X.

It was soon bruited abroad that Jepson had come back to Broomsedge Cove to live, and to those who declined to give credence to this new instance of his boldness—having entertained the opinion that he would skulk indefinitely amongst the hidden nooks of the mountains, continuing a reproach to the denizens of the Settlement for their failure to detain him—conclusive evidence was promptly furnished by his reappearance in his old haunts. No one sought to compensate now for the previous dereliction of the community, and he was proof against the cold shoulder and the look askance, so completely did the influence of his own individuality dwarf the opinion of the disaffected. A new view of the accident began to be entertained, and there were not a few disparaging comments, especially among the adverse political faction, on Eli Strobe’s methods in office, and his own responsibility for the disaster which had befallen him. Had Jepson been a philosopher or a student of human nature, he might have found material for interesting analysis in the conduct of his ancient cronies during his absence as set forth in sundry confidences of what had been said, and thought, and threatened, and thus have sown the seeds of permanent misanthropy. He evidently gave the gossip little heed; he flouted its infinitesimal consequence. He was so validly indifferent, so serenely strong in the courage of his convictions, so arrogant in his self-esteem, that he belittled the others without even an intention of reducing their pride. Only once did the barbed shaft fail to glance off futile. “War them Pa’son Donnard’s words?” he asked, a frown upon his face, as he stood in the door of the forge and leaned against the frame, while a coterie of the gossips sat half within and half without. His eyes were dark and full of smouldering fire; his broad hat was pushed back from his brow, which had flushed to the roots of his hair. “Did _he_ ’low ez how I hed _c’mitted murder_? War them his words?”

“Jube say so,” replied Clem Sanders. He was not consciously treacherous to his friend, but he possessed an unguarded tongue, and perhaps it was the hidden workings of justice that he should betray Jube’s confidences, as Jube had failed to keep his secret.

Jepson remained silent a moment after the reiteration of the assertion. Then his whole aspect suddenly cleared.

“The Lord’ll jedge ’twixt him an’ me. I ain’t a-keerin’ so long ez the Lord be on my side. I fear no man, an’ the word o’ none!”

It was doubtless because of his mental breadth and freshness, his physical vigor and the elasticity appertaining to health, that his hope was so strong, and his courage so sound, and his nerves so accurately poised. But he believed this the result of piety, and he was not often gainsaid.

“Oh, shet up,” Bassett urged on this occasion, being a prosaic man of this world, with a discerning eye for the foibles of others, and appreciating in some sort vast rifts between these spiritual arrogations and actual possessions. “Ye talk like ez ef ye an’ the Lord war partners!”

“Ef I hed it all ter do over agin, I reckon I wouldn’t ride that race,” pursued the moralist speculatively, “knowin’ what I know now, an’ how it all turned out, kase I never wanted ter hurt nobody, much less Eli Strobe. But ef I knowed no more ’n I done then, I’d ride it agin. Tell me it’s agin the law fur me an’ Jube ter race our critters ’long the road, an’ yit it ain’t agin the law ter race yer critters on a reg’lar race-track, kase it puts suthin’ inter the State’s pocket! Thar ain’t no jestice in that law, an’ I won’t abide by it. Naw, folkses, wrong is wrong everywhar, an’ money can’t make it right. No use payin’ the State fur a license ter do wrong.”

There were few vaticinations now concerning the result of the disaster; the doctor had come and had shaken his head, the precise significance of which was variously interpreted, the majesty and solemnity of the gesture alone being open to no sort of question. The prophets imitated his caution, and reserved their opinion. Eli mought die, they said, and then agin he moughtn’t. And thus they were prepared for whatever might betide. The doctor had added to the ostensible purpose of his existence the fact of furnishing a new theme to the idle gossips who sat upon the fences, and hung about the store and the forge; he, and his big spectacles, and his bald head, and his old-fashioned buggy—a new and a wonderful vehicle in the estimation of Broomsedge—were canvassed afresh, and those who were fortunate enough to have had some necessity for his services in past times, then considered unfortunate enough, renewed their experiences in their account of the methods of his practice, the repetition of hoarded bits of his conversation, and the comparison of views as to his professional capacity. By the majority he was held to be “ekal ter raisin’ the dead,” but Mrs. Strobe did not coincide in that flattering opinion.

“Marcelly,” said the sharp little dame, “that thar old bald-headed buzzard,—an’ he looks percisely like one in them slick black store-clothes,—he knows jes’ ez much ’bout doctorin’ ez Watch thar, ef that.”

The “frequent visitor’s” dog acknowledged the mention of his name by two or three taps with his tail on the floor, as he sat in the uninclosed passage between the two rooms beside Marcella, who had dropped down on a rickety bench that stood against the wall. The girl turned upward her pale, anxious face, with a dumb despair in her eyes. She had hung on the physician’s words, as if there were healing in the very sound. Mrs. Strobe held her tiny figure very erect; there was color in her cheeks, and her eyes flashed. In fact, the professional call had been in some sort distinguished as a collision between two eminent medical authorities.

“I hev been considered ekal to doctorin’ Eli an’ ye chil’n’,” declared Mrs. Strobe, with a manner as attestive as if she were reading a diploma, “an’ he tells me I needn’t continue the yerb teas ez I hev been brewin’; they air ‘useless,’ an’ whatever air ‘useless’ air mo’ or less ‘injurious.’ How does he know?” she demanded, with sphinxine triumph; “he dunno _what_ I put inter ’em. _Me!_ ez hev fetched all ye folks through all sort’n mis’ries an’ measles with my yerb-bag! An’ he gimme these hyar leetle papers with powders in ’em,—nuthin’ in the world but sand, I’ll be bound,—an’ this hyar bottle,—‘lotium,’ he called it; smells loud enough ter knock a calf down! An’ that’s _all_ it’s good fur, ter derange yer nose tee-totally, till ye can’t smell no mo’ till kingdom come. An’ ‘stop them yerb teas,—no good;’ an’ he don’t know _what’s_ in ’em! An’ let Eli sleep, when the mo’ he sleeps the foolisher he talks whenst he wakes up. Shucks! I be goin’ ter doctor Eli Strobe myself! I hev tuk him along through a many a tight fix.”

The girl sighed with relief and renewing hope, and pushed back the tangled heavy curling hair from her brow.

“Don’t ye be oneasy, chile,” said the sturdy little dame. “I ’lowed ter Teck Jepson jes’ yestiddy, I say, ‘Eli Strobe’s my son. But what through his bein’ the dad o’ Marcelly an’ Is’bel, an’ the constable o’ Brumsaidge, an’ the patient o’ the doctor, a body mought see they didn’t ’low me ter hev _much_ sheer in him. But I be his mother, an’ ef I hev got _enny_ rights I reckon it air ter dose him ter my own taste.’ An’ Teck say, ‘Ef I war sick, Mis’ Strobe, I’d a sight ruther hev you-uns ter look arter me ’n enny doctor-man I ever see.’ Teck spoke right up.”

“Teck Jepson!” cried the girl, knitting her straight black eyebrows, “hev he hed the insurance ter kem hyar agin?”

“Ye air a idjit, Marcelly; ’course he kem ter inquire arter Eli. He ain’t studyin’ ’bout you-uns; but that’s jes’ like a gal,—vainglorious till she ’lows the man air a-contrivin’ an’ thinkin’ ’bout’n her all the time. Shucks, chile; wait till ye git ez old ez I be, an’ ye’ll find out it air the wimmin ez hev ter do the thinkin’ an’ contrivin’ ter please the men, an’ _then_ can’t keep up with ’em more’n half the time.”

“I don’t want ter please ’em,” said Marcella, with a curve of her delicate lips, and lifting her head to its habitual airy pose.

“Kase ye feel so mighty sure ye air goin’ ter ’thout tryin’,” retorted the discerning grandmother. “Let somebody tell ye now ez ye air downright ugly, an’ ef they could make ye b’lieve it, ye’d a sight ruther hear ye hed los’ yer soul’s salvation!”

She began to turn anew the papers in her hand. “‘Quit them yerb teas,’” she quoted with a cantankerous accent, as she fumbled with the tiny wrappers, mimicking the physician’s ill-judged scorn. She was letting the powders fly out in the wind. “’Gin these powders, one every hour.’ He lef’ his watch, sir, so ez ter tell the time o’ day; an’ it air in yander now, a-goin’ on like suthin’ live. ’Gin him these powders,’—I’ll gin him some yerb tea, an’ tell the doctor the powders done him a power o’ good, when he kems agin. Ye Watch,” she called out to the dog, who when a few flakes of the medicine fell upon the floor sprang up with an expectant hunger and a glistening greedy eye, as if he had not had a morsel of food for a week, “ef ye lap that up, it’ll tangle yer liver an’ gizzard up so ye’ll _never_ git ’em straight agin.” Completing the destruction of the powders, she shook the bottle, looking at it intently. “Mought be some use.” The seeming admission was as to the value of the glass vial, by no means the “lotium.”

That afternoon she demonstrated her incontestable claim, however, to some knowledge of hygiene by a mandate that Marcella, and not Isabel, should go after the cows; and as the girl reluctantly left the invalid’s bedside, Mrs. Strobe followed her out with axioms and boasts, for she had grown exceedingly prideful and exalted anew in her own opinion since she had observed the methods of the physician. “Ye oughter git some air an’ light, Marcelly; ye look like the las’ o’ pea-time,—an’ old! some similar ter Noah’s grandmother, ef the good ’oman bed lasted this long. Ef ye keep on lookin’ like that, even Clem Sanders won’t admire ye; an’ I think he air the kind o’ boy ez hev got mighty little ’scrimination in gal-folks,—all of ’em pritty ter Clem, I’ll be bound. Ye go out an’ git them cows hyar. I don’t want Is’bel ter grow no taller till she makes out ter git a little wider. She looks now like she war a-travelin’ on stilts, bein’ so long-legged. Naw, Is’bel hed better set still, an’ try ter fatten. Our folks war always knowed ter be a set o’ well-favored wimmin, an’ I don’t want ye an’ Is’bel ter gin the lie ter that report. Ez ter the men o’ the fambly, they war ugly enough ter skeer the bars in the woods; but, honey, _they never_ knowed it, an’ ez they war so powerful pleased with thar own beauty, sech ez they hed, it holped ter keep ’em satisfied, leastwise ez satisfied ez they war able ter be. Ye go ’long, an’ see ef ye can’t find yer own looks somewhar out yander in the wind an’ ’mongst the rocks. I’ll be bound ye’ll kem up with ’em tangled in the briers.”

If it were the radiance of the splendid and perfect day that was Marcella’s inalienable possession, the tint of the wild rose for her lips and her infrequent flush, the lucent shining of deep pure waters reproduced in her eyes, she seemed to have renewed all these invaluable gifts when she chanced to cross the little foot-bridge over the torrent that ran through Broomsedge Cove. The cows that she drove were fording the stream, standing flank-deep in the swirling current; the waters were a dark brownish-green tint, of a crystalline clearness, and swift and songful; the dense laurel leaned over the banks; shadowy pines rose high above; here and there a cliff towered, and a great fir stood, with wide-spreading glooms in its branches, at one end of the frail, little bridge. Above, one could see but a mere strip of the blue sky; farther up the stream, as the banks curved, the tumultuous rapids caught a sunbeam on their flashing foam, and a barren old crag on the opposite bank wore a tender roseate flush to see the sun set. But here in these shady precincts was neither beam nor pink radiance; the red cardinal flower blooming by the water’s edge had but a sombre splendor, the ripples and the wide circles that the movement of the kine sent to the margin were dark lustrous lines, and the foam dashing over the half-submerged brown rocks wore a more absolute and pallid white for the dull green and neutral tints of its vicinage.

The girl had been leaning her crossed arms upon the hand-rail of the bridge, and looking absently down at the turmoils of the current. She could see her own image in the clearer space, her sun-bonnet falling upon the shoulders of her blue dress, her curling brown hair floating free; her fair face, with its brilliant eyes and definite dark brows and grave lips, seemed all the more distinct, somehow, for the red flare of a kerchief knotted about her throat, the ends hanging down almost to her slender waist. The chant of the river filled the air; the wind was sonorously astir in the trees; now and again one of the cows, drinking no longer, but standing still, enjoying the freshness of the dusky place, lowed, and the echoes responded. Thus Marcella did not hear an approach; she saw the reflection as Teck Jepson came along the little bridge where she stood, and the timbers elastically vibrated with each consecutive step. She scarcely credited the testimony of the image in the water. She lifted her head with a sudden startled look, putting back with one hand her heavy hair, and staring frowningly at him. She did not speak; she still leaned one arm upon the hand-rail.

“Howdy,” Jepson observed calmly. “How’s Eli?”

If she could have escaped him she would not have deigned him a word, but she could not pass him upon the narrow space of the two hewn logs that served as bridge; below was the deep water, and she would not retreat. “I won’t take the back-track fur nobody,” she said to herself, with her head high.

He had evidently been hunting; his mare, with a newly killed deer laid athwart the saddle, awaited him on the bank; he had thrown the reins over a bough of a cucumber-tree. As Marcella glanced thither, she noted that the cones on the green branches were glowing red, and that the coat of the deer, whose antlers and ghastly cut throat were visible as the creature lay on its side, had already changed from the fulvous tints of summer to the duller gray of autumn; the season was surely waning. Her eyes came back reluctantly to Jepson. He was booted and spurred; he carried his rifle; his hunting-knife was in his broad leather belt; he wore his shot-pouch and powder-horn strapped over the shoulder of his brown jeans coat; his broad wool hat was pushed far back from his face, and once more she noticed how calm and reposeful his expression was. Somehow it added rancor to her anger, for she felt it hard that he should be at ease while she was so racked with care.

“I dunno ez I hev enny call ter tell ye how he be. Ef it hadn’t been fur you-uns, he’d be powerful hearty an’ well. Mighty few folks in the Cove ez survigrous ez he’d be, ef ’twarn’t fur you-uns.”

He looked reproachfully at her. Then with an effort to mollify her, “Ye air mighty hard on me, Marcelly.”

She held her head up, relishing her cruelty. “Not half ez hard ez ye desarve,” she declared.

He sighed heavily as he looked at her, and she smiled, with satire glancing in her eyes.

“I ain’t half ez hard ez ye desarve, or ez I would like ter be,” she reiterated. “I dunno how ter be no harder, or I would.”

“Marcelly!” he remonstrated. “’Twarn’t my fault. Ye ’low I would hev done sech a purpose? Even s’pose I war jes’ mean, look how it hev turned out fur me. I hed ’lowed, ef it hedn’t happened, ez ye an’ me mought marry some day. An’ now ye can’t abide me.”

“I never could!” she retorted.

He flushed with a sudden sense of mortification, but his store of patience was very great in this emergency—he, who could usually command so little. “Ye didn’t useter show it so plain,” he argued.

“Why,” she protested with a cavalier air. “I ain’t ondertakin’ ter drive off all the folks ez kem constant to the cabin. How’d I know ye warn’t kemin’ ter see _Is’bel_, or—_granny_?”

This mocking fleer wounded him,—so sensitive he was where she was concerned,—and he was reminded afresh of the number of sturdy worshipers at that shrine, and his jealousy sprang up anew. He stood staring silently at her, noting again how beautiful she was, canvassing secretly the claims of the others; but however his hope might belittle their chances, they all were more fortunate than he in having at least the toleration of the fair prize. She resented that long, reflective gaze, and broke forth suddenly.

“Air ye obligated ennywise ter stan’ in the middle o’ this narrer bredge all evenin’?” she demanded, with a flushing cheek and a flashing eye. “An’ whyn’t ye stay up in the mounting an’ kem down no mo’, ez I bid ye?”

There was something passing all bounds of endurance in her patent scorn and the intensity of her anger. He realized the extent of her affliction, and his love, albeit quickly grown, was great. But his pride was an indomitable essence, and it showed in his manner as he drew himself tensely erect. “I don’t hold myself bound ter mind yer bid,” he said slowly. “I hev been in love with ye ever sence I fust set eyes on ye, but I ain’t sech ez Samson or some o’ the t’others, ez war fairly owned, body an’ soul, by some woman or other. I foller my own will, an’ it hev led me down ter my own house in Brumsaidge Cove, an’ I go up ter the mounting no mo’. I foller my own will, an’ it leads me whar the voice o’ the Sperit summons.”

His eyes dilated and his color flared; his serious, half-frowning gaze was fixed upon her, but he hardly saw her as he made this valiant declaration of independence. There was dignity as well as strength in his pose and his manner, and the temerity of his resolution to be no slave to his love.

His revolt, if so it might be interpreted, against the supreme power which she wielded overwhelmed her in some sort. She looked at him with a self-forgetfulness, a sort of impersonal interest, for a moment.

“Yes, sir; thar I mean ter live an’ die,—in Brumsaidge,” he pursued. “An’ enny woman ez tells me ter go thar or kem hyar—’thout it air ter do some favior—mought ez well save her breath. I be man enough, I reckon, ter know my mind an’ do it,—leastwise I’ll try.”

Once more he paused. The mare was straining at the reins that hampered her freedom, and he heard the rustling of the bough to which she was hitched. He gave a hasty, mechanical glance over his shoulder to make sure that she and the burden, the killed buck, were where they should be. The stirrups, swinging back and forth, touched the antlers once and again with a sharp sound; a frog was croaking on an oozy green log by the bank; Jepson’s old deerhound, an animal whose capacity for speed showed in every line of its supple body, had followed him deftly along the bridge and stood beside him, looking up with intelligent eyes, and once or twice furtively licking his boot. As Jepson turned back, he saw Marcella’s face without that expression of anger and reproach; she was for the moment absolved from her intention of hatred. He noted the lurking sadness, the haunting fear, the wistfulness that is always the sequence and attestation of some predominant emotion. She looked so tender, so young, so grievously wounded.

“Oh, Marcelly,” he cried, “I never meant ter harm Eli! I wouldn’t hev hurt him fur nuthin’. I wouldn’t keer what the law would do ter me fur it, ef only ye’d b’lieve I never done it a-purpose. Ef only ye’d say that, I’d go ter jail fur the rest o’ my life rejoicin’.”

The moment he recurred to the suppliant tone her sense of power returned. The implacable, imperative look was again in her face, coming with a rush of color, as if the blood-red glow were the inherent tint of pride.

“Ye air about ez fur from jail ez enny man on this yearth, an’ ye air goin’ ter stay so, ef ye kin hev yer way. I don’t keer what ye meant or didn’t mean ter do. I keer fur what ye done! An’ ef ye foller yer will an’ the voice o’ the Sperit, ez ye ’lows leads ye, ye’ll be mighty clar from gittin’ punished, whether ye live in Brumsaidge or the mounting. I don’t keer whar ye live ’n what ye do now.” She had ceased to lean on the hand-rail, and her image had vanished from the water; she stood erect and slender before him, the red kerchief carelessly knotted about her throat, her bonnet hanging on her shoulders, her long, half curling, and thickly waving hair almost hiding it. “I’d be obleeged ter ye ef ye’d git out’n my road. I don’t wanter drown myself in that water, an’ it seems I’ll hev ter ef I try ter pass ye.”

He said no more and slowly withdrew, busying himself about his saddle-girth. He glanced, wounded and reproachful, at Marcella as she went by, following the cows, but she gave him no word, and was presently lost in the woods.

After she had reached home, she saw him going down the road to the Settlement. “Bold ez brass,” she commented, looking at him from the porch. “I wisht he’d git arrested, somehows.”

She marveled as to his mission, but it excited scant attention in the Cove, where his frequent presence since his return from the mountains had become familiar. He took his way toward the store, which combined commercial and postal functions, — a little frame building without a porch, and with only one room. In some seizure of unprecedented energy, the storekeeper had undertaken to whitewash it; his industry had compassed the surface of its front, and then collapsed finally, and thus it had subsequently stood, its dark, weather-stained sides and back in sharp contrast with the white front of the building. His proceedings had been characteristically considered by the mountaineers to be in fault in the first instance, for the effort to furbish up the appearance of the store was esteemed a reprehensible aping of town ways and views. No one animadverted upon his indolence in failing to carry out his design. A mountaineer, whose name is lost to tradition, one day observed that the white-fronted building, as it sat on the slope of the hill, always looked to him like a white-faced bull; and thereafter the owner went by the name of “White-Face Hobbs.” He was upon the doorstep now,—a long, lank fellow, whose lowly posture accented the extreme length of his legs; and as he sat with his knees as high as his chin, the attitude was vaguely suggestive of a grasshopper. He had a cadaverous face, the color of parchment, and he entertained pessimistic views of the intentions, morals, and manners of all the young men in the Cove.

“A pack o’ fresky cusses kem in hyar an’ play thar jokes off, an’ dust one ’nother with flour, an’ turn over the sorghum or the sugar, an’ folks tell me they war funnin’. I’ll git ter funnin’, fust thing they know! I don’t think nuthin’ in this world air ez funny ez a big hickory stick, an’ I kin use it so ez ter make _me_ laugh mightily, though some folks mought be too sober-sided, time I war done with it.”

On a rickety chair, tilted against the white-faced wall, sat a young man, wearing a suit of cheap but spruce and showy store-clothes. He had a broad, freckled face, and sandy hair. He was a visitor here, Hobbs being his uncle, and Jepson’s intention to address him was so evident, as he came up the slope leading his mare, which looked reluctant and long-necked, still burdened with the deer, that the storekeeper, fearing a commercial opportunity might elude him while the young men talked, struck in, forestalling Jepson’s remark.

“Wanter sell yer meat?” he demanded.

“Take it, or leave it; I don’t keer,” said Jepson. He gave the reins to the storekeeper, who had risen, and he walked toward the young man, and paused before him.

“Neal,” he said, looking down and putting one hand into his leather belt, “I want ye ter arrest me.”

The storekeeper dropped the reins, and stood staring speechlessly, while the mare moved off a few steps and began to crop the grass.

Neal Wright, who was the deputy sheriff of the county, dropped the forelegs of his chair to the ground, and asked, dismayed, “What hev ye done?”

“That that racin’ an’ runnin’ down Eli Strobe.”

“Eli Strobe ain’t dead.”

“Naw,” said Jepson in a melancholy tone, “but I wanter be arrested now.”

The deputy meditated for a moment.

“Oh, g’long, Teck,” he said, in official perplexity, “I dunno what ter arrest ye fur. ’Twarn’t nuthin’ but a accident.”

“Racin’ air unlawful,” said Jepson, moodily,—“a unlawful act.”

“Shucks!” retorted the officer. “Las’ week I raced a gray horse o’ mine—a good un—with a horse o’ Jedge Grimm’s, o’ the Circuit Court. Both of us happened ter be goin’ out o’ Colb’ry same time. He hearn me a-clippin’ behind him, an’ he whipped up an’ spurred, an’ I whipped up an’ spurred. Don’t he know hossflesh, though, an’ don’t he love it! Oughter jes’ see that bay travel! An’ when he war a-gittin’ away from me, Jedge Grimm jes’ turned his big red face round wunst, an’ it war all one wink an’ grin. Me an’ the jedge air out o’ jail yit.”

“Waal, I gin myself up,” persisted Jepson.

“Oh, g’long, Teck.” The officer was standing now, and he gave his friend’s shoulder an admonitory push. “I don’t want ye. I don’t wanter kerry ye all the way ter Colb’ry an’ cut my visit off. An’ I don’t b’lieve I could git ye c’mitted ter stan’ yer trial noways. The old man”—it was the high sheriff thus antiquated—“air powerful partic’lar ’bout makin’ false an’ foolish arrests, an’ he’s responsible fur me.” He shook his head in a manner that intimated his sense of the weight of this fact. “Folks can’t git arrested fur fun. Naw, sir, I don’t want ye. I’ll kem arter ye mighty quick ef ennything happens ter Eli. Don’t ye be ’fear’d.”

“I want ter be arrested now,” reiterated Jepson. “His fambly want me arrested.”

The deputy looked puzzled. “I don’t b’lieve ye, Teck. Ef they did, they’d make a complaint agin ye, an’ git out a warrant.”

“They air all wimmen; they dunno how.” Then, urgently, “When ye go back ter town, tell the ‘old man’ ez the crim’nal wanted ter be arrested, and the fambly wanted him ter be jailed, too, an’ ye wouldn’t.”

“Teck, ye air out’n yer head!” exclaimed Wright.

“Go up ter the house an’ ax ’em,” said the would-be prisoner.

The deputy, thus summoned from the unofficial ease and pleasure of his visit to the perplexity and caution incident to handling a case new to his short experience, hesitated for a moment, and then, putting his hands in his pockets, set forth, silent, saturnine, circumspect, seeming a very different person from the smart young idler before the white-faced store. He carried the wonder of it with him all adown the turn-row between the ranks of corn and to the doorstep of the house itself. “A body would ’low ez a smart, strong, rampagious feller like Teck would be jes’ the one ter gin the sher’ff a tumble race through them mountings.” He nodded toward the wooded heights, with a realizing sense of their value to the ill-doer as an impenetrable covert. Then he lifted his voice in a stentorian “Hello!” for knocking on the door is here little in vogue. The sound summoned little Mrs. Strobe, valiant as a far larger woman might be, and trim, and dapper, with a reproachful lifted forefinger, and a gibe upon her lips, although her curiosity as to his mission quivered through every fibre.

“Waal, stranger, ye couldn’t holler louder ef ye war a peeg an’ ’twar killin’-time. Ye’ll never go off in a lung complaint. Don’t ye know we hev got a sick man in the house?”

Isabel had boldly followed her grandmother, and stood ready to participate in the conversation, should it prove of interest. Marcella came only to the door, but lingered there, leaning against the frame.

“That’s jes’ what I kem ter speak ter ye ’bout, ma’am,” said the officer. “I’m the dep’ty sher’ff o’ Kildeer County.”

“Laws-a-massy!” exclaimed the old woman, by way of compliment and obeisance to the dignity of his authority.

“An’ it hev been tole ter me ez the f ambly want Teck Jepson arrested fur unlawfully ridin’ a race, an’ ridin’ down an’ injurin’ Eli Strobe whilst doin’ this unlawful act.”

They were all silent, revolving this succinct statement, and adjusting the circumstances thus set forth to their own consciousness of the facts.

“Now,” continued Wright, “ef ye’ll complain agin him, I’ll arrest Jepson an’ git him c’mitted, an’ land him in jail in Colb’ry ter await the event.”

“_Me_ want ter jail Teck Jepson fur runnin’ a horse along a plain road?” cried the old woman. “Ef ye warn’t a stranger, sir, I’d tell ye ez ye air a crazy buzzard.”

“Yes’m,” said the deputy, sanely agreeing in her view.

“Eli got hurt by accident, through bein’ too sharp-set ter arrest folks fur nuthin’, an’ Teck war his bes’ friend in the ’lection. He couldn’t pull up his horse. Naw, sir; wait till Eli gits better or wuss.”

“That’s yer conclusion, ma’am?” said the officer, visibly relieved. Then he glanced at Marcella. She stood silent, intent, pondering. The young man’s eyes lingered. “Do his darter want Jepson arrested?” he asked, seeking an added respect in using the third person.

Marcella did not answer. That brooding dubitation was still on her face, and her eyes were full of untranslated meanings.

“Speak, chile,” urged her grandmother, tartly.

The man’s inquiring eyes still lingered; Marcella suddenly raised her own. She looked at him for a moment, and slowly shook her head. A deep flush overspread her face, and she turned hastily within.

That night a wind arose; a great, sonorous, declamatory voice it had. Some rude iconoclastic spirit was rife in its midst, and threatened alike roof-tree and hearth-stone. The shutters were closed; the door was barred; but its heavy touch was on the walls, and every timber shook. The sense of it pervaded the deep unconsciousness that had hitherto enwrapped Eli Strobe. The continuity of the knowledge of cause and effect was broken; he did not realize why he was awake, what turmoil affected his perceptions; he only knew again himself for himself, and talked and raged incoherently, the strength of delirium in his muscles. The little dame and the two frightened girls were alone to experience these undreamed-of terrors; for since the invalid had been so quiescent, and all had been done that was needful, the helping neighbors had felt their services superfluous, and had betaken themselves home. His mind had gone back to the scene of the disaster. As the thunder rolled he would lift himself in bed, ghastly with his bloody, bandaged head, his wild, unreasoning eye, and with his strong right hand upheld warningly as he listened. “Hear! hear!” he would cry. “Hear ’em gallopin’ thar horses! Down the very throat o’ the law!” And when a new peal sounded louder and deeper than before, he sprang up, catching at an imaginary bridle, declaring that he had unhorsed Teck Jepson and had broken his neck. And there was Teck now, in hell!—so surprised to be there, and so taken aback to see the devil, that Eli Strobe, who had sent him thither, could not refrain from laughing. He held his sides while his wild shrieks of frenzied mirth filled the cabin, shriller than the wind, more turbulent than the thunder, as persistent as the rain that came down in torrents upon the roof. The women clung together in terror, and with trembling lips devised futile expedients to quiet him. But the vaunted “yerb tea” failed; and although at first some vague recognition of Marcella, or Isabel, or his mother would prevail, and after a wild sidelong stare and a doubtful mutter he would consent to lie back upon the pillow and have the quilts drawn close about his shoulders again, he would soon forget them, and would spring up anew; and presently he recognized them no more. He declared now that one, then another, was Teck Jepson, and should be arrested on the spot. And as a ghastly flash of lightning made a mockery of the gleam of the little tallow dip and the smouldering fire, and filled the room with a quivering blue flare of a blinding intensity, he began to cry out that he was dead,—he was a dead man; that Teck Jepson had killed him, and nobody cared to avenge him. But he would walk, he protested with a terrible fury; as a ghost he would walk this earth. He would make the gallows seem a kind fate to the man who had cheated it, and who had torn him from life that was so fair and full, and had cast him into some outer darkness where there was gnashing of teeth; and he ground his own, with a frightful look on his face. He would meet the man who had slain him, in lonely places, and reveal hideous spiritual errors to him, and some day would fall upon him and throttle him; and those who might find him would never know why Teck Jepson had died. He would walk,—he would walk! And he began to gather the sheet about him.

“Oh, Marcelly!” cried the cowering Mrs. Strobe, “I hev done wrong. The yerb tea ain’t no good, sure enough, this time, an’ mebbe thar war some healin’ in the old doctor’s powders. He ’lowed they’d keep Eli quiet. Oh, I wish I hedn’t flung ’em away! He said the lotium air ter go on the outside, else I’d gin Eli a mouthful o’ that. Oh, Marcelly, ef the doctor war jes’ hyar agin!”

“I’ll go arter him!” cried the girl, springing up with renewed hope.

“Ye sha’n’t! Ye sha’n’t!” The old woman clutched her arm. “In this storm ez seems ter kem from perdition itself, an’ he livin’ fourteen miles off! Ye dunno the way. Ye’ll git los’.”

“Waal,” said Marcella, full of courage again, since there was something to do and to risk, “I’ll rouse up the nighest neighbors, an’ git some o’ them ter go.”

“I dunno whether they will!” cried Mrs. Strobe, wringing her hands. “I couldn’t blame ’em ef they wouldn’t. Listen at that wind ’mongst the trees; it sounds ez ef the very mountings war groanin’ in mis’ry. An’ the thunder, an’ the lightnin’, an’ the rain!”

“I’ll try ’em,” said Marcella, sturdily.

Her grandmother still clung to her, first remonstrating, then urging and charging her as she prepared to slip through the door. Marcella only stopped to put a red shawl over her head, and then she was out in the blackness of the night and the terrors of the storm. The wind caught the door with so violent a wrench that her grandmother and Isabel had much ado to close it again, and ere they did they called wildly to her to come back; she would be blown away, or a limb of a tree might fall upon her and kill her. There was no response from the darkness without, and as they barred the door they knew that she was gone, and felt as forlorn as if many had been withdrawn instead of one.

Despite her familiarity with every step of the way, Marcella thought herself inconceivably long in reaching the gate, so buffeted she was by the wind, so thong-like was the lashing rain, so turbulent the elemental commotion. A vivid flash of lightning seemed to meet her there, followed so closely by others, hardly less brilliant, that the effect for a few moments was unintermittent, while the simultaneous thunder rolled. The sinister glare revealed the sky with its myriads of lines of rain; the tormented mountains with their groaning, swaying forests; and close at hand the broad cornfield, the stalks tossed and writhen, here and there flinging up their long blades in a gesture that suggested an appreciated agony. And then all was dark again, and her progress along the turn-row was beset with unexpected difficulty, since the stalks, broken and bent across it, furnished continually recurring barriers. She was glad to emerge into the open road at last, and she paused, breathless for a moment. The difficulties of the way had so absorbed her that she was now canvassing for the first time whom she might best rouse. The storm, since she was in its midst, seemed a more valid obstacle than when her grandmother had suggested it. One neighbor she dismissed from consideration as too old to grant so onerous a favor. Another had a wife and child very ill. A third was afflicted with “lung complaint.” As she stood doubtful a certain sound caught her ears in a lull in the wind,—the sound of a hammer and a sledge upon an anvil. How strange, she thought, that Clem Sanders should be at the forge at this hour of the night,—how providential! She had heard none of the rumors subsequent to the parson’s vision, and it was out of her mind for the nonce. She only reflected, as she turned her swift steps thither, that Clem Sanders would gladly ride thrice fourteen miles on an errand for her, indifferent to the fury of any mountain storm. “He be powerful skeered o’ gal-folks, an’ say ‘Yes’m’ an’ ‘Naw’m’ even ter Is’bel, perliter ’n a pig in a poke, an’ he ain’t got no conversation ’mongst gals, but he ain’t ’feard o’ nuthin’ else. I’ll be bound he ain’t ’feard o’ the weather.”

Her heart was light and warm again; she gathered the wet red shawl closer about her head. What did she care how the rain beat in her face, how the thunder roared! She welcomed the fierce recurrent flare of the lightning; kind it was to show her the rocky ways, that the red clay mire might not cling to her feet and impede her flying steps. The short cut she made took her up the slope of the hill, and she presently found herself approaching the forge on the reverse side from the door. She had hardly heard again the sound of hammer and sledge in the clamors without, but more than once she saw the gleam of the light through the ill-chinked walls, as the fire flared. As she came close she heard the bellows sighing, and the light from the walls hard by flickered out anew. She was near to the little shutter, and she laid her hand upon it. It opened readily under her touch, and she stood looking in.

The interior was flooded with white light, as the bellows fostered the flaring fire. She saw the anvil glitter. A man—Jake Baintree it was—with lifted arm worked at the bellows, while another, whose face was averted, held, with the smith’s tongs, a piece of metal in the flames; it was red-hot now; it glowed a lighter tint; it glistened at a white heat, and he turned suddenly and whisked it on the anvil. He lifted his eyes as he moved, and saw before him the square of the open window, the girl’s fair, ethereal face framed within it upon the black background of the stormy night, and with the red shawl falling about her head, from the folds of which her curling hair half escaped. He started back, with the hammer in his hand, calling aloud in surprised accents, “Look! Look!”

Jake Baintree turned abruptly, and his eyes met hers.