XIII.

It was one of those moments charged with the realization of a weighty emergency, when the mind shrinks from the responsibility of discriminating in the crisis, and would fain leave the event to ensue unchecked. Marcella sat as still as if she were merely a figure painted on the pale yellow background of the sere mass of clambering vines that clung to the porch on which the salient coloring of her dark blue dress, the red kerchief about her throat, her brown floating hair, her widely open brown eyes, the fresh flesh tints of her face and hands, stood out with an effect delicate, yet intense. The little rough gray spinning-wheel at her knee was distinctly marked, too, for its humble neutrality of tone was aided by contrast, as well as the ashen brownish hue of the old hound’s head. Perhaps it was the expression of her face, instinct with expectation, that arrested her father’s fluctuating attention. He looked at her, bewildered for a moment; then he turned slowly in his chair, and with his deliberate sidelong glance sought to follow the direction of her eyes.

He saw the approaching figure; there could be no doubt of that. The cornstalks, all bleached and partially stripped of the wealth of blades that the summer’s suns had drawn out, like a conjurer’s ribbon flaunting from nothingness, to wave in the summer’s winds,—the residue, tattered and mildewed, glittering here and there with the white rime,—came hardly to Jepson’s breast. The broad shoulders of his blue jeans coat showed above the growth; his wide white hat, set far back from his brow, disclosed his features, with their distinctive chiseling. The peculiar pose of his head and his erect carriage were so characteristic that he could hardly be mistaken even at a distance. His eyes were fixed upon the group, and he must have noted Eli Strobe holding to the arms of his chair, his bandaged head bent forward, gazing open-mouthed, with quivering jaw and pallid, stricken face. He certainly saw Marcella, and his step slackened as he watched her suddenly rise and stand behind her father, placing one finger on her lip. She lifted the other hand at arm’s-length, and with a frowning, imperative face she waved him back. He stood motionless for a moment, hesitating and at a loss. Then he walked on slowly, still toward the house. There was a dip in the ground just in front of him,—a marshy spot,—and there the corn had grown tall and rank; so tall that the sere and half-stripped stalks, left to stand stark and dead in the field till the spring burnings and plowings-under should grant them sepulchre, reached higher than Teck Jepson’s head. Eli Strobe, tremulously intent, watched the great white hat disappear behind these relics of the lush crop; he waited motionless, his eyes fixed upon the lower stalks where it should presently emerge. Time went by,—one minute, three, five,—and still Jepson did not reappear. Andy Longwood divined that he had turned aside upon Marcella’s signal, and had taken his way along the furrows between the corn, out of sight, and so to the verge of the field. But this was not the impression made upon the distraught brain of the constable, as, his patience wearying at last and his muscles failing, he sank back into his chair. He looked craftily at the two young people, to judge what effect the apparition—for thus he deemed it—had had upon them; if indeed it had appeared save to his own eyes. In their uncertainty, dealing with the emergency at hap-hazard and as best they might, they unwittingly fostered his delusion. Marcella was calmly spinning once more, and Andy Longwood, taking his cue at last, idly whittled a stick.

For some time no word was spoken. Strobe, gasping for breath, ever and again looked fearfully over his shoulder to where the languid autumnal sunshine lay still and vacant upon the expanse of the pallid corn. Pilgrims were abroad in the blue sky, and now and then a wild weird cry floated down from migratory birds, sometimes unseen, and sometimes visible only in the tiny converging lines bespeaking the files of the wild geese, all a-journeying. When wings not afar off, with a silken rustle and gleams of living light, came cleaving the sunshine and dimpling the waters of the shallows of the river, he showed a momentary interest to see the wild ducks settle and rise again, as the crack of a gun told that a death-charged missile had pierced their ranks. He glanced mechanically after their flight as with clamorous cries they took to wing. And then he did not forget to gaze once more upon the curtaining corn where that significant figure had disappeared. A gray squirrel scudded along the rail fence, then across the door-yard, with a large hickory-nut in his mouth, and vanished up the bole of the chestnut-tree, making small account of the old hound, who simply growled in an undertone, his eyes bright and liquid and his ears pricked up. The wounded man’s heavy-lidded eyes followed with a twinkle the whisking squirrel. “Ye ain’t a-goin’ hongry this winter, air ye, bubby? I’ll be bound ye be a reg’lar high liver, ef the truth war knowed.”

Marcella took note of the easy, natural tone. She drew a long sigh of relief. The tense, feverish spark had died out of her eyes; they were pensively bright, as she fixed them smilingly upon her father. She believed that her quick resource had taken effect. He had seen Teck Jepson, certainly, but she thought that at the distance he could not have recognized him, and that she had averted the calamity which the sudden entrance upon the scene of the man whom he supposed dead would surely have precipitated. He might have been shocked into a relapse of his ravings and his violent mania, from which perhaps he would never have emerged again.

“An’ the doctor say, ‘Keep him quiet,’” she muttered.

The sunshine, and the air, and the wonderful balsamic freshness and buoyancy that seemed to pervade it, all had a tonic effect on Eli Strobe. His color became more natural, his eye was calmer, the blood in his veins seemed charged with his own bold identity. He began to feel his courage.

“I ain’t afeard o’ nuthin’,” he remarked triumphantly, suddenly pursuing aloud the tenor of his thoughts. His daughter stopped and stared, crestfallen, since he seemed again incoherent. “I never war afeard o’ no livin’ man, an’ I ain’t a-goin’ ter set out at my time o’ life ter git skeered at harnts. I war a-tellin’ ye jes’ now ’bout mebbe Teck Jepson’s harnt mought set out ter walk. Ef he tuk ter foolin’ round me, I’d jes’ ax him, ‘What kin ye do? What kin ye do?’” He put both hands on his knees and wagged his head from side to side, casting up that characteristic sidelong glance, as if thus defying and confronting the supposed spectre. “‘Ye couldn’t do nuthin’ ter me whilst live an’ hearty. An’ I ain’t a-goin’ ter be afeard o’ ye now ye air dead. Ef ye kem a-tromplin’ round hyar, I’ll arrest ye,—I’ll sarve papers on ye. I’m constable o’ Brumsaidge yit!’”

Once more he turned abruptly, and looked out over the emptiness of the cornfield. Then he leaned back in his chair, and this idea of serving papers on the “harnt” came over him anew, and seemed to amuse him mightily. Now and again he muttered, “I’ll sarve papers on ye,” and chuckled slyly to himself. “I’ll sarve papers on ye, till ye’ll be glad ter stay in yer grave, writ proof.”

“This hyar Jepson,”—he spoke aloud, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, and assuming that sly, confidential air characteristic of the rustic gossip, as he looked from one to the other of the young people,—“he tried powerful hard ter make up ter me in his last days, though I know he never used ter like me much, kase I war cousin ter M’ria White, ez married Ben Bowles, an’ put her up ter gittin’ a powerful good trade out’n Teck whenst he went ter live with them,—an’ ginerally kase I war kin ter M’ria. An’ I’ll ’low myse’f M’ria air a pritty stiff one ter stan’. Some folks useter think mebbe I mought marry M’ria myse’f, me bein’ a widower; but I say, ‘Naw, sir! I ain’t a-goin’ ter hev my pleasure at the jedgmint day plumb _de_stroyed by hevin’ ter go ter heaven with two wimmen a-clawin’ an’ tearin’ each other’s hair an’ golden harps ’bout which one owned me! Thanky! One wife’s enough. Mought be said ter be a plenty.’” He laughed with his heavy bass rumble. “But I want ter tell ye ’bout Teck,” he went on, lapsing into his tone of urgent mystery. “Oh, I tell ye, in his las’ days he made up ter me,—Teck could be ez smooth an’ slick ez a bullet when he wanted ter; an’ what fur, do ye reckon? Why, fur Marcelly. He war bound ter find favior in her eyes, so, knowin’ she set a heap o’ store by her dad’s opinion, he ondertook ter git mighty friendly with _Me_!”

He was addressing himself now to Andy Longwood, whose expression had changed from pity and embarrassed anxiety to keen and alert interest. The young fellow’s face was flushed; he had drawn himself into a tense listening position as he sat on the step; as he turned his head eagerly upward, his light, curling hair fell down longer still upon his broad shoulders beneath the wide brim of his hat, set far back. He had the greater interest in what was to come because he began to realize that Eli Strobe was perfectly sane except in regard to the circumstances surrounding the disaster,—his delusion concerning Teck Jepson’s death and the manner of it. He simply was the victim of what is known as a “fixed idea.” On other topics his mind seemed even more alert and lucid than formerly, possibly because of that freshened interest in life characteristic of the invalid returning to the world after an interval of seclusion. He was more talkative than was his wont, and in relaxing his reserve he had lost that very glutinous quality, his policy, which usually serves to hold together what men really think, and prevent it from melting into speech, which is often the reverse of what men think.

“An’ I didn’t know what in the name o’ Aberham ter do!” continued Eli Strobe, with uncharacteristic communicativeness. “Me runnin’ fur election, an’ this hyar man a-courtin’ round Marcelly. An’ he hed hearn mam accidentally ’low ez Marcelly despised him, so I hed ter be powerful keerful, kase I didn’t want him ter vote agin me fur constable. That war the main pint. Young folks kin git married or stay single, whichever seems the foolishest ter ’em; that’s what they always do,—the foolishest. But ye can’t git ’lected ter office by jes’ wantin’ ter. Ef ye ain’t ’lected constable, _ye can’t be constable_. But ef ye can’t git one gal, ye air mighty apt ter git another; they ain’t all o’ one mind. An’ I didn’t want the young folks’s foolishness ’bout fallin’ in love ter oust me out’n my office. Kase Teck Jepson air mighty robustious, an’ ef he hed tuk a nation ter work agin me in the election he’d hev done it with a will. So when he’d say suthin’ ’bout Marcelly, I’d say, ‘Thar’s plenty o’ time fur me ter choose a son-in-law, Teck, an’ I mus’ say candidates fur that office abound in this kentry.’” He stopped to laugh, then went on gravely: “‘The outlook fur sons-in-law is promisin’. I ain’t liable ter be destitute; but I be goin’ ter take my time ’bout gittin’ a son-in-law.’ So Teck jes’ didn’t know whether I favored him or no, but warn’t made mad; though I knowed all the time ez Marcelly war a-goin’ ter marry Clem Sanders,—ain’t ye, Marcelly?”

Andy Longwood caught his breath, as he looked up at her. There was a touch of coquetry in the glance of her eye and her mounting color, as she nodded a careless acquiescence. She would not contradict the invalid, and perchance she relished the tumult of indignation that flared, upon her gesture of affirmation, in Andy Longwood’s face; for nothing concerning her old playfellow seemed a serious matter to her. The next moment she was smiling down at him, ready to signal a negative to him, but he had turned his head resolutely away.

“Sometimes,” pursued the politician, “I’d say ter Teck, whenst he talked ’bout Marcelly, I’d say, ‘I’m obligated ter hev a mighty smart man fur my son-in-law, kase I hev got a darter ez hevn’t got her ekal fur looks an’ goodness outside o’ the courts o’ heaven. Kin ye read?’ An’ he’d say, mighty oneasy, ‘Naw; what do I want ter read fur?’ An’ then I’d say, ‘Kin ye even spell? Clem Sanders kin.’ An’ he’d say, ‘Naw,’ powerful glum, I tell ye. Then he’d be perlite fur true fur a while,—a good while. When, Andy, I’ll tell ye, ’twixt ye an’ me an’ the gate-post, sech spellin’ ez Clem Sanders kin do oughter be agin the law! It air agin every law o’ spellin’. Clem oughter be hung a leetle fur each offense. It jes’ fixes him in his criminal conduct agin the alphabet. Oh, ho! But Teck never knowed no better. He ’lowed I wanted a school-larned son-in-law, an’ Clem war that larned man. Heigh ho! I reckon I oughtn’t ter hev made him so mis’able in his las’ days. But I couldn’t abide ter git cut out’n my office kase all the young idjits in the kentry war insane ’bout Marcelly.”

He leaned back in his chair once more, desisting at last, for there had begun to be an unmistakable prospect of losing his audience. Andy Longwood, who had wished to go earlier, but had found his will not adequate to the emergency, remaining helplessly embarrassed by the awkwardness of the situation which left him an unwelcome witness of the manifestation of Eli Strobe’s mania, now felt the energy of his own grievances imparted to his volition by the disclosures which had chanced to be made. He was once more self-absorbed, self-centred. He hardly noticed the wounded man, or that he rose so precipitately upon the conclusion of the last sentence that it savored of the rudeness of interruption and disrespect to his elders. He could go now, easily enough,—willingly. His face, as he stood, younger far than his muscles, callow of expression considering his height, belying his claim to the authority and respect that he arrogated as a full-grown man, was flushed, and wore that petulant importance of adolescence that falls far short of the dignity for which it strives. Marcella knew well the puerile heroics and reproaches that would have come from him had they been alone; and so much his senior was the girl, four years his junior, that she was wont to slyly laugh at him, to maternally humor his view of his own importance, and to feel very kindly toward him, for they had always been together, and he had been a merry and good-tempered play-mate in the old days. He had not yet ceased to be amusing, save, poor fellow, to himself.

“I mus’ be a-goin’,” he observed, not lifting his eyes, and articulating indistinctly, for he only slightly moved his lips. She had often seen him in this mood, and ten years ago these manifestations, so familiar to her, would have preceded a wild burst of tears and a stamping of small brogans in rage. She remembered him well in this guise of youthful grief. Such seizures had passed from his recollection as if they had never been. He could not have pictured himself at any period so removed from that idea of dignified and important identity which he fancied was himself.

“We air goin’ ter dish up dinner, Andy,” she observed, alluringly. “Some o’ the late corn ain’t plumb hardened yit, an’ we air goin’ ter hev corn-puddin’. Them guinea hens ye gin me lays aigs enough fur ennythin’. Ye better stay.”

Few people in this world have the opportunity of beholding a fairer, more gracious face than that which she turned, as she bent over her wheel, and looked at him, her eyes shining and sweet, her lips smiling, showing the glittering line of her teeth.

But he kept his eyes averted.

“I don’t want no dinner,” he declared.

“Got above eatin’, hev ye?” remarked Eli Strobe, whose affinities were essentially those of maturity, and who had scant sympathy with the callow stage of manhood. He entertained a robust contempt for its assertions and its confidence in some bigger and better future, likely to wait upon its superior capacities, than other men had attained. “Ye’ll git ter heaven quicker ’n ye think fur, ef ye jes’ hold out an’ foller that fashion ez a constancy.”

Andy lifted his eyes slightly now, with an expression of surly indignation, but mindful of his own position he said merely, “I ain’t hongry.” He lingered a moment still, because the mountaineers do naught precipitately; then with a deliberate “Waal, good-by,” he started away.

“Andy!” cried Marcella, her voice indeed as sweet as the mocking-bird’s. He turned, gloomily unappeased, stiffly obeying her behest to accord attention. He leaned upon his long rifle, as he stood in the path and looked back. She had risen, and had come to the verge of the porch; one hand was on the post, the other was held out to him. She was smiling still, and tears would have impressed him as more appropriate,—smiling easily and naturally, with a touch of jesting, ridiculing remonstrance in her manner. “I furgot. I want ter ax ye ter do me a favior—but—but—ye look so mad I be mos’ afeard. Air ye mad?”

_So mad!_ And this was the way she interpreted his heartbreak.

He looked with stern reproach at her, although he spoke in a gentle tone:—

“Mad? What hev I got to be mad ’bout, Marcelly?”

“Nuthin’,” she began.

“That don’t hender, Andy,” interrupted Eli Strobe, unable to refrain from taking a hand in the little game. “The maddest folks air always them ez hev got no call ter git mad.”

“I war ’feard ye _mought mebbe_ be mad with me,” said Marcella, still provokingly smiling, and stepping down from the porch and slowly approaching him.

The sunshine was on her bare head. The rich chestnut-brown of her hair showed such lustre and depth of color in the broad light, such gloss and fineness. And how it waved and curled as it fell down on her shoulders, with an electrical isolation of filaments toward the ends, where they seemed to lose the expression of color, and gave only cloudy, indefinite effects that left no opportunity for strong, crude lines about her head. Her fair skin was fairer still in the radiance. Her eyes were dazzled; she held one hand above them, and their expression, as she looked at him from the shadow, might have mollified aught less wrapped in self than this very young man. To him it all meant that Marcella knew that she had given cause for offense, and was wishing to make it up by laughing him out of his just indignation; for a half laugh curved her lips, and brought out a dimple in her cheek, to fluctuate there with her effort to ridicule him. She came silently, looking tall and slight, fit to be swayed even by a gentle wind, and stood beside him in the narrow path; glancing at him for a moment, then turning and gazing casually from under her hand, that still shielded her smiling eyes, now at one and then another of the great ranges, shimmering azure through the sun, save when a white cloud in the sky set a dimly purple image of itself a-scudding as impalpably over the mountains. He was impelled to speak first. He did so in a tone of grave and measured constraint, as one who will not resent, though feeling offense.

“What favior did ye wanter ax me, Marcelly?”

Her eyes rested still longer on the mountains; then she fixed them on his face, altogether unmoved by his grave tone, except, perchance, to laughter. She took hold of the barrel of his rifle with her left hand.

“I want ye ter loan me this rifle o’ yourn, Andy. I want ter shoot a old hawk ez hev been a-flusterin’ round the hens an’ chickens lately.”

He stood, blankly astonished, for a moment.

“Whyn’t ye borry yer dad’s?” he demanded, in surly suspicion of her motives.

Once more she turned her shaded eyes upon the mountains.

“Oh, kase,” she said, altogether unembarrassed by the expression of stern and serious inquiry in his eyes, “ye gin me mos’ o’ the chickens I hev got, an’ mebbe it mought be good luck ef I war ter shoot the hawk with yer own gun.”

This seemed to him perfectly reasonable, but his distrust of her was so great at the moment that he subjected the possibility of occult motives to a searching mental scrutiny. He failed to evolve anything more plausible, or indeed anything beyond what she had said. He looked at her hard for a moment, still bitterly resenting her undimmed brightness under his displeasure, and he secretly thought she had ill chosen her time to ask of him a favor. Still maintaining his gravely offended aspect, he said, “Ye kin hev it, Marcelly, ez long ez ye want it.” He released his hold upon it, leaving it in her hand, and went his way without another word. At the gate he did not look back, but pursued the turn-row until he was half through the field. Under some impulse then which he did not seek to discriminate, he glanced over his shoulder.

Marcella was standing in the path where he had left her, still gazing after him. She held the long rifle in one hand, leaning her soft cheek against its surly ramrod at one side of the barrel, her hair touching it She smiled radiantly at him through the sunshine, and called out with joyous sweetness, “Good-by, Andy.”

If he said aught in response, she did not hear it. Her charming smile, intent on mollification, failed of effect; it was too much, however, to expect even of feminine tact that she should appreciate that frowns might have served better, or null seriousness, inexpressive and impenetrable. The flash of light from her eyes set a-flaring his intelligence,—a sufficiently good endowment, but lacking those traits of divination and imagination characteristic of more finely furnished brains. Without its impetus he could never have experienced an abrupt illumination concerning Marcella’s motive, which opened before him by the time he had ponderingly approached the verge of the cornfield. Its contemplation almost took his breath away. He stood motionless, staring vaguely before him, realizing why she had wanted his rifle,—how strange that he had not instantly known! Had he so soon forgotten his idle threats? He had a vivid mental picture of himself as he must have looked as he stood on the porch this morning, significantly tapping the trigger of the loaded rifle. She had not thought those threats idle! His foolish courage flared up to match the estimation in which he thought she held him. She knew him for a dangerous man!—and the blood pulsed fast through his veins as this flattering idea impelled it. She was afraid he would indeed wreak woe upon the man whom she was to marry. Her father had said that she was to marry Clem Sanders, and she had not denied it. He had unconsciously disbelieved this at the time, as one cannot at first realize a misfortune, which stuns the finer sensibilities by the weight of its fall. Only now he was beginning to appreciate what her loss meant to him; it almost unmanned him for a moment, thinking as he did that it was her solicitude for the safety of her lover that devised the clever ruse to win his rival’s rifle.

“’Feard I’d hurt Clem,” he said with a sneer, despite his quivering lip. Perhaps it was the idea that violence was expected of him, which her precautions first suggested to him,—for the bravado and bloody-mindedness of his conversation had been utterly without intention,—that determined him upon his course.

“Naw, naw, Marcelly,” he said, half aloud and mournfully shaking his head, “ef not me—nobody.” He leaned down as he spoke, and drew from his boot-leg a glittering steely flash; he looked around with a quick, apprehensive glance; but the sere stalks of the corn, which were straggling here, so near the end of the field, would nevertheless serve to shield him from the observation of any one in the yard or the porch of the cabin. He examined the knife with fierce eyes, his teeth set hard together: the handle was strong, the metal excellently well tempered. He passed his fingers gingerly along the edge,—keen, how keen! Clem Sanders himself had sharpened it! He sheathed it and thrust it back into his long boot-leg, and went on taking his way down the road toward the forge, nerved by the fact that bloodshed was expected of him.

A drought had succeeded the wet weather, and the deep ruts formed by the wagon wheels in the red clay mire of the road were still stiff and hard, mementos of their slow, creaking progress; and although here and there a thin crust crumbled under his heel, his steps left no other trace. He heard a thrush whistle from the weeds as he went. He looked up at the spaces of the broad blue sky, infinite elsewhere, but here with bounds and barriers, for the mountains limited it and made it local. He was vaguely conscious that his dog, with an affectation of loyalty to his true owner, as one might seek to cultivate a fine trait to wear as a graceful accomplishment, knowing it to be exotic to the soil, trotted at his heels, with a long, lithe stride and a sinuously moving body, a wagging tail and a nose that pretended to snuff the ground, as if solicitous for some trail of fox, or rabbit, or other gentry. His master was presently made aware of his defection by seeing the canine shadow, cast a little in advance, suddenly swerve aside, and with a deft pace and a drooping tail the hound set out swiftly for his adopted home.

“The very dog hev gin me up,” his master muttered bitterly. Sorrow at his age is not all bitterness; it had an element of satisfaction to be so very adequate to his sufferings and his wrongs. He mechanically turned his head to glance after the creature, who had paused, gazing back with regret, rent with inward dissension, his poor dog-conscience struggling between his sense of duty and preference. He looked a trifle handsomer than his wont, with the animation of his emotion expressed in his slender, alert head and his bright eyes. Then, with a sudden sharp yelp that seemed to cadence the pang of decision, he betook himself swiftly away from temptation, resolved to persevere in desertion, and was soon lost to view as the turn-row swallowed him amongst the corn. The next moment Andy had forgotten that he existed. The music of the forge was on the air, the clinking of the hand-hammer and the clanking of the sledge. How the distant sound assimilated with the mountain voices, as the echoes came lilting forth to meet it! The ear might hardly distinguish the repetitions of the rock from the vibrations of the metal. Presently he could hear the anvil sing, and then the strokes seemed only marking the rhythm of this fine, tremulous, high-pitched monody. Clem Sanders was there at his work, all unsuspicious of the fate coming with long strides down the road. What strange, untimely thought was this! The muscles below Longwood’s knee were suddenly sensitive to the pressure of the knife in his boot, and he was reminded of a grisly old story of a cruel man whose hand was palsied on his weapon in the moment when he would have taken a fellow-man’s life. An old woman’s story this, told in the dusk at the fireside, to sap away with mystery and weird lights and artful words a man’s courage when he should resent his wrongs like a man; for were they not all afraid of bloodshed, these women, and cowards to their heart’s core? He was dragging his left leg, for all his logic and his scorn of a pusillanimous peace. How the anvil sang,—how it sang! And why need he wonder would it be silent to-morrow,—would it ever again give forth that sonorous melody under the hand of the man who now wielded the hammer? Who talks of to-morrow? Poor fool, let him mind to-day. Was the knife turning around in his boot? Every fibre of the limb was oppressed with its significant presence. His courage, however, did not wait upon his nerves; he saw altogether unmoved that half a dozen idle men were standing about the door of the forge, or loitering within. His pace had grown slower since that fancy about the knife had taken hold upon him, but as he made his way up the slight ascent to the door of the forge he stooped down and boldly drew out the weapon; a man in the doorway fixed a meditative eye upon him, thinking, doubtless, he had only brought the blade to have an edge put on it. Longwood could see through the dusky little place, for the window at the rear was open, and he marveled to find his senses so alert. In such a moment he thought it strange to recognize Teck Jepson, leaning against the wall, his face white since the summer sunburn had worn away, and thoughtful, and with imperative lines even in silent reverie; his hands were thrust in his leather belt; his eyes were fixed on the leafless autumn woods. Nay, Longwood took note even of the bare brambles of the wild rose outside of the window, its profuse pods glowing scarlet amongst the gray rocks and the brown moss, and the fine-webbed witchery of the hoarfrost lying on the sere leaves in the shadow.

Clem Sanders’s massive figure was the focus of the group, with his leather apron girded about him, his sleeves rolled back from his muscular arms, the light of the fire—a steady red glow, for the bellows was idle—upon his square, good-humored face, which was refined by that look of earnest attention and grave content characteristic of the good workman at his chosen task. One hand held with the tongs the metal upon the anvil; the other wielded the hand-hammer with deft precision, and the sledge came crashing down, as Jube, the parson’s son, grasped it with both hands. The brown shadows clustered about them, and the figure of the striker with the sledge was only dimly suggested in the rich depths of the picture. Each detail grew more distinct as the young man advanced; the apartment gradually seemed lighter than it did at a distance, seen through the brilliant crisp air, and with the contrast of the sunshine and the high color of the autumnal world without. As the cinders, which were mingled with the earth, at the door, began to grate beneath his feet, he wondered that none of those within took note of his deadly intention; that the smith should stand undefended, unwarned, for Clem’s unnoting head was bent over his work, and the yellow sparks flew from the red-hot iron as the hammer and the sledge alternately fell. Longwood did not realize how much the habitual imperturbable aspect characteristic of the mountaineer cloaked his agitation and his design. Even when he strode into the place, his drawn knife in his hand, calling out, “Clem Sanders, stand up ter fight! I be a-goin’ ter kill ye!” the idler in the doorway, chewing his quid of tobacco, merely shifted his eyes again to the new-comer, and an elongation in the stiff wrinkles about his mouth betokened preparation to smile. Teck Jepson withdrew slowly his attention from the forest wilds without, and the smith responded cheerily, his head still bent over the anvil, “Kill away!” while the painstaking blows of the forging alternated with the precision of machinery and the sparks flew.

Longwood hesitated for a moment; then, with a swift fear that his resolution might fail him, he rushed impetuously forward. The sharp knife in his hand struck the blacksmith beneath the shoulder blade; it was long and keen enough to have pierced his heart. There was no fault in the weapon,—a good strong knife; the hand had faltered,—no sincere hatred had nerved it. The blade fell clanking to the ground, as the blacksmith tapped the face of the anvil as a signal that the blows of the sledge should cease. He turned around slowly, his straight eyebrows lifted. “What air ye doin’ of, Andy?” he demanded.

“I stabbed ye. I wanter kill ye,” Longwood muttered, doubtful of himself and bereft of his weapon, for Clem Sanders had casually stooped and picked up the knife.

The movement had possibly caused the slight wound to gape.

“Look-a-yander how Clem’s a-bleedin’!” exclaimed Jube Donnard, in the excited falsetto of a born sensationalist.

“Great Molly Har!” cried the smith, showing emotion for the first time, “did he cut a hole in this hyar brand-new shirt? Mam hev jes’ done wove it, an’ she ’lowed ef these hyar shirts didn’t las’ me no longer ’n common, I’d hev ter git the trash cloth at the store, ready wove, or else marry a wife ter do the weavin’. Kase she ’lows it’s through gamesomeness, an’ not work, I git my clothes so tore up. Look-a-hyar, Andy,”—he fixed a severe, threatening eye on his assailant,—“ye boys air gittin’ too rough in yer playin’, kemin’ an’ a-cuttin’ other folkses clothes. Mighty pore fun.”

He shook his head reprehensively, and turned excitedly toward Jube who again cried out, “Look how Clem’s a-bleedin’!”

“I ain’t a-keerin’ fur that!” exclaimed the doughty blacksmith. “It will stop bleedin’ d’rectly. An’ my skin will do its own repairin’ ’thout mam ter talk a bushel medjure ’bout the sadness o’ hevin’ ter patch. What I’m tormented ’bout air this hyar tear in this new shirt. Air it sizable much?”

He crooked his neck dexterously and sought to look over his shoulder to see the rent, but for all his muscle he could not accomplish the feat.

“What air ye ondertakin’ ter stab folks fur, Andy Longwood?” Teck Jepson had ceased to lean against the window, and his tone was stern and inquisitorial. “What do ye want ter kill Clem fur? Do ye s’pose I’d hev stood by an’ seen ye done sech?”

The young fellow, aghast at what he had done, and still more aghast at what he had sought to do, experienced a sudden revulsion of feeling upon hearing Jepson’s words; his fluctuating anger, that had failed to bear him through his enterprise, flared up anew. His pride, too, was touched that Clem had held his rage and the wound he had dealt as so slight a thing,—offering not even a blow in return; he was nettled that in no way could he impress a commensurate idea of the intention and the spirit that had animated him, and he resented infinitely Jepson’s tone, upbraiding him as if he were a boy. The wish for adequate reprisal, to deal him a blow that he would surely feel to the quick, broke down what slight reserves his boyish nature had.

“Ye hev got the same reason ter want him dead ez me!” he cried out. “Marcelly Strobe air a-goin’ ter marry him. Her dad said so,—an’ she did, too.”

He had the satisfaction of seeing Teck Jepson palpably recoil. He was all at once very pale. He did not look at Clem Sanders, nor seem to see anything very definitely. He gazed blankly into space, or perhaps into the vistas of memory for corollary data to confirm this thing. His hand was on the window-sill, and it trembled visibly.

Andy Longwood watched these symptoms of pain, each pang of which he could well divine, with a sort of gloating relish, and once or twice his quick breathing was so pronounced as to seem a snort of victory.

“Now! _Now!_” he said, nodding his head triumphantly.

Clem Sanders had stood as one petrified, turning over these significant words in his mind, with a rampant doubt on his face. Suddenly he regained his faculty of motion and his easy credulity. He tore off his leather apron, leaving the iron cooling on the anvil. As he plunged his dark red head into the barrel of cold water, where he usually tempered steel, his intention of making a toilet began to be manifest to the idlers about the place. Their rallying laughter and gibes gave Andy Longwood food for meditation anew. Evidently this was news to Clem, and the others seemed to readily appreciate it.

“Take another souse, Clem, ef ye air goin’ a-visitin’,” observed the grinning Bassett; “then she can’t tell how red yer head be.”

Clem stared at him credulously, and obediently thrust again his red head into the water, in the midst of renewed merriment.

Andy Longwood experienced a sudden terror, which showed that his hope was not dead, as he had accounted it, but merely comatose.

“Don’t tell her ’twar _me_ ez stabbed ye, Clem,” he pleaded, every vestige of the desperado gone. “Don’t tell on me.”

“G’long, Andy!” replied the good-natured fellow. “I hev got suthin’ better ’n you-uns ter talk about.”

He put on his coat, and strode briskly out of the forge and up the hill. They could hear him whistling a long way. Before he had reached Eli Strobe’s cabin, however, the blithe tones were checked. He in his turn heard music,—a vague, fitful lilting; now striking out with some full, rich tone, then trailing away to a meditative murmur, as if the lips whence it issued were closed save for this dream of a sound. He looked about for a moment, uncertain in the silence; and then the song came again, clear and serene, and mellow as the day itself, seeming a part of the fine and full culminations that the yellow sunshine, and the violet haze, and the deeply blue sky, and the calm of the season expressed. It was Marcella, singing like a dryad in the woods, fragments and fitful impulses stirring the sylvan solitudes with sweet and vagrant accords, and making the echo timorous to try so elusive a strain.