XII.

The mists continued to press close about the little cabin. The sunless day hardly gave evidence how it was wearing on, so imperceptibly did the shadows grow less gray. Some movement there was in the dense folds of the opaque vapors, for now even the vines on the porch were invisible, and anon all their leaves were abnormally definite on the blank white surface of the background. A continuous drip sounded from the eaves, but otherwise the world seemed strangely silent, until the mincing footfalls of a pacing nag came dull and muffled along the dank turn-row, and announced to Mrs. Strobe the approach of old Dr. Boyce.

“Now, ain’t it a blessin’,” she observed to her granddaughters, “ez that thar perverse old man never tuk it inter that head o’ his’n—an’ it’s full o’ notions—ter kem no earlier. He mought hev met the t’ other feller, an’ thar’s nuthin’ in this worl’ one doctor hates like another one. An’ ef ’twarn’t fur the law ez keeps ’em off’n one another, thar’d be mo’ scatterin’ o’ brains, an’ hair, an’ bones round graveyards ’n thar be now. Ef ye want ter see one o’ ’em take a fit, jes’ let him know some other doctor hev been meddlin’ with his patient, ez he calls it. A mighty good word fur it, too. Patient he air,—the feller hev got ter learn patience, sure! This hyar old man can’t abide it, ef he ain’t allowed ter pizen folks his own way; an’ ef ye don’t foller his directions edzac’ly, he’ll gin the case up. An’ then ye mought git well, stiddier dyin’ respectably, ’cordin’ ter the doctor’s prescriptions.”

She rose, with her speciously grave expression puckering her thin lips, and went to meet him on the porch, as he came up the path, with his saddle-bags over his arm. “Good-mornin’, doctor,” she observed, with great suavity.

“Good-morning, madam,” he said with a cheerful note. He was propitiated by a certain up-all-night aspect in the three feminine members of the household, which his discerning eye could well distinguish from the activity of the habitual early riser. It implied due anxiety and attention to any possible or probable want of his patient. He had scant interest in people whose lungs, liver, heart, and stomach were in a normal condition. They were merely unindividualized cumberers of the ground, except as they ministered to that genus whom he sought to exalt into a tyrant of absolute sway, his patient. He himself bowed down before it with an unswerving devotion and an unchanging assiduity, despite its protean aspect, whether it were only two feet long, and writhing with the colic, or as big as Eli Strobe, with a dignified fracture of the skull; and he saw to it that every possible knee was also crooked in subservience. It was a favorite formula with him, “If my patient can’t sleep, not a soul in the house shall bat an eye all night.” And thus there were always powders or drops to be administered with appalling frequency, if the sufferer should chance to awake.

Therefore he looked with approving eyes at Mrs. Strobe, and dismissed as gratuitous certain anxieties that had harassed him since parting from her yesterday, because of her earnest advocacy of “yerb tea,” and her evident reluctance to defer to his judgment.

“How’s my patient, madam?” he asked, as he lumbered up the steps.

He was not, properly speaking, a fat man; he might better be described as merely ample. He was not muscular; he seemed flabbily large. His face had sundry deep dimples, visible even when not smiling, and he had a fair, fresh complexion, and was close-shaven. He was perhaps some sixty years old, and he was ostentatious in the use of his spectacles, after the manner of one who regards age as a sort of gradual promotion. He was quite bald, and wore a dark wig, or what is known as a “scratch.” It hardly served any purpose of deception, for often he thrust it far back on his head, showing his broad, full-fronted brow; and sometimes, in his office, on a warm day, he hung it on the door-knob or the back of a chair, contracting thereby many an influenza and neuralgia, which he would have considered of serious interest had it been the choice possession of one of his patients.

“Not awake yet?” he said, glancing at the pillow as he entered. He sat down beside the bed, and, motioning to Marcella to open the shutter, he adjusted his spectacles, and bent forward to scrutinize the sleeping face.

Mrs. Strobe, secretly scornful as she watched him, was amazed to see him draw back, with an expression of doubting surprise, and with his soft, deft fingers feel the pulse of the wounded man. His eyes with a suspicious gleam sought hers.

“How did he spend the night?” he asked curtly.

“Waal,” cautiously admitted Mrs. Strobe, “the fust o’ the night he war sorter rampagious. Arter that he slept.”

The doctor rose slowly, looking very large and limp as he stood solemnly confronting the little dame. “Mrs. Strobe,” he demanded, “what was done to this man?”

“Why, law, doctor, you-uns know!” she cried. “Teck Jepson jes’ rid him down, an’ bust his head open, an’”—

“Woman,” he thundered, “this man has been drugged!”

Mrs. Strobe quailed. She would not have believed the discovery possible to his vaunted science.

“Jes’ a leetle yerb tea,” she faltered.

He stared at her, baffled, and doubting if it were possible to elicit the truth from her. He knitted his bare brows, for his wig was far back on his bald poll. The mystery of it all stemmed for the time the rising tide of his tumultuous indignation. “Why didn’t you give him the powders I left, as directed?” he demanded.

“Law, doctor, they couldn’t make no diff’unce,—that thar leetle trash stuff.”

The doctor’s bald head flushed to the nape of his neck. Despite his scanty consideration of people who were in the enjoyment of full health, he could not strike Mrs. Strobe. There was only one course open to him, professionally speaking.

“I give up the case. I will not be responsible,” he sputtered, stooping down to pick up his saddle-bags. Suddenly he caught sight of the wan, haggard, sleeping face on the pillow, and the loyalty of a whole life flamed up anew toward its object. “No, I won’t,—I won’t, neither! I won’t leave my patient to be murdered amongst you. Yes, murdered!” he vociferated; “for if my directions and my medicines are tampered with again, and my patient dies, I’ll have you every one indicted for murder; you hear me,—for _murder_! Poisoning my patient!” He wagged his half-draped head with a knowing look. He had not lived in this world so long as not to be aware of the terror that the ignorant have of that unknown, unmeasured force, the law. Even the doughty Mrs. Strobe seemed very small and wizened, as she contemplated the prospect. He followed up his advantage: “Come here!”—he turned to Marcella; “you look like you have some sense. I’ll leave my directions with you, and you see you carry them out. Do just as I say. Think I won’t know it if you don’t, as soon as I get here?”

“Mighty apt, sure,” Mrs. Strobe conceded, in a conciliatory tone.

But the big doctor, who seemed, as he stood about, to occupy more than his share of the little cabin, only gave a snort of derisive rage at this overture, and prepared his medicines in stern and puffing silence. He was still breathless when he gathered up his saddle-bags and started toward the door. He came back, and looked in again to say, with a threatening air, when he would repeat his visit; and they presently heard the ambling hoof-beats of his horse that took him up the turn-row, and so away.

It might seem that Mrs. Strobe could not easily recover from the stress of this interview, but her elasticity was altogether unstrained, and she rebounded from her humiliating detection with the alert grace of one who, from good-nature, ignores a defiance, having ample resources at call.

“Gin up the case!” she cried scornfully. “An’ what do we-uns keer, with a doctor-man o’ our own, what Jake Baintree fotched! I hed a great mind ter tell ’bout’n him, an’ how peart he war, but I war ’feard o’ hurtin’ the old man’s feelin’s. Murderin’ Eli,—I say! I war so mad wunst I hed a great mind ter throttle the old man;” which the doctor would have esteemed a terrible intention in a woman of Mrs. Strobe’s size, had he known she entertained it. “But how did he find out Eli hed tuk the t’other doctor’s medicine? I tell ye, now, Marcelly, that thar old man hev got eyes in the back o’ his head, an’ kin see fourteen mile off through a thunder-storm in the night-time ’thout strainin’ his sight.”

Mrs. Strobe affected to hope that he would continue angry, and fail to keep his engagement; but her relief was very patent when he reappeared with his saddle-bags the next day, and the next, and still again. He took little note of her except to treat her remarks with a sedulous show of unconcern. He asked Marcella keen and searching questions as to his patient during his absence, and strained to the uttermost their every capacity and all the resources of the little cabin to subserve the invalid’s comfort. All was ungrudgingly and submissively accorded, but, nevertheless, he began to look very grave as the days wore on, and now and then he solemnly shook his bald head.

“What makes him shake his head that-a-way, Marcelly?” the old woman demanded. “Ter make sure thar’s nuthin’ in it? He needn’t look so disappointed. I could hev tole him ez much ez that, an’ kep’ him from expectin’ ter hear it rattle.”

Outside the world took its way, unheeding, down the oft-trodden course of the year. The dank mists clung long to range and valley. They lifted at last, and then the torrents of the recent storm seemed to have been charged with pigments, for bold dashes of color, of red, of a luminous yellow, accented yet tempered by intervals of purplish and bronze intimations, emblazoned the mountain-side, where a monotony of summer greenth had lately held sway. The sun, coming again with a fluctuating brilliancy, with far-reaching misty refractions, and anon diaphanous veilings, to displace the surly usurpations of the grimmer gray elements, found a responsive glow in the sudden enrichment of the world. The far-away ranges had acquired a new charm of azure, an exquisitely pure tone, but of a dull, unglossy softness, all unlike the enameled blue of the great crystalline sky. The air was pervaded by a fine aroma. The wind had wings: one could sometimes see the shadows of these subtle, swift invisibilities flutter in the cloudless sunshine, so vaguely that before a glance might seek to measure an airy pinion the fleet thing was gone. Enchantment boldly wandered forth into the broad daylight, and all lavish splendors were vagrant. In every fence corner, the lush grasses and weeds, heavy with seeds, were bepainted with a brush full of color,—amber, and brown, and red; even the cobwebs, gossamer and silver in the sun, hung from rail to rail upon the old fences, and bedizened their gaunt homeliness with a delicate fibrous grace. Oh, gone was the summer, and it would come no more, however the recurrent season might wear its similitude. Marcella was living her life out; she was not the light-hearted creature that the spring had found her. She felt that she was older by many summers, and she did not need Andy Longwood to tell her so.

“Ye hev got ter be ez solemn ez—I dunno what all. An’ ye used ter laff, an’ laff, an’ laff. Now ye can’t crack a joke ter save yer life. An’ ef ennybody else gits ter funnin’, ye don’t pay no ’tention ter what they say.”

The young fellow sat, as was his wont in his frequent visits, on the step of the porch, his head, with its tousled curls and its big hat, leaning back against the post and the thinning yellow vines. His expression was slightly sullen, and implied a despondent appeal, although his muscles asserted a cheerful habit, altogether independent of his mind and heart, and he mechanically laid a clasp-knife upon one closed fist, and with a dextrous twist of the wrist flung it to the ground, piercing the moist earth with its point, after the manner of the expert mumble-the-peg player. Now and then he looked up at Marcella, who sat spinning, spinning, ceaselessly at her little flax-wheel, until it seemed to him—the whir ringing in his ears, the sight of the wheel whirling until it was only a dazzling spokeless circle—that they were his heartstrings which she was thus drawing out into these attenuated threads, and that there would not be enough hope, or courage, or any of the essential endowments left for him to live upon by the time she had wound these intimate fibres into balls. So forlorn was this “frequent visitor.”

“Ye don’t never notice nobody nor nuthin’, nowadays,” he said, a trifle hampered in his complaint by the presence of the wiry Isabel, who sat at the other end of the step, and of his own dog, who looked, as he took up his position between the two, intelligent enough to understand the conversation, and independent enough to repeat it. “Got nuthin’ ter say ter nobody, nor nuthin’.”

He meant himself by this negative description, and the sharp-eyed Isabel understood as much. Despite her precocity she had the lamentable lack of tact characteristic of her age, and her mind was a blank as to matters amatory. She intended to be very agreeable when she said, with a toss of her tangled hair, “Marcelly air a-gittin’ too old fur ye an’ me, Andy; she’s jes’ gittin’ mighty settled an’ old.”

A quick expression of apprehension, even dismay, flitted across his face. “What air ye a-talkin’ ’bout, Is’bel?” he cried, in a loud, reprehensive voice. “I be four year older ’n Marcelly. ‘Gittin’ too old fur ye an’ me’!” he mimicked ungraciously. “Puttin’ we-uns tergether, ez ef _we-uns_ war of an age, whenst I be old enough ter be yer gran’dad, chile!” He made another active throw with the knife, holding one ear with one hand, and flinging the blade from the other ear with a marked dexterity.

When he glanced up Isabel had risen, and waited to catch his eye. “I’m goin’ in the house,” she remarked, with sour dignity. “I be ’feard ye mought bite me.”

He would have been glad of the riddance had it been vouchsafed, but it was an empty threat, or rather promise, for the little girl still lingered, leaning against a post of the porch; nevertheless, it served him for another ground of complaint.

“Ye hev all done got sot agin me hyar,” he said, “even Is’bel. Ez ter Mis’ Strobe, she never war hurt with perliteness, nohow; leastways not ter me. An’ you-uns all think heap o’ Clem Sanders, I reckon, don’t ye?” He looked up appealingly.

A smile rippled across Marcella’s face; her red lips parted. Had she indeed grown so very old, after all? But the alert Isabel answered:—

“I dunno what ye ’low we-uns be so admirin? o’ Clem fur, ’thout we wanted him fur a ornamint, like that thar plaster rooster what dad brung granny from Colb’ry ter set on the mankle-shelf. Clem sets ez still an’ ’pears ez good-lookin’ ez he kin, jes’ like the rooster do. Both o’ ’em seem like they mought crow toler’ble loud ef they would, but nare one of ’em do.”

The “frequent visitor” was in a measure appeased. He laughed mightily at this ridicule of his rival, and then sighed deeply, partly for relief and partly for self-pity.

Isabel caught the approving expression in his eyes as they met hers, and she relented from her intention of leaving the young people together, and once more kindly sat down between them. She seemed, however, disposed to earn her welcome, for as she clasped her lithe, sunburned hands over her knees, and turned her pointed chin reflectively upwards, and cast a glance toward the forge, the preternatural wisdom of her expression intensified by the two sharp eyes set so close together, she continued: “Las’ time Clem kem a-visitin’,”—she made no doubt it was partly to see herself and partly her “granny,” as well as Marcella,—“he jes’ sot up ez mum ez ye ever see ennybody, like he war ’feard o’ we-uns,”—her lips curled in relish,—“an’ said ‘Yes’m,’ an’ ‘Ma’am,’ an’ ‘No’m’, ter _me_, ez well ez ter granny; ez respec’ful, an’ humble, an’ ’feard o’ me ez ef _I_ war eighty year old.”

“Oh, ho! ho!” laughed the merry “frequent visitor.”

“Shet up, Is’bel,” the elder sister mechanically admonished her.

“’Feard o’ gals,” pursued Isabel, in the pleasing consciousness of making herself very agreeable. “An’ he say nuthin’ ’ceptin’ ter agree with everybody, an’ look so mild an’ meek. An’ granny, she talked, an’ I talked; an’ Marcelly, she talked some, too. An’ Clem, he say, ‘Yes’m’ an’ ‘Naw’m.’ An’ he stayed, an’ stayed, an’ stayed, mighty late; till whenst he war a-goin’ away, granny, she say ter him, ‘Ye mus’ kem agin, Clem. Me an’ the gals hev mighty nigh ez interestin’ a time a-settin’ up with ye ez ef ye war a corpse. We’ll watch with ye whenst ye air dead, Clem. Ye needn’t be ’feard. We will hev got so used ter settin’ alongside o’ ye an’ yer dumb ways ez we will be plumb trained ter it. Kem up agin soon, Clem, else we-uns will git our hands out.’”

It was pleasant to hear the “frequent visitor’s” laughter, so jovial a sound it was. And how his heart warmed to Mrs. Strobe!

“Ain’t she smart, though! My stars! she’s ez smart ez enny man!” he exclaimed, in the hyperbole of his enthusiasm. “What did Clem say?”

“He say ‘Yes’m,’” cried Isabel, with a jocund outburst. She was in high feather because of her success. Andy Longwood was far more entertaining to her when he was in this hilarious humor, instead of the pathetic sentimental moods which he had of late affected. She was evidently going on to improve her advantage, when Marcella remonstrated.

“I can’t abide,” she said, “ter hear ennybody laffed at ahint thar backs. It don’t ’pear right ter me.”

Longwood’s hair was tossed backward, like the mane of an angry horse; he looked up, with a flushing cheek. “Ye mean ter say, Marcelly, ez I be ’feard ter laff at Clem Sanders ter his face? Now I ain’t, fur I hev done it a many a time.”

“An’ me, too,” protested Isabel, with arrogant temerity, as if this were important. “I laffed at him las’ time he war hyar.”

“I ain’t sayin’ ye war afeard, Andy.” Marcella sought to soothe his wounded feelings. “It jes’ ’pears ter me sorter deceitful.”

“Shucks!” cried the capable Isabel. “Clem’s powerful deceitful hisse’f. So mealy-mouthed hyar ye’d think he war a lam’, or jes’ a mild deedie or suthin’; but pass by that thar forge, sir, an’ ye kin hear him hollerin’ a mile off, an’ talkin’ like a plumb coffee-mill,—elbowin’ an’ jostlin’ the men about, the headin’est one o’ the lot! Tuk Jube, the pa’son’s son, one day, sir, an’ put him in a sack, an’ with all them foolish fellers a-followin’ he kerried sack, Jube, an’ all down ter the shallow spread o’ the ruver, an’ flung him in. But Clem’s hollerin’ that time warn’t ekal ter Jube’s ez he kem out the bag an’ waded ashore. Then Clem, he kerns up hyar lookin’ like—like pie, he’s so good an’ desirable. Can’t tell me nuthin’ ’bout that thar gamesome Clem, an’ I’ll laff at him all I’m a mind ter.”

Andy Longwood’s variable spirits had again declined. He was moodily appreciative of the fact that these robust pranks were not subject for ridicule in the same degree as the burly blacksmith’s quaking humility and tongue-tied meekness in the presence of his lady-love and her feminine relations. The bluff, blustery fun which he relished was not without its fascinations to the boy-lover, and induced an emulative grudging. He realized, too, the possibility that Clem’s bold freedom among men might contrast favorably, in Marcella’s estimation, with the solicitous cowardice that she alone could inspire in that doughty heart, and he looked with lowering antagonism at Isabel, as if she had recited some noble exploit of his rival’s, calculated to put him at a disadvantage and destroy his prospects.

“Oh, yes, Is’bel, ye saw it, I reckon,” he sneered, with a sudden gust of temper. “Ye kin see mos’ ennythin’, ef ye be jes’ willin’ ter take half on trest. I’ll be bound he hed a dog or suthin’ in that sack, an’ ye saw Jube arterward. Clem couldn’t tote Jube. Ye jes’ saw Jube wadin’.”

“Naw, ’twar jes’ ez I say,” Isabel hastily insisted.

“Waal, hev it so,—hev it so.” Longwood waved off the discussion. “Look out right smart enny clear night, an’ ye’ll see the man in the moon wadin’ down in them shallows.”

“Shucks!” said Isabel, discarding the consideration, as it were, of the man in the moon, and thinking that Longwood was disposed to talk to her as if she were a very small child.

He sat quite silent then, the light wind blowing his long hair back amongst the sere and yellow vines. There was no serenity, as of yore, in his eyes, and Marcella was moved to vaguely pity him. She glanced down at him once or twice as she spun, and then away to the purple mountains beyond the hazy valley, rich with golden drapings, tissues of the sunshine that seemed some splendid textile thing, so palpable was its effect. The lilac aster trembled in the stir of the wind. The wild turkey called from the woods. All the burrs of the great chestnut by the gate had opened to the summons of the frost, and now and again as the branches shook, the glossy nuts fell to the roots of the tree. She saw adown the moist, dank path a garter-snake, lying, half torpid, lured out by the treacherous sun and chilled by the autumn blast. Somewhere a cricket shrilled and shrilled.

“Air the season for’ard over ter Chilhowee, Andy?” she asked.

“Dunno. Don’t keer. Wisht Chilhowee war leveled with the ground.”

“Dell-law!” exclaimed Isabel, astonished by this ebullition of perversity, and disposed to comment profusely. Mrs. Strobe, however, opportunely called her from within to some domestic duty, and the suffering Longwood felt it a release.

“Marcelly,” he said earnestly, making the most of his opportunity, “ye an’ me useter be powerful friendly, an’ I hed ruther kem hyar a-visitin’ than in the courts o’ heaven. An’ ye useter laff an’ be glad ter see me. An’ me an’ ye, an’ sometimes Is’bel,”—alas, how often Isabel, for all he put it thus politely,—“useter sit in the orcherd an’ eat apples, an’ go fishin’, an’ sometimes jes’ talk on the porch; an’ now all them times air gone!”

“Ain’t we talkin’ on the porch now?” demanded Marcella.

“Not like in them days: ye sca’cely notice now whether I kem or don’t kem; ye pay jes’ ez much ’tention ter me ez ef I war that thar old dog o’ mine. G’way Watch!” he broke off suddenly, “I ain’t talkin ter you-uns. I wisht yer throat war cut!” He held back with one stalwart hand his canine follower, who upon the mention of the word “dog” had come up and offered to lick his face. “Ye air lookin’ over my head, Marcelly, an’ ye ’low I be sech a fool ez not ter know it. Yit we hev been raised tergether. An’ I remembers how I hev listened, a-comin’ down the turn-row, ter hear ye call out, sweeter ’n a mocking-bird’s singin’, ‘Look, Is’bel, yander’s Andy.’ I’d ruther hear it ’n the voice o’ the Lord! Ye needn’t look at me like that. I’d jes’ ez soon go ter hell ez not—I hev done gone ter hell, ef ye ain’t goin’ ter keer nuthin’ ’bout’n me. Oh, Lord, I can’t learn nuthin’ mo’ ’bout brimstone an’ fire in the next worl’. I hev felt ’em in this.”

“I ain’t goin’ ter keer nuthin’ ’bout onchristian folks,” remarked Marcella, “an’ none ez use cuss words an’ talk ’bout ‘hell.’”

She spoke stiffly and with an averted eye, but when he had turned his head away she looked down kindly and leniently at him.

He suddenly glanced up. “Air it this all-fired Christian, Teck Jepson, ez hev sot ye agin me?” he asked suspiciously.

“Him ez flung my father down, an’ rid over him, an’ bruk his skull, an’”—She could say no more; the sobs were in her throat, her eyes were full of tears.

“Don’t cry, Marcelly,” he said sympathetically, and he was silent for a moment in respect for her grief. Then he renewed his insistent pleas. “Marcelly,” he demanded, “air thar ennybody ez ye know ez I ain’t ’quainted with?” Who could say how Fate might play the trickster? He felt his hands were feeble as he sought to control the possibilities. It might have been that his words recalled the stranger who had brought such peace and ease to her father, that night of storm and trial. It might have been that he was already in her thoughts. His image in the vicissitudes of that night, now in the lurid and fluctuating illumination of the forge, now as he quelled the frenzy of the wounded man, distinct in the white gleams of the lighted cabin, became vividly present with her. She did not hesitate. She believed he was a fugitive from the law, but whether he had done ill, or whether he was falsely suspected, he should not be hurt by aught that she might say. She sought, however, to summon as innocent a duplicity as she might, for was she not a “perfessin’ member”?

“What makes ye ask sech a question ez that, Andy? Ye ’pear bereft.”

“I know,” cried the young fellow wildly, “ez ye think ’bout somebody nowadays in the time whenst ye useter think ’bout’n me!”

“Why, Andy!” exclaimed Marcella, laughing, and blushing for the arrogations of his woe. “I never did think ’bout you-uns, ef the truth war knowed.”

“Ye did! Ye did! I useter know it ’way over yander ter Chilhowee, kase I’d feel so happy, so happy, whilst a plowin’, or choppin’ wood, or a-pullin’ fodder. I wouldn’t hev swapped places with a n’angel. Ye used ter think ’bout _me_ then, an’ now ye think ’bout somebody else.”

She said nothing, and he leaned back against the post of the porch, looking up at the far crystalline sky, deeply blue; but one scant cloud was visible, of a dazzling opaque whiteness in its central mass, and with tenuous trailing cirrus effects upon its verges. It pained his eyes, and he pulled his hat-brim over his brow as he lowered his head.

“I tell you what,—I wisht I war a Injun.” He glanced up at her, in the hope that she would ask why. But her wheel still whirled, her little foot, with its low-cut shoe, visible on the treadle. Her bright, downcast eyes were fixed upon the thread that her deft fingers drew out in endless attenuations. “I wisht I war a Injun,” he reiterated, “so ez I wouldn’t know ’twar murder an’ a scandalous sin ter kem down hyar from Chilhowee in the night-time an’ scalp every hearty single man in the Settlemint,—scalp ’em an’ stab ’em, I would. I wisht I didn’t know no better ’n that. I wisht I war a Injun.”

Her thread broke. The wheel ceased to revolve. She looked at him with reprehensive eyes.

“Andy Longwood,” she remonstrated, “ye air gittin’ ter be gredgin’ an’ mean,—an’ ye ain’t tellin’ the truth, nuther. Ye don’t wish no sech foolishness, an’ ye wouldn’t scalp nobody. Ye air jes’ gredgin’ an’ mean.”

“I gredge you-uns ter enny o’ ’em,” he replied. Then, after a moment, “Look-a-hyar, Marcelly Strobe,”—he adopted in turn the solemnity of the full name in addressing her,—“how often hev ye promised ter marry me?”

“Not lately,” she declared.

“No, not lately, an’ that’s jes’ what I’m a-talkin’ ’bout. Lord! Lord! I kin ’member jes’ ez well how ye useter look when ye fust tuk ter toddlin’ round, an’ folks useter tell me then ez how ye an’ me would marry some day; an’ I b’lieved ’em, pore fool! An’ so did you-uns, though. Ye useter promise ez soon ez ye could talk ez ye would marry me. Ye useter promise even arter ye war ez old ez Is’bel, an’ arterward, too.”

“Waal, Is’bel ain’t so very old,” observed her sister calmly.

“An’ all of a suddint,” continued the young lover, “ye got tongue-tied, an’ wouldn’t say it yerse’f, an’ wouldn’t let nobody say it ter you-uns.”

“Waal, Andy, I hev fund out better sence then. Promisin’ ter marry air a mighty serious matter.”

“’Tain’t; promisin’ ter marry me air a mighty cheerful, safe thing! Knowin’ me like ye do! Ef ye war a-promisin’ ter marry some o’ these deceitful folks ez kem hyar in thar saaft comp’ny manners, an’ then go cavortin round the Cove like a demented blacksmith; or folks ez hev got Christian talk fairly a-wobblin’ all ’round ’em, an’ yit all Brumsaidge air afeard ter say a word whilst they air ridin’ folks down,—off’cers o’ the law an’ sech,—’twould be a mighty serious matter, an’ a heap mo’ serious ter keep enny sech promise.”

He looked at her triumphant in the fullness of his logic; but alas! what has love to do with logic?

The futility of all his fine reasoning was borne in upon him with a dreary accession of heartache and a determination of energy to his temper.

“But ye air in love with some o’ ’em, Marcelly, an’ ye air jes’ foolin’ me. Naw, ye won’t even take the trouble ter try ter fool me,—I ain’t wuth it. Ye air in love with some o’ ’em, else why air ye so solemn? It’s enough ter make ye solemn, though the Lord knows.”

She had not recommenced her spinning; she was looking at him with a remonstrant, smiling expression, as if she might thus coax him from his boyish wrath, when suddenly her eyes filled, her lips trembled.

He rose, quivering at the sight of her agitation. “I’ll find out which one of ’em ’tis that ye air goin’ ter marry, Marcelly, an’ I’ll go down yander inter the Settlemint an’ scatter what he calls his brains all ’round his anvil. Air it Clem Sanders? Air ye goin’ ter marry Clem?”

“I ain’t solemn fur Clem Sanders,” she sobbed, half laughing; then, with a gush of tears, “I hev got a heap besides ter make me solemn.”

“Tell me who it is that ye air goin’ ter marry,”—he touched the trigger of his rifle, with a fierce elation in his eye; “it’s loaded fur _him_.”

Marcella suddenly lifted her head, as if listening. She rose precipitately. “Jes’ go ’long, now, Andy. Ye hev been hyar a long time. Go home, an’ I’ll tell ye ennythin’ ye want ter know nex’ time ye kem. Jes’ g’long, like a good boy.”

He stared, motionless, amazed at her pale face and agitated manner. Then he too heard a step within. “He’s in the house,” he exclaimed, “a-talkin’ ’long o’ Mis’ Strobe an’ Is’bel! An’ ye wanted me ter go ’way ’thout seein’ him. I know ye now, Marcelly, an’ I’ll stay. I won’t be druv off; I’ll stay, an’”—His hand once more sought the trigger of his rifle, as his blazing eyes fixed upon the door whence the sound of the step proceeded. A hesitating step it was, and slow.

And then Eli Strobe appeared, and Longwood saw him for the first time since his illness. The young man recoiled from the shock, his angry insistent face smitten with a sudden gravity, even awe. So forlorn and spectral was Eli Strobe, with his pallid, lantern-jawed face; his half-shaven head, still bandaged; his clothes, his very skin, hanging loosely on his big bones. He cast his old familiar sidelong glance at the young fellow, freighted with evident but surly recognition, and he had the dumb, pathetic, shambling dignity that one sometimes discerns in a wounded animal, as with frequent halts he tottered up to an armchair on the porch, in which his deft-handed daughters made haste to prop him with pillows and wrap him with blankets. He muttered something vaguely about “them leetle darters,” and then he sat quite still, looking off at the purple mountains, and the golden sunshine on the red and amber woods hard by, the aspect of the whole world changed since he saw it last.

The young fellow, still staring, had sunk down upon the porch in his former attitude, wondering if indeed there were no one else within; why, then, had Marcella sought to hurry him away? She had settled herself again at her spinning-wheel, watching with a tremulous smile the clumsy antics of Longwood’s dog, courtier enough to display great joy upon the reappearance of the master of the house, and leaping about his chair, now and then emitting a short, shrill bark.

“Fust time I hev been out, Andy,” observed Eli Strobe.

Marcella stopped her wheel to listen. She seemed to hang with doubt and anxiety upon his every word. Longwood, summoning a show of self-possession and cordiality, remarked that the air was likely to do him good. “Ye ’pear ter be gittin’ well now,” he added encouragingly.

“Yes,” assented Eli Strobe good-humoredly. “Mam an’ Marcelly an’ Is’bel, though, hev mighty near killed me with kindness. ’Twar mighty hard fur me ter start out ter git well. I felt like I’d fairly enjye stayin’ sick fur a livin’. An’ that thar old doctor,—I actially b’lieves he hev gin me all the med’cine he hev got. The rest of ’em in the Cove hed better not git sick soon; no mo’ doctor-stuff whar that kem from.”

Andy Longwood laughed in an embarrassed fashion, by way of making an appropriate response. Some crows—they seemed very black—were cawing loudly from the top of a full-leaved hickory-tree, that blazed a resplendent, illuminated yellow down by the fence; all the breadth of the sere cornfield hard by was doubly pallid in tint, in contrast with this flaring ochreous splendor; the sky was an intenser blue where the foliage was imposed upon its expanse, the farthest mountains duskily purple, while below the branches of the tree, near to the great dark bole, the roofs of the Settlement showed, the glimmer of the frost on the eaves not altogether spent, albeit the sun was high, the curling tendrils of smoke, blue, and misty, and timorous, as they crept out of the clay-and-stick chimneys.

Eli Strobe’s eyes dwelt on the little hamlet for a moment. “What’s the folks in the Settlemint a-sayin’ ’bout me; Andy?” he asked unexpectedly. “I ain’t seen nobody but the gals an’ mam, ez dunno nuthin’ ’bout folks, an’ politics, an’ sech things ez a body wants ter hear ’bout; an’ the old doctor, ez seems ter be a good, useful kind o’ consarn, but ’pears ter think a man oughter set still all day an’ study ’bout’n his liver, stiddier politics an’ his office what he hev done been ’lected ter hold, an’ will de-strac’ his mind ef he gits ter thinkin’ ’bout enny sech ez them. Actially, I b’lieve that old man would hev hed me darnin’ stockin’s, ef I hedn’t made a stan’ agin him. I tried ter spound a pint o’ law ter him t’other day, an’ he seemed ter take a fit till he got me ter talkin’ ’bout craps an’ gyardin truck,—turnips, an’ inguns, an’ sech, ez I don’t keer nuthin’ ’bout. I hain’t hearn nuthin’ ’bout the returns o’ the ’lection ’n’ nuthin’. What air they sayin’ ’bout’n me in the Settlemint, Andy?”

The young man was about to respond, when Marcella precipitately forestalled him:—

“They don’t say nuthin’ nor do nuthin’ in this Settlemint. Brumsaidge air the lonesomest place in these hyar mountings. Sech kerryin’s-on they hev, though, in Piomingo Cove! An’ t’other night they hed a dancin’party over on Chilhowee.”

“Whar’bouts?” cried Andy Longwood, with a poignant note of surprise, deprivation, and despair. “I never hearn nuthin’ ’bout’n it. I dunno why they never invited me,” he added, with surly resentment. As he gazed up at her, he could not interpret the glance of scorn and reproach that she cast upon him. Then she did not lift her eyes again, but busied herself in her spinning, while Eli Strobe, catching at the subject, logically descanted upon the sin of dancing, and described with a fervid imagination the experiences which its votaries would encounter in the next world as retribution. The “frequent visitor” hardly listened, so mystified was he by the taunt of Marcella’s glance and the news of the airy pleasuring on Chilhowee, in his own neighborhood, in which he had been, for some unimagined reason, debarred from participating. If it were not so inexplicable, he might have believed that she had invented the circumstance, and relied upon his tact to confirm her statement, and thus set Eli Strobe off on a theological hobby. He wondered, hearing vaguely of fiery furnaces and furious brimstone, if the doctor considered this a pleasing and wholesome subject of contemplation. It might have lasted longer if the polemic had had a stronger opposition. Marcella sought to furnish this, but paternal tenderness rendered her effort of no avail.

“Of course I ain’t talkin’ ’bout ye dancin’ at the party las’ Christmus, Marcelly. Did ye think I meant that fur you-uns? That war wunst in a while,—a leetle dancin’ an’ fun, jes’ wunst in a while.”

For there are exceptions to every zealot’s cherished theory of damnation, and the imminent terrors of hell must be abrogated in favor of one’s own.

And thus the discourse came to an end. “Andy,” he said, breaking off abruptly, “hev ye hearn ennybody in the Cove ’low ez I war ter blame?”

Once more Marcella looked at her youthful lover, her eyes dilated, pleading. He began to understand that there was more here than appeared upon the surface, and he wished that he had been guided by her monitions and had taken his leave. He gazed at her earnestly, desirous of saying what she wanted him to say; but he could read naught in her eyes save her remonstrance, fear, and reproach. And yet he must answer.

“I hev hearn some,” he faltered, dolorously truthful.

“Waal, they hain’t got no right ter blame me,” retorted Eli Strobe. His color had risen; his eyes flashed. “I’ll be bound, though,—cowardly curs!—they don’t dare ter do nuthin’ but talk; they ain’t got the grit ter try ter set the law onter _me_! They jes’ set ’round at the store an’ the forge, an’ bob thar hats tergether, an’ whisper, an’ talk, an’ talk.” He grimaced with a mimicry of secrecy and malice, and bobbed his own head with an alacrity that made the young fellow wince, remembering the reports of how variously his skull was fractured, and seeing the way in which it was presumably bound together.

Marcella was spinning again with feverish industry; the wheel whirled fast,—so fast, and its whir was continuous and loud.

“Naw, sir; they don’t dare call _me_ ter account ter the law fur killin’ Teck Jepson. _Naw, sir!_” Eli Strobe reiterated, with a deep, rotund voice. Suddenly, with an incidental manner and a clear, casual glance, “Whar did they bury him, Andy?”

The young man sat mute and dumfounded. The blood rushed violently to his head, and the landscape reeled before him. He had scant time to realize the emergency, as the recognition of the state of affairs dawned upon his bewildered intelligence, and to canvass within himself what answer he had best make.

“I dunno,” he faltered. “I be so constant over ter Chilhowee,” he added, gathering his faculties.

“Ain’t ye never hearn, though, whar they buried him?” Eli persisted, with growing pertinacity. “I didn’t ’low ez ’twar you-uns ez preached the fun’ral sermon,” with an angry sneer and his side-glance of bovine surliness.

“Why,” said Marcella, with a matter-of-course manner, “I’ll tell ye: they buried him up yander in that thar leetle buryin’-groun’ by his old cabin, whar his folkses’ graves be.”

Her father fixed a keen, suspicious eye on her.

“Ye didn’t know yestiddy,” he commented severely.

Not even the crafty watchfulness of mania, not Andy Longwood’s sanity, could detect aught amiss or unnatural in her tones and manner as she drew out her thread, and once more set the wheel a-whirling before she replied.

“Naw; Clem Sanders ’twar ez told it ter me, when he kem ter inquire arter ye, las’ night. I axed him.”

Andy Longwood understood now that the family systematically agreed with Eli Strobe and humored his strange delusion, lest they might excite him to his detriment, and that these were the directions of the physician. He did not fail to note that it was with his rival’s name that she sought to aid her forlorn enterprise, and that she no longer turned to him for help. “I reckon Clem an’ nobody else would hev been sech a fool ez me,” he angrily reproached himself. He was eager enough to go now, but his liberty had fled. The invalid had fixed earnest eyes upon him, and showed a continuous desire to talk; he could only sit and listen, with the cruel consciousness of how every distraught word grated upon the tender heart of Marcella. He realized now how she had sought to shield from notice the calamity of her father’s loss of mind, and how he had thwarted her.

“Waal—waal! buried him thar, did they? Teck’s gone!” A shade—a symptom of remorse—crossed his face. “He’s in the grave whar he tried ter put me. Mighty narrer place, folks, mighty narrer, fur ennybody ez hev lived in the worl’ an’ got used ter seein’ the sky.” He drew a long sigh, and mournfully shook his head. “An’ he war a good man in the main—Look-a-hyar, Marcelly,” he broke off abruptly, her half-repressed sob catching his attention, “what ye cryin’ fur? It’s whar he tried ter put me! An’ ye see, Andy, they can’t do nuthin’ ter me, kase I war a off’cer o’ the law in the discharge o’ my jewty. I war obligated ter arrest Teck, an’ I pulled him out’n his saddle an’ bruk his neck. Ye don’t b’lieve it, Marcelly?” He looked at her with a flashing, challenging eye, the red and angry blood rushing suddenly over his pale face. “Ye said ye didn’t, yestiddy.”

“Waal, that war yestiddy,” the girl urged soothingly.

“Ye see, Andy, ef Teck hed killed me whenst he rid me down, ’twould be murder, kase I war off’cer o’ the law, arrestin’ him whilst gamblin’. Hoss-racin’ on a public road air gamblin’, though ye mightn’t think it, Andy. Ye young folks air so sodden in sin ye dunno right from wrong. Buried him up yander on the mounting-side, ’mongst his folkses’ graves. Waal—waal! They needn’t try ter hold me ’sponsible, kase they can’t. Hev ye hearn ennythin’ ’bout his harnt bein’ viewed, an’ sech? Fraish-buried folks walk sometimes, they say; leastwise till they git used ter bein’ under the groun’, or wharever they hev gone ter. But I hev never hearn tell o’ none o’ them ez hev been dead a cornsider’ble time gittin’ a-goin’,—none o’ the old folks, dead fifty year ago an’ better, an’ none o’ them Injuns now out’n that thar Injun buryin’-groun’ way up on Sing-Song Creek. Whoever see a Injun harnt? Shucks! ’twould make me laff. I reckon them folks hed no souls, ef the truth war knowed. Ye ever see a Injun harnt?”

“Naw, sir,” replied Andy. “Them Injuns over ter Quallatown air plenty dead enough fur me!” He laughed constrainedly as he made the admission, for the sight of Eli Strobe, lean, and pale, and grizzly, with his overgrown beard, and his tangled hair, and bandaged head, was not reassuring, as he sat and discussed his ghastly subject.

“I jes’ study ’bout Teck Jepson all the time. I kin jes’ see how he looked whenst I got him down on the road under his horse’s hoofs. He bled a heap.” He said this with a certain relish. Then he looked curiously at a dark stain on his coat-sleeve, and was silent for a moment. “I wisht I knowed what he said whenst he got ter Torment.” He winked feebly at Longwood, unnoticing that the young man winced. “I wisht I knowed ef he walks.”

It was waxing close upon noon. The shadows had gradually dwindled. The world was so still. The sunshine lay on the splendid slopes in languorous reverie. Here and there some winged thing whisked about in the fine soft radiance, miraculously escaping the frost, or gallantly withstanding it, like certain human antiques, prolonging the sentiment and fervor of a summertide, albeit they cannot stay it.

Marcella’s attention pensively followed the airy zigzags of those unconquered wings; the little wheel was still; her hands had fallen passive at last in her lap. Andy was once more meditating departure. He straightened out his limbs as he sat, and he lifted his head and looked about him. The next moment he glanced up at Marcella with an expression of startled, anxious inquiry. Her eyes were already riveted upon the turn-row, where amidst the pallid corn Teck Jepson was slowly coming toward the house.