the years of her life are like the floating leaves drifting down Lost Creek, valueless and purposeless, and vaguely vanishing in the mountains. And then she remembers that the sequestered subterranean current is charged with its own inscrutable, imperative mission, and she ceases to question and regret, and bravely does the work nearest her hand, and has glimpses of its influence in the widening lives of others, and finds in these a placid content.

Charles Egbert Craddock.