XXVI.

The gilded squares of light that the windows of Eli Strobe’s cabin showed in the outer darkness were hardly obstructed by the growth about them, so leafless had it all become. To be sure, here was the outline of a rosebud, sketched in a clear bronze in many-branched grace upon the yellow space, and at the other window a series of straight wands rose up above the sill, and betokened the withered estate of the “sweet Betty” bushes. Nevertheless, from afar off Mrs. Bowles could see the squares illuminated on the purplish blackness of the night, and they served beacon-wise to guide her along the dark reaches of the road, still reeking with the heavy rainfall, not long overpast, and intimated very definitely where she must turn aside to take the marshy turn-row in lieu of the red clay highway. She shrank from the open doors of the forge, seeing in the red flare from within the figures of the blacksmith’s cronies and hearing their loud hilarious voices, for the consciousness that Rathburn followed hard upon her steps induced an unwonted caution. If he had quarreled with Baintree, it was possible that he had other enemies as well; and remembering how wild of aim are the bullets in a free fight, and that a stray shot might be endowed with pernicious possibilities, she forbore, as far as she might, attracting the attention of those within. She passed as silently as a shadow in the multitudinous shadows of the night, the hoof-beats of her horse hardly audible in the deep mire on one side of the road. She was sure that a horseman whom she suddenly encountered, galloping, was altogether unaware of her proximity, as he shot by in the gloom. He had come from the turn-row that led through the fields to Eli Strobe’s house, and she wondered a little wistfully at this. “Some o’ thar everlastin’ visitors, through cousin Eli bein’ sech a busybody in politics,” she thought, remembering the social advantages of candidacy.

But they were not the cheerful faces which behoove an open house that came trooping out to the door when her incongruous feminine “Halloo!” weakly quavering from its soprano shrillness to an abashed silence, roused all the surprised inmates.

“Laws-a-massy, M’ria Bowles!” exclaimed Mrs. Strobe, with her hand over her eyes, peering intently into the long shafts of light fluctuating out into the darkness from the lantern that Eli Strobe carried in his hand. “Mighty glad ter see ye, M’ria, enny time ye kem, though ye mighty nigh skeered me out’n seven years’ growth, an’ I never hed much growth ter be skeered out’n,” remarked the little dame at long range, as Mrs. Bowles dismounted upon the horse-block and started up the path to the house, leaving the hitching-rein in the hands of her host. Even in the dim radiance of the shifting lantern and the gleam from the open door, her pink skirts rustled with much of their pristine stiffness, despite the dank atmosphere, the legacy of the storm.

“Ef she war dead, she’d ’pear at the gates o’ heaven all fraish from the ironin’-board,” Mrs. Strobe commented in a low tone to Marcella. “Her affection fur the sad-iron an’ the washboard air all that M’ria Bowles ever showed ter prove she hed a heart. Some wimmen, though, ain’t got so much ez that.”

“Did ye kem down hyar ter git shet o’ the storm, M’ria?” she called aloud, for she could not allay her curiosity concerning so untimely a visit. “I see ye hain’t been in the rain.”

“Naw, cousin J’rushy,” Mrs. Bowles replied, with an exceeding gravity, coming, out of breath, up the steps, her plump olive cheeks, her bead-like eyes, her flexible lips, all adjusted to an appreciation of importance. “I warn’t out in the storm,” she continued, mingling her account of herself with her greetings, which gave them a cavalier air, implying a preoccupied mind, which Marcella and Isabel visibly resented, their added pride of bearing perceptible even in their silence. “I rid my beastis inter a sorter niche in the rocks whilst the rain war fallin’, kase I didn’t want ter git wet myself, an’ I hed a man along o’ me ez war powerful ailin’ through bein’ shot.”

Eli Strobe paused, hearing the last statement as he came up the steps, and flashed the light of the lantern into her face. It revealed the pompous dignity of his own. He frowned down this affront to the law, caring far less for the victim than for its majesty. He cast his lowering side-glance upon her. “Who done it?” he demanded gruffly.

“Jake Baintree,” she said.

She did not note how Eli Strobe winced. He had sought to lend his personal strength and influence to the feeble law which he was commissioned to administer, had upheld the justice of the verdict that had liberated Baintree, and had subsequently given him countenance. It seemed ill enough deserved, and for a man who piqued himself upon discrimination and consistency this was a blow.

“Yes, sir; shot him an’ lef’ him for dead in the old Pinnett cabin. An’ bein’ ez I passed by, I fund him starved an’ ’thout no fire, an’ the floor lookin’ like it hed _never_ been swep’.” Mrs. Bowles set her lips primly. “So I jes’ holped him on his mare an’ fetched him down the mounting with me.” The sound of a hoof smote her ear, and she turned suddenly. “Thar he be now at the gate.”

Rathburn, his every faculty jaded, his bones sore from the jolting of the journey, his wound poignantly aching, as he drew rein at last, had only an indistinct impression of glowing stationary lights a-bloom in the utter blackness, seeming to shed presently, as a petal, a fluctuating golden flake, dandering down the currents of the wind blowing toward him. His dazed senses took heed of it at last as Eli Strobe’s prosaic lantern. He felt the mountaineer’s strong arms encircle him as he lay, bending forward on the mare’s neck,—for he could no longer sit upright,—and draw him out of the saddle, and carry him to the house almost as helpless as a child. He smelled, as he went, the dank mould of the autumnal borders, where all the flowers had gone to seed. He heard a detached pattering, a mere appoggiatura of musical drops falling from one of the stiff, sere, brown things, not recognizable in its wizened, wisp-like guise. The skeleton vines flapped about the porch; he saw the lights through them as they swayed, and then his consciousness failed for a time.

When he knew himself again he was stretched upon a lounge, drawn up at one side of a hearth upon which even Mrs. Bowles’s broom could find no field of action. He tasted the strong flavor of the unadulterated mountain whiskey; it brought the tears to his eyes, and feeling the glow kindling in every chilled member, he was moved to marvel how much of the potent liquid Mrs. Strobe had assumed the responsibility of administering. For they were all sitting in a circle about the hearth, except Marcella, who knelt, holding one hand before her face to shield her flushed cheek from the flames, while she turned, with a long fork, the broiling venison upon the coals, from which an appetizing odor rose. She did not look up, although a general exclamation of satisfaction greeted his opening eyes.

“I thunk the reverend stuff would fetch ye,” observed Mrs. Strobe triumphantly, as if she had invented the remedy. “I’m goin’ ter gin ye some yerb-tea,” she added benignly.

And then it dawned upon Rathburn that he had fallen into the practice of this ambitious amateur.

“Oh, I don’t want any herb-tea,” he declared with decision.

“Jes’ like Dr. Boyce,—pore old man, ez bald-headed ez a aig.” This ridicule seemed irrelevant, but the tone was a great power of depreciation. “_He_ don’t want no yerb-tea, nuther.”

Rathburn had lifted himself on his arm. “Does he—this physician—live near here? Could we send him word to-morrow to come and see me?”

“Listen at him!” cried Mrs. Strobe, with an ebullition of laughter. “That jes’ shows how much ye know,—how much of a doctor-man ye be, sure enough. Mighty willin’ ter try yer ignorunce a-dosin’ other folks, an’—chuck-a-luck!—git well or die. But ef ye air a-ailin’ yerse’f, nare doctor-man ’mongst ye air willin’ ter take his own med’cine,—rank pizen,—what he administers so free ter other folks.” She cocked her head on one side and surveyed him speculatively. “I s’pose now, ef Dr. Boyce war ailin’, he’d want some other doctor ter physic him ez knowed more ’n hisself. That man oughter be powerful easy fund! I’ll bet ye a cow an’ calf he couldn’t be got ter swaller the ill-smellin’ lotiums he gins other folks ’thout ye war ter hold his nose an’ tie his hands ahint his back.”

At this graphic account of the fraternal interdependence of the profession Rathburn could but smile.

“Now,” exclaimed Mrs. Strobe cheerily, “ye look sorter like yerse’f,—some sorter like ye did that las’ night ye war down hyar. I reckon ye hev hed yer fill o’ sarchin’ fur silver with sech ez Jake Baintree.”

“I have indeed.”

“Ef I hedn’t happened ter kem along he’d hev been dead,” said Mrs. Bowles plaintively, as she sat and sipped a cup of coffee; for the regular supper being some time ago concluded, the refreshments were served to the travelers thus informally about the hearth.

“I have no doubt of it. I have a great deal to thank Mrs. Bowles for.”

Mrs. Strobe’s little cynical squawk interrupted these amenities. “Laws-a-massy! Air Mis’ Bowles the n’angel ez ye said delivered ye afore, whenst ye got inter a pickle with the mounting folks? A n’angel! I would never hev tuk ye for sech, M’ria! I ’low ye weigh more ’n a n’angel ginerally do, though mebbe ye air a n’angel ez hev been fattened up by high livin’.”

A certain smirking bewilderment was on Mrs. Bowles’s round face. She was at first not disposed to repudiate the compliment, losing sight, in her confusion, of the fact that Rathburn surely knew to whom he had paid it. Then her cheek mantled with a glow of resentment because of Mrs. Strobe’s allusion to her avoirdupois, which was no more than might conveniently grace a plump angel; and it was Mrs. Bowles’s firm conviction that heaven was not full of slim divinities,—“scraggy,” she called them,—like Marcella Strobe, who looked as if she might break in two.

“I ’lowed, too,” said Mrs. Strobe, settling her feet on the rung of her chair, where she perched with an air as if she would flit away presently, and delighting in the confusion wrought by her sarcasm,—“I ’lowed. Eugene Rathburn, ez ye’d be too perlite ter call a _married_ lady a n’angel, even ef she _did_ warn ye from the lynchers an’ save yer life.”

Mrs. Bowles changed color quickly. The word “lynchers” smote terror to her heart. Not for any consideration would she incur the suspicion of having interfered between the wild, lawless mountain vigilantes and their intended victim; no suave delights of hyperbolical praises could avail for an instant.

“’Twarn’t _me_, cousin J’rushy. _Naw’m!_” with emphasis. “I never seen that thar man till this very mornin’,—never set eyes on him. I war glad ter holp him ter kem away from whar he war bound ter starve, but I don’t want ter be called no n’angel,” she added primly.

“How would cherubim do, then, or seraphim?” demanded Mrs. Strobe seriously, despite the whimsical corrugations about the small drawn month. The quality of her wit was disconcerting, and as Mrs. Bowles turned her reddening face aside her eye fell on Marcella. The girl had risen, and was standing partly in the shadow of the mantel-piece; the breath of the fire still fanned the soft masses of her curling hair tossed backward on her shoulders; her oval face was delicately flushed; her eyes, from under their long poetic lashes, shone like stars. The effect of this luminous head from out the soft nullity of the brown shadows about it, that canceled its more prosaic environment, might have impressed far less alert perceptions than Mrs. Bowles possessed. It never would have occurred to her to characterize it as ethereal or unearthly, but the jealousy of her temperament was vigilant enough to recognize a possible applicability of the phrase and to grudge it. For Mrs. Bowles was jealous on principle; not that she coveted Rathburn’s devotion for herself, but it irked her that Marcella should receive this homage, or that indeed anything generally esteemed of worth, whether she herself truly accounted it of value or not, should be at her option. She had looked upon herself so long as a sacrifice in some inexplicable sort to duty that she was prone to account each grace of person, each opportunity of position, as an advantage wrested from her and her inalienable right. To be sure, Mrs. Bowles could not have logically defended this claim of holding a patent upon beauty and charm. It was enough that she chose to maintain it. Her bead-like eyes suddenly glowed, as she looked askance at the girl, who grew hardly less attractively human in leaving the angelic effects of the shadows, and coming out into the light bearing the little blue bowl full of broth.

Rathburn looked up at her with his face irradiated, as he lifted himself to a half-sitting posture. His glance met with slight response; the expression seemed suddenly expunged from her eyes as they encountered his. They were bright as ever, it is true, but blankly indifferent, and presently averted.

He gazed questioningly, pleadingly, at her, but she did not look at him again, and after he had drunk the broth he sank back amongst the pillows, more definitely aware than before of his pain, the jeopardy of his wound, and his reduced estate.

“An’ how do you-uns kem on, cousin Eli?” asked Mrs. Bowles, shifting her chair slightly, and turning to her host, who sat, with his hat on his head, his hands on either knee, his eyes on the glowing coals.

Mrs. Strobe looked keenly watchful. Marcella paused as she was going out of the door with the emptied bowl in her hand, and turned back. Quick as they were, they could not forestall a deep groan that suddenly burst from his lips as from a surcharged heart.

“Oh, powerful bad off, cousin M’ria. I be mightily troubled,—mightily troubled.”

Mrs. Strobe broke into a laugh, seemingly the essence of light-hearted gayety, albeit her small, keen eyes burned like coals of fire. Marcella came back to the hearth, showing her face in the radiance with a gallant smile upon her trembling lips.

“Law, dad,” she exclaimed in a tone of rallying mirth, “ye wouldn’t think nuthin’ o’ tricks an’ the wiles o’ yer p’litical enemies ef ye hed yer health right good. They know they can’t beat ye at the polls,—ye jes’ stan’ solid with the people,—so they hev ter try ter yank ye out’n yer office some other way.”

“Laws-a-massy, what air they a-tryin’ ter do?” demanded Mrs. Bowles, with a lively curiosity. Trouble was evidently a-stalk in the Cove, and gave its denizens many a twinge of anguish, although she had latterly felt as if the wellnigh inaccessible slopes of the mountain were exclusively its bailiwick. She experienced a certain reconciliation with her own lot in the knowledge that others were unhappy too.

“That’s jes’ like Eli,—he always war slow, sence he war knee-high ter a duck,” said his small mother, with an affectation of contempt. “Time he hev hed a day or so ter study ’bout it, an’ turn it this-a-way an’ that-a-way, he’ll git ter the p’int o’ view whar Marcelly an’ me jumped in one second. Men air pitiful critters,—so slow-minded!”

Eli Strobe looked wistfully from one to the other of his feminine supporters, eager to adopt their sanguine views, and yet unable to repudiate his own conviction and to shake off the palsy of his fears.

“Now, M’ria, ye mark my words,—an’ ye too, Eugene,” the little dame proceeded with great jocularity, as if the whole matter were a subject for mirth,—“ef by ter-morrer Eli won’t be a-struttin’ ’bout hyar, a-laffin’ an’ a-chucklin’ at Joshua Nevins’s friends ez couldn’t keep Eli from bein’ elected constable o’ Brumsaidge Cove, but think they kin make out ez he ain’t fit ter hold office, bein’ insane! Ha! ha! ha!”

Even Mrs. Bowles, after a moment of stupefied surprise, burst into a laugh of derision. Strobe turned and eagerly gazed at her, as if to assure himself of her opinion of his sanity, taking testimony, as it were, in his own trial of himself.

“Yes, sir!” said Mrs. Strobe, wiping from her eyes the tears of this laughter on the corner of her apron. “The off’cer o’ the law hev jes’ been hyar, a-gallopin’ ter sarve a notice ez in five days they hev a ‘inquisition o’ lunacy,’ the fool called it. _He_ looked like a maniac, so foolish, an’ cast down, an’ bashful; hedn’t the face ter take a drink with Eli, though I fetched out the jimmy-john expressly.”

“Air it Nevins hisself a-suin’, or what air he a-aimin’ ter do,—a brazen-faced buzzard?” demanded Mrs. Bowles in eager accents.

“Naw,—naw!” The old woman shook her head warily to intimate Nevins’s crafty mode of procedure. “The man ez applied for the inquisition air some sorter kin ter Eli. Ye ’member hearin’ o’ Pete Minton, ez old Squair Denly lef’ some county bonds ter? Waal, ’cordin’ ter the will, Eli, bein’ named arter him, war ter hev the interus’ through life; then arterward the bonds war ter go ter Pete, the Squair’s nevy, an’ Eli war Pete’s guardeen. Now Minton, ez air twenty year old, purtends ter be mighty oneasy ’bout them bonds, an’ wants the court ter ’quire inter Eli’s bein’ able ter manage this prawperty. Course he hev been put up ter sech by Nevins, kase ef the inquisition war ter ’low ez Eli be insane they mought git up a new ’lection, an’ ef Eli war out’n the way Nevins would hev a walk-over an’ strut around, an’ be constable of Brumsaidge!”

“That he never shell!” cried the incumbent, springing to his feet. “I hev been man enough ter git the office,—I reckon I be man enough ter hold it. M’ria,”—his voice suddenly dropped from its rotund resonance to an appealing quaver,—“did you-uns ever hear ez Teck Jepson war dead,—ez I hed killed him?”

“Laws-a-massy, naw!” cried Mrs. Bowles, her face flabby and white. “_When?_”

Rathburn’s heart ached as he looked at Marcella. He saw the pain in her eyes; the suffusing flush mounted to her white brow, but she tossed back her bright hair, and her red lips parted in a cheery half smile over her white teeth as she explained:—

“Dad say somebody tole him—he disremembers now who ’twar—ez Teck Jepson war killed in that scuffle at the horse-race, ez dad killed Teck. An’ I fooled dad some, too.” Her eyes danced, her laughter rang out. “_I_ tole him whar Teck war buried. An’ ef ye’ll b’lieve me, dad _b’lieved_ it, an’ I hearn him ’quirin roun’ one day ez ter who hed preached the fun’el sermon. Granny said that’s what the folks purtend he air crazy ’bout.”

Once more her laughter rang out clear and metallic. It had a natural enough sound to Mrs. Bowles, who joined in, while Mrs. Strobe, with her bird-like head askew, remarked, “Eli air so sober-sided he’ll b’lieve mos’ ennything ennybody tells him with a straight face. He _mus’_ be a leetle teched in the head fur that, kase long ez I hev been livin’ I hain’t hearn the truth tole in Brumsaidge Cove but wunst or twict, an’ _then_ ’twar ’bout the weather.”

Strobe listened with an eagerness to be convinced pathetic in its intensity. Rathburn watched the symptoms of his mania vacillating with his ambition, and his sense of the jeopardy of his precious office, with an appreciation of the pathological significance of the scene which even sympathy with the actors could not altogether dull. Perhaps something of this showed in his face, turned fixedly upon Eli Strobe, as the burly constable, moody and meditative, evidently puzzling out the distraught contradictions of his convictions, relapsed into silently gazing into the fire.

Marcella was sitting in a low chair beside the lounge, stringing red peppers, her evening task, when Mrs. Bowles began to explain to Mrs. Strobe how Bob had chanced to disappear from his home,—the exposition somewhat complicated and lengthened by the perception that her craft availed little, and that behind Mrs. Strobe’s specious politeness lurked an accurate divination of the true state of the case. Twice while it was in progress Rathburn fell under the impression that Marcella was about to speak to him; but when he turned his head suddenly toward her, her eyes were downcast upon the work in her hands, the firelight dancing over the masses of her waving hair, and giving an added gloss and an intenser glow to the vivid scarlet of the string of red pepper pods trailing over her dark, brownish-green dress. And again his attention reverted to his host, sitting ponderously thoughtful before the fire. When he next started with the idea that she was about to speak, he encountered her lustrous brown eyes fixed upon him; the delicate red lips were a-quiver; her straight brows were knitted sternly. “Ain’t ye sati’fied _yit_,” she demanded in a low voice, that, albeit tense with satire, was inaudible to the gabbling Mrs. Bowles, still explaining Bob’s flight, “but ye mus’ stare-gaze him ter find out suthin’ else ter tell?”

He was feeble, and had had much to endure. His courage failed on the instant before the idea of her antagonism.

“Why, Marcella!” he cried, amazed.

She reached down for another pepper-pod, not lowering her gleaming eyes. “Wouldn’t ye like ter feel his pulse? Mebbe ye could gin the inquisition folks another p’int or two!”

“What do you mean?” he demanded, forced to assume the defensive. “I never gave any points for the inquisition.”

“Who tole on him, then? Who but ye hed larnin’ enough ter sense how his mind air catawampus jes’ on that idee, an’ no other?”

“I? Never—never!” he exclaimed, so visibly shocked that his face constrained credence as well as his words.

She sat looking at him, holding the vivid coils of the peppers in her idle hands.

“Then,” she said, darkly frowning, “’twar Andy Longwood. I always knowed he war silly ez a sheep, but I thunk ez harmless ez a sheep.”

After a little she raised her eyes and smiled brilliantly at him, as if to make amends. She said no more, but as she strung the peppers silently listened to Mrs. Bowles, who now and then called on Rathburn to confirm her statements as to the plight in which she had found him. She met with a spirited response. Comfort and security did not annul in any degree his appreciation of his injuries or his suffering. The detail of all that he had recounted to Mrs. Bowles elicited from time to time exclamations of surprise and horror, often but half articulate, from Mrs. Strobe and Eli. Marcella once or twice commented more at length. “Did ye choke Baintree—_hard_, sure enough—jes’ kase he wouldn’t tell ye whar the silver war?” she asked, her brilliant, dilated eyes dreamily fastened on space, evidently witnessing the scene reënacted before her in imagination. Her hands had fallen idly in her lap; the scarlet coil of the red peppers hung from her listless grasp, and trailed upon the floor.

“Indeed I did,” asseverated Rathburn. “He had no right to fool me as he did all the summer.”

“’Twar _his_ secret,” Marcella suggested in a vague, preoccupied tone, still doubtfully staring into scenes that her own fancy painted. “He hed a right ter keep it.”

“And such a secret!” cried Rathburn, with a curling lip. “He never found the float. Samuel Keale found the float.”

“An’,” said Mrs. Bowles, lowering her voice mysteriously, “whar d’ye reckon he fund it, an’ whar d’ye reckon his bones be hid now? In a cave on Teck Jepson’s land, an’—ye mark my words—Teck Jepson hed some hand in puttin’ him thar.”

A galvanic shock seemed to pervade the circle. Then Marcella’s laughter rang upon the air. “Never in this worl’,” she cried gayly, composedly gathering up the long red cables of the peppers. “Teck Jepson never hid nuthin’ he done. He’d hev been struttin’ ’roun’ hyar, callin’ on folks ter admire how much his actions war like David, or Sol’mon, or G’liath, or somebody ez the law ain’t ’quainted with, an’ he’d hev been powerful s’prised when the sher’ff didn’t ’gree with him.” Once more the incongruity of the idea elicited a peal of laughter. “Naw, Teck Jepson air too sodden in pride ter hide what _he_ do.”

As Mrs. Bowles began to eagerly set forth further reasons, reminding Mrs. Strobe of Jepson’s antagonism to Keale, Rathburn spoke aside in a low tone to Marcella.

“You were quick enough to believe something mean of me,” he said reproachfully, “but you scout the idea of Jepson’s doing anything underhand.”

He expected her to protest. She only stared at him for a moment, startled, with wide, questioning eyes and a convicted mien. Then she fell to dreamily studying the vermilion coals and the gathering gray ash, and said little more, while the group of gossips drew nearer and nearer the dying fire.

She was meditative and absent during the days that followed, save in the intervals when she intently marked her father’s manner and took heedful note of his words. For Mrs. Strobe’s prophecy was in some sort verified. With greater familiarity with the idea that his cherished office was threatened came the resolution of resistance. Strobe had rallied his courage. He bore himself once more with his former burly dignity.

“’Tain’t nuthin’ ter me whether Teck Jepson air dead or no. I ain’t grave-digger, nor doctor, nor chief mourner. I’m constable o’ Brumsaidge. I hearn fur news ez he war dead. Ef ’tain’t true, I ain’t keerin’.”

Thus, imagining that he spoke of his independent convictions, he conned again and again the lesson his mother and daughter had set him to learn. Rathburn, still on the lounge drawn up to the side of the fire, in the midst of the domestic life, and thus suffering none of the dreary isolation of an invalid, felt his heart go out to the two women in troubled forebodings concerning the inquisition. They said little, but he noted an urgent anxiety as to the weather, and when the day broke chill and lowering their spirits visibly rose; in the afternoon, as the first snow of the season began to sift down on the wintry mountain wildernesses, they became absolutely cheerful.

“Thar, now! fallin’ weather!” exclaimed Mrs. Strobe, with the accents of vexation and a triumphant eye. “Eli, I ain’t goin’ ter let ye go over yander ter the store whar the sher’ff’s app’inted ter hold the inquisition; a man ailin’ in health hev ter be housed in fallin’ weather. Let him bring his able-bodied jury over hyar an’ examinate ye, an’ hear mine an’ Marcelly’s testimony, ’cordin’ ter the subpeeny. I’m going’ ter send him that identical word, an’ see ef he won’t.”

And thus it chanced that it was under no new conditions, surrounded by no scenes to which he was long unaccustomed, that Eli Strobe made his fight anew for the office he had already won, and the ambition dearer to him than his life.