XXIV.

It is one of the incongruities of sentiment that the grief of an unworthy subject for a puny cause should have the poignant force and dignity of pain, and demonstrate that universality of human susceptibility to mental suffering with which the species is endowed. Mrs. Bowles might have seemed of altogether too flimsy a moral constitution to experience so adequately the surprise, the anger, the anguish, that consecutively possessed her upon the discovery of the little mountaineer’s disappearance. Bob’s own mother could hardly have shed more tears. As she forecast the gossip of the Cove, it might have appeared that only the repute heretofore of phenomenal graces of disposition could warrant the quivering shrinking she felt in coming at a disadvantage before the popular censor.

“Folks will ’low ez how I hed treated him mean,—though ef he war my own child an’ hed runned away, they’d ’low he war a mean brat, an’ would turn out a evil man. But bein’ I’m a stepmother, I’ll git the blame. An’ ter think how I hev slaved fur him,—patched an’ let out seams, an’ him a-growin’ out’n every gyarmint ez ef he’d grow out’n the roof; an’ kep’ him clean ez soap an’ water knowed how! I’ll be bound he’s tore his petticoats haffen off’n him in tatters, an’ got muddy an’ scratched with briers, afore he shows hisse’f—a mis’able mean shoat!—in the Cove, a object o’ pity, an’ everybody a-tattlin’ how M’ria White, ez married a Bowles, like a fool, treats her step-chil’n, till they runs away from her, an’ dares the wild beast an’ the mountings ter be shet of her.”

And once more she burst into tears. She had her good qualities, which were chiefly housewifely, and she had not pretermitted her labors in washing the dishes and scouring the cooking utensils in order to indulge her grief. Perhaps it was the more effective as she held the plate aside to lean sobbing against the chimney jamb; then she wiped her eyes perfunctorily upon her apron, and went on with her work, while the tears streamed anew.

Her husband stood helplessly looking on, a pale, ashen hue upon his lank, indefinite countenance, a startled anxiety in his mild blue eyes, that seemed distended with abnormal faculties, as if they beheld a frightful possibility not within the actual field of vision. He had searched the immediate vicinity as thoroughly as might be for the infantile fugitive, and his heart sank within him as he reflected upon the measureless mountain wilds encompassing the little home on every hand, the hideous chasms and steeps, the lurking beasts of prey. He could not look upon the trundle-bed, the covering thrown off, and a deep indentation on the further side, where the fat little body had been cosily intrenched all night, with nobody knows what dreams in his head, or wakefully devising his callow schemes.

With the alert paternal despair, Bowles felt that he would never again see there, the rotund little fellow. He had not his wife’s capacity for self-centred sorrow, and it was impossible for him to regard the incident personally except with keen and subtle spasms of remorse, his ingenuity fertile in devising more reasons for repentance than the bountiful reality afforded.

“M’ria—M’ria,” he said tremulously, “I feel obligated ter go down an’ roust, up all the men in the Cove ter sarch. A b’ar or a painter mought—mought”—He could not go on.

“Shucks!” retorted his wife contemptuously. “Ef he’s eat, he’s eat, an’ the men in the Cove can’t hender.”

She slapped the dishes down upon the table as she successively wiped each piece, and there was temper very prominently apparent even in her tears.

“They mought hev dragged him ter thar den,—I hev hearn o’ sech doin’s,” the luckless Bowles urged desperately.

“I know what den he’s in: he’s in the den o’ that painter or wolf ye call Teck Jepson,—that’s who hev ’ticed him off.”

She was sorry she had spoken when she noted how Bowles’s face cleared, how he clutched at this hope; for it was one of the prime essentials of her grief that it should be shared, and if sympathy did not prompt her companions to make it their own, she presently gave them ample occasion to sorrow for their own sake. This bloodless elucidation of Bob’s disappearance had early occurred to her. He was trying to make his way to his uncle, and by reason of the dense undergrowth it would be difficult for him to do aught but follow the path which would certainly lead him to the Cove, where he would probably meet and electrify every important personage of Mrs. Bowles’s world before encountering the object of his search.

“That’s a fac’!” cried Bowles joyfully. “I’ll go straight down yander ter Teck’s an’ see.” A cloud overcast his face. “It’s a long way,—he’ll never git thar. He’ll set down an’ go ter sleep on the side o’ the road—an’ su’thin’ wild mought ketch him thar. I’ll go—I’ll go, straight.”

“Naw, I’ll go myse’f,” said Mrs. Bowles, with another gush of tears. “I ain’t goin’ ter hev ye, an’ Teck Jepson, an’ Bob—yer great fine Bob!—a-showin’ off yer mis’ries down in the Cove, an’ a-makin’ out ez I be tur’ble enough ter harry ye all out’n house an’ home. Naw, sir, I’m goin’ myse’f, an ye’ll bide hyar an’ take keer o’ them t’other two chil’n, an’ purvent them from runnin’ away.”

Sim and A’minty had already been given reason to mourn on their own behalf, Mrs. Bowles fancying that she detected in their sullen little faces a relish of her lachrymose outbursts and protests against this untoward fate that had somehow got the upper hand of her. But despite the channels of tears drying on their cheeks, that spark of triumph still shone in their eyes, and she could not quench it. She saw it anew as they looked up on being mentioned, and she was once more moved to accuse them of complicity in Bob’s flight, which had been the pretext of the previous trouncings.

“Ye A’minty, ye better tell me which way Bob went, an’ what he ’lowed he war goin’ ter do,” she said, stopping in her domestic duties, and standing with arms akimbo, gazing down at the tousled red head and tallowy freckled face of the little girl.

A’minty looked old and very cautious as she spoke; she held the yellow cat, with the green eyes, close up under her chin and against her neck,—what a comfort the soft, furry, purring thing was!

“I dunno!” she declared. “Bob don’t talk none sca’cely, ’ceptin’ ’bout’n vittles.”

“I’ll be bound he talks ’bout vittles,—vittles what I cook fur him!” cried Mrs. Bowles, with a new cadence of despair. “Ter think I lef’ my good home an’ a plenty o’ marryin’ chances down in the Cove, ter kem up hyar an’ weave an’ sew an’ spin an’ cook an’ slave from mornin’ till night, an’ fetch up another ’oman’s chil’n, an’ _yit_ git n’ised about all round the Cove ez bein’ mean, an’ no-count, an’ neglec’ful. I jes’ know how dirty Bob will be afore he gits ter the Cove, dirty an’ tore up, an’ got on the wust dress he hev got ter save his life,—an’ folks will be ’lowin’ ez I hev repented o’ my bargain a-marryin’, an’ hev made a mighty pore match. The Lord knows I did, but I don’t want Peter Bryce a-swaggerin’ round, tickled ter death, an’ ’lowin’ I hed better hev tuk him whenst I could git him.”

“Laws-a-massy, M’ria, Peter Bryce knows ye wouldn’t gin him two thoughts ter save his life,” said Bowles. “Heaps o’ folks’s chil’n air fractious an’ gin ’em trouble, whether they air step-chil’n or no.” The temporizer’s art had become singularly facile and effective in the continuous exercise which had been given it. Mrs. Bowles’s countenance cleared for a moment; then—perhaps it was a definite perception of the truth, which was so palpable that she could not permit herself to believe that it would be less apparent to others than to herself—it was clouded anew, and she broke forth angrily:—

“Naw! I jes’ know what a name will be gin me by Peter Bryce, an’ Teck Jepson, an’ them sanctified women folks in the Cove, ’lowin’ ez I be cruel, an’ cut an’ slash the chil’n, I reckon. They’ll take no notice o’ how fat Bob be! Teck Jepson sot the chil’n all agin me whenst he fust kem hyar ter live. Hain’t ye hearn Bob talk a heap ’bout his uncle Teck?—tell me now, Sim.”

Sim twisted one bare foot over the other. He had grown slow in being so doubtful of what might please, or rather least displease. He continued silent, with his look of stupid cogitation, until she observed threateningly, “Now sulk, ef ye air so minded,” when he broke forth precipitately:—

“Bob say uncle Teck air big an’ high, an’ hev kilt a heap o’ painters an’ b’ars—an’—an’,” he faltered, “ef ennybody tuk arter him, uncle Teck war a-goin’ ter settle ’em; all he hed ter do war ter let uncle Teck know.”

Mrs. Bowles whirled round in triumph.

“Thar, now!” she exclaimed to her husband. “What did I tell ye? I hearn Teck say them very words ter that thar chile the las’ night he war hyar. He’s gone ter Teck Jepson! Teck Jepson hev enticed him away! Teck Jepson air yer painter an’ yer wolf!”

Once more she burst into stormy tears. It is a hard thing to say of her, but the catastrophe that threatened the child lost in the savage wilderness seemed less terrible to her than the mental picture of Bob at large in the Cove, revealing to the gossips the secrets of the domestic administration at the cabin in the notch of the mountain.

She made her preparations somewhat swiftly after that,—although she did not neglect to prepare and set aside a goodly amount of wholesome food for the consumption of the family during her absence,—animated by the intention of allowing Bob as little time as possible to ventilate, consciously or unconsciously, the domestic discords. She wished very heartily, as she mounted the horse which Jepson had lent them, that she was leaving the door never to enter it again; but as she looked about the little cabin, with the solemn purple mountains clustering in the background, and took note of the silence and solitude that possessed the world, save within those paltry inclosures where the pigs and the poultry fed, and within the house with the sullen, brow-beaten children in the porch, she reflected that she was likely to grow gray here, and she sighed deeply as she took up the reins. There is no sorrow nor sympathy so sincere as that which we feel for ourselves. She could not even be sure of Ben Bowles’s grief for her mortification, indefinite and docile as he was. He stood, to be sure, with a long face and a hand shielding his much-grooved brow and his eyes from the glare rather than the sun,—for it lurked behind the clouds, and only from tenuous areas of vapor it sent forth this occasional tempered white suffusion,—and dutifully watched her out of sight; but one might well fancy that it was a day of more quiet and peace within doors than the cabin had known since the bride came home; and even she, with all her personal arrogations, was aware that he relished it.

The day was gray. The heights wore a deep purple with a vague blue and blurring effect, as if some invisible, impalpable veil of mist had interposed a short distance from the wooded slopes. There was rain in the clouds, but they loitered; no downfall was threatened for some hours yet: nevertheless, mindful of the freshness of a crisp pink calico dress and bonnet, Mrs. Bowles doubted the reliability of her own resources as a weather-prophet. She drew up the horse where the road forked, and hesitated. It was not such weather as she would have chosen for a jaunt into the Cove, and she winced from the idea of presenting herself, forlorn and bedraggled by the rain, among her old acquaintances. She needed all her fortitude and all the prestige of fresh and immaculate attire. She wished that she had let Bowles undertake the expedition in her stead, as he had proposed. She was on the point of turning back, when another of those white suffusions through the translucent clouds gave cheer to the landscape, lifted suddenly into definite color and hopeful augury for the rest of the day. “An’ I’ll take the short cut,” she muttered, as she turned the horse aside into the less traveled and weed-grown way. But for the thinning of the leaves on the bushes that grew close on either hand, and the sere, dried, wisp-like estate of the grasses and weeds in its midst, it might have appeared more like a groove amongst the foliage than a path; but here and there it emerged into rocky spaces, where it wound with definite curves, and she wondered that it should present this trodden and well-worn aspect. “Cows take along it, I reckon,” she hazarded.

There was no moisture on the leaves nor on the withered grasses, and there seemed an incongruity in this, with the lowering lead-tinted sky full of rain, and the dank smell of moisture in the air, for there had been “falling weather” somewhere in the vicinity. She heard a rain-crow raucously call out in the silence, and then all was still, so still! The summer songs of weed and twig were hushed; the air was void,—no whirl of birds, no whisking gossamer cicada; the stir of the crisp dry grass under her horse’s hoofs and the creak of the saddle as it swayed slightly were loud and assertive in default of other sound. Now and again she observed how the mountains changed their aspect, viewed from a different point; but however the contour varied, that sombre purple tint filled the landscape, save when the distance dulled it to gray. A drear day, shut in by clouds and strangely without moral perspectives as well; all the outlook seemed limited by that gray, silent presence, that had an aspect of perpetuity like a doom, as if it would lift no more. She had been nearly an hour in the saddle, and the valley appeared but little nearer than at the outset. She began to doubt if the little mountaineer could have reached the Cove. “It’s a good piece,—a good piece,” she said meditatively. “But then Bob mus’ walk a hunderd mile a day, I reckon, playin’ round like he do, an’ he be plumb survigrous.”

She had neared a depression in the range, through which was visible a section of the Carolina mountains. She turned her eyes mechanically toward them, hardly noting a little cabin that she had known to be deserted for many a year, and that stood on the slope of a great dome which towered far above. The distant ranges were gray as those nearer at hand; nowhere in the world was a brighter spot visible than the dull encompassing monotony. No movement, not even the slow shifting of the mountain mist, till suddenly a handsome gray mare trotted out from the rear of the cabin, where Mrs. Bowles now perceived was a flimsy shanty of a barn. A heap of ashes lay at one side of the yard. Her approach frightened away a weasel that had been feeding on some broken bits of food by the doorstep. The cabin was evidently tenanted.

“Waal, sir!” she soliloquized. “I never knowed ez ennybody hed moved up ter this old house,—ez be fairly fallin’ ter pieces,” she added, her critical eye taking note of the dilapidated doorsteps, the rotten rail fence, broken down to the ground in many places, the strange lack of garden or field. So lonely was her life on the mountain, so uncongenial the companionship to which she had doomed herself, that she had at first experienced a glow of gratulation to discover neighbors, even so distant as this; now it was tempered by the fear that inmates so shiftless and uncaring as the external evidences would intimate could hardly prove a valuable acquisition. She had drawn rein, and sat motionless in the saddle, silently contemplating the scene, each new item of neglect or decay that presented itself to her observation adding to the reprobation expressed in the primly disapproving compression of the flexible lips and the quick glances of her bead-like eyes from under the brim of her pink sun-bonnet. Her code of manners and morals, and her stringent requisites for the government of other people, were very complete, and her record as a diligent and exacting censor had few instances of relaxation or clemency. She was on the point of turning away, taking a certain satisfaction in the thought that she would make no overtures to people with a doorstep like that, when it suddenly occurred to her that the vagrant Bob might have earlier discovered the dwellers in this secluded nook, and have established himself upon the footing of an occasional visitor. Her face changed. “He mought be in that house this minit,” she reflected hopefully. “Likely ez not he hain’t gone down to the Cove at all.”

There was no sign of the usual guard-dogs about the house, and as she slipped down from the saddle upon the ground her curiosity was all newly a-quiver, since it could be gratified at no cost of personal dignity; for she came not to offer her acquaintance, but upon her own important errand, the search for her step-child. There are few people who can feel so exclusive a joy in trimness and freshness as did Mrs. Bowles, for it was her belief that there had never been so crisp a pink calico since the Great Smoky Mountains were built; and indeed, a stranger who had no previous acquaintance with Mrs. Bowles and her methods could not have failed to consider the color of her attire singularly clear and dainty in the dark, gray day, and the glimpse of the smooth olive complexion and glancing dark eyes and shadowy dark hair eminently prepossessing. As she stood on the contemned doorstep and tapped lightly upon the door, she smoothed down a fold with a calm pleasure in anticipating the effect of her appearance on the members of the household, and the depths of envy into which it would plunge them. Some moments were beguiled with these reflections before she became impatient because of no response. When she knocked again, the ensuing silence was so marked that her attention was diverted from the personal considerations that had absorbed her, and she began to look about with a keener curiosity, hampered, nevertheless, by a thrill of vague fear. She sent a glance that had all the incentive of prying toward the batten shutter, in which she had noted, with disparaging eyes, a long rift; it was not so high from the ground; she might have peered through had she dared. She did not dare; she only knocked again, and began to doubt whether any one were within. But for the ashes and the broken bits of food—and once more she heard the hoof-beats of the mare trotting back to her stall, satisfied by her sally for investigation—the place would have seemed as lonely, as deserted, as she had always known it hitherto. Perhaps it was the sense of solitude that emboldened her; perhaps the phenomenal opportunity of observing the domestic methods and rummaging the belongings of the absent dwellers. The door, not well closed, had moved under her hand, as she knocked upon it; it was evidently unlatched. She pressed it a trifle further ajar. Then she was still for a moment, the dark red color suffusing her cheek, responsive to an imaginary rebuke to so unmannerly an intruder. But no word broke the silence. The door shifted a trifle, so ill-hung it was, and Mrs. Bowles advanced her foot on the threshold. The next moment she drew back with a sharp cry. A man was stretched at full length on the floor, with a pallid, pinched face,—a face like death.