VI.

The roof beneath which Jack Espey had found shelter was the readiest expression of hospitality. Its several expansions beyond its builder's original gambrel design were betokened by the incongruity of the additions, and the varying tints and fashion of the warped and worn old clapboards. Two shed-rooms were obviously of a later date than the dank and mossy covering of the main building; a queer projection above a modern porch exhibited an aboriginal inspiration correlated to a dormer window, albeit lacking the aperture; a section of the limited porch itself was boarded up to serve further as house-room; and a valiant disregard of the possibility of leakage characterized the intrepid domestic architect. It further differed from the conventional roofs of the district in its surroundings. In lieu of the bare dooryard and the neighboring fields, or the low tangle of peach and apple orchards, great forest trees loomed above it, the gigantic poplar and white oak of the region; for the space about it was rugged with the outcropping rock that sheered off further down into the great precipice on the mountain slope, precluding the possibility of cultivation. An exhaustless freestone spring burst out from the rocks close at hand, the reason of the selection of its vicinity as a building-site, and the "gyardin spot" and the cornfields were lower down the slope at the side, out of view amidst the clustering foliage. So little industrial were the suggestions that hung about this roof, so allied was it in its rough, gray, mossy aspect to the rugged bark and gnarled boles of the great trees, that it too might have seemed some spontaneous production of the soil, as it rose from the ledges of the rock, mossy and gray and rugged, too, like the rest. It had an intimation, also, of an aspiration toward higher things, as it, like the trees, gazed out upon the environing lofty seclusion of the mountains, the very inner sanctuary of nature; for, save the mystic mist, or the sun and the pursuing shadow, or the vagrant wind, naught ventured into that vast semicircle of mountains and intermediate valleys that lay before it, refulgent with color, massive, multitudinous, illimitable, the compass of the human vision failing to trace further than the far horizon the endless ranges still rising tier upon tier.

Whether the inmates of the house consciously derived aught from the scene, from its calm, its splendor of extent that might serve to widen the imagination, its vast resources of suggestion, one of them spent many idle hours in gazing upon it. Often Jack Espey lay all the forenoon upon the hay in the loft of the little barn, watching through the bare logs, guiltless of "chinking," the shadows dwindling on the hazy indented slopes, blue in the sunshine, amethyst in the shade. The white clouds would sail when the wind was fair, or in still noontides would lie at anchor off the great shimmering domes. Sometimes these loiterings were prolonged till the pageants of sunset-tide were on the march along the great purple western slopes, and from the shipping of the skies floated every pennant of splendid color; the sun, with the burnished dazzling quality quenched in the great blood-red sphere, would go slowly dropping down behind the western ranges, leaving the sky of a delicate amber tint with scarlet strata, amongst which incongruous gorgeousness the evening star would shine with a pure, pensive white radiance. The loft of the flimsy little barn, but now all aglow with bars of gold alternating with brown shadow as the sunlight fell between the logs, gilding even the tissues of cobweb and the masses of hay, would sink into a dull, dusky monochrome. A shadow would seem to fall upon his spirit. The anxiety to which the contemplative, languorous idleness had granted surcease roused itself anew; the voices from the house, never silent, were reasserted upon his attention, and the necessity would supervene of joining the family circle,--a necessity sometimes infinitely repugnant to his troubled soul, craving solitude for its indulgence of woe, and hardly able to maintain the cheerful disguise which must needs screen it.

So poor were his arts of deception that perhaps they would scarcely have served his purpose elsewhere, but here he and his peculiarities were given scant heed. He could not have found another domicile, in all the length and breadth of the country, where he could have been installed and have excited so little attention and curiosity. And indeed, to Mrs. Larrabee, the head of the house, he was only one more in addition to the rest of the tribe that must be warmed and fed and housed, or, as she expressed it, "tucked away somewhar." She always was equal to the emergency, although whenever Espey entered the large circle about the fireside it seemed to have been recruited somewhere, and more numerous than at his last survey.

"Ye 'pear ter hev a cornsider'ble head o' humans hyar, Mis' Haight," he observed on one occasion to the old grandam who sat in the corner, the stepmother-in-law of Mrs. Larrabee, and whose reproval seemed the natural incident of all that her daughter-in-law did. The world had gone much awry with her, after the mundane manner, and in the evening of her days she had neither the softening influence of religion nor the resources of culture to mitigate the asperities of the result.

"In course,--in course!" she exclaimed rancorously, gazing at him over her spectacles with little dark eyes, the brighter for exasperation. "Thar's me an' my old man,--he's got the palsy," as if this rendered him more numerous; "an' thar's Jerushy, my darter, an' her chil'n, five, an' her husband; an' S'briny Lar'bee herself, an' her son Jasper. An' ez ef that warn't enough, she hearn ez Henrietty Timson's husband war dead, an' they war burnt out an' hed no home, so S'briny Lar'bee jes' wagons down the mounting an' brung 'em hyar ter stay, seben of 'em,--seben with thar mammy makes eight. S'briny jes' tucks 'em away somehows, ez she 'lows, in this hyar leetle house!" She sneered toothlessly, then laughed aloud. Suddenly she leaned forward, and, with her knitting-needle in her hand, pointed at the group of floundering children. "See that thar brat, the leetlest one?"

Espey, turning in his chair, descried a tow-head bobbing not far above the floor. The significant eye of the old woman fixed him as if reciting an enormity.

"He war a infant whenst he kem,--a ill-convenient infant in arms, _with the rickets_!"

As the subject of this criticism scampered out of the crowd, with a single unbleached cotton garment on, very rotund as to trunk, very fat and cherubic as to legs, very loud and blatant as to voice, very arrogant and impudent as to manner, the young man was moved to remark that he "'peared toler'ble hearty now."

"Course he do," she assented, "through a-gor-mandizin' of so much fat meat; scandalous, impident shoat,--ez well ez a bear!"

She loved a quiet life, did Mrs. Haight. She had been an only daughter. She had had only two children. She had always had her house to herself; and in this congregation of incongruous elements around her widowed daughter-in-law's hearth she beheld only inconvenience, perversity, and an unfilial disregard of her own very sage advice. It had even been advanced to exclude her own daughter.

"Let Jerushy's husband take keer o' her. She would marry him, spite o' all. Let her 'bide by her ch'ice."

But poor Jerusha's husband was a drunkard, and the forlorn household had suffered hardship and very nearly grazed starvation before they made their happy advent into this populous haven.

There were certain sensitive thrills of pride and shame in the fugitive's heart, as he listened to this arraignment of the numbers crowded about the hospitable hearth. He said to himself, in justification, that he was only one more among so many, but he felt that he was an imposition. There was no such thought, however, in Mrs. Haight's mind. She regarded him only as a visitor, a personable young man, and moreover as possessing a certain unique interest for her; for in her youth she had spent some days in Tanglefoot Cove, and, despite the wide diversity of their age, occupation, and outlook at life, they passed sundry companionable hours in gossiping of the people of that locality, and detailing the various chances that had befallen families known to both. During these sessions he was wont to hold her yarn for her to wind. She never slipped the hank across his wrists that he did not bethink himself of other wristlets destined for him, perchance, and made of sterner stuff. He was prone to be silent for a time during the winding of the skeins, but she improved the opportunity to talk to an attentive listener; for Sabrina was too liable to interruptions from her various charges to meet her somewhat exacting demands as an interlocutor, and she was at scornful variance with the other elders of the family.

"Mis' Lar'bee 'pears ter be fond o' comp'ny," said Jack, as he leaned forward, with his submissive hands outstretched for the yarn.

The old woman, peering keenly through her spectacles as she sought to find the end of the thread,--she had a cautious, skillful, alert air, as of a trapper,--paused suddenly, her knotted, withered hand poised like a claw.

"'Tain't that!" she exclaimed scornfully. "Nothin' like it! Ye reckon enny 'oman in her senses likes sech ez that?"

She nodded acrimoniously, and Jack, following the direction of her eye, glanced over his shoulder at the turmoil of tow-heads scuffling together in the flickering firelight. Supper was in course of preparation, and they were even noisier at this glad prospect than their wont. One of them, under cover of Espey's preoccupation, had approached, and, slipping his hand under the arm held out for the skein, was venturing slyly to touch the pistols in his belt, with all the greed of the small boy for deadly weapons. Espey, his white hat far back on his head, looked down upon him, his suddenly scowling face all unshaded, and the little mountaineer fell back affrighted and in dismay; for, despite his humble estate in life, he had encountered few frowns.

"Naw, S'briny's reason ain't got no reason in it." Mrs. Haight had begun the winding now, and the red ball was whirling, ever larger, in her nimble fingers. "She jes' hed a son kilt in the wars. Leastwise the tale ez kem back war that he war wounded in a scrimmage, turrible; an' his folks war all on the run. An' he crawled ter a house nigh by, an' the 'oman tuk him in. An' he died in her house stiddier on the groun' or in a fence corner. That war the tale. S'briny never could find out who war the 'oman, nor edzac'ly whar it happened. But sence then, ter pay back her debt, she takes 'em all in, an' whenst they gits too crowded she knocks up a shed or suthin' an' packs 'em in; whenst like ez not the 'oman lef' Alvin ter die on the hard, cold groun', an' mebbe sot the dogs on him ter hurry the job."

There was a silence for a few moments, while the firelight flickered upon Espey's absorbed eyes and intent, listening figure. The wrinkled, parchment-like face of the old woman was partly in the shadow as she sat in the corner, but her spectacles gleamed with unwonted brilliancy as she actively moved and nodded her head under her big ruffled cap.

"S'briny say, too, ez old pa'son Jenks say ez ye mought entertain angels unaware. An' _I_ say, then agin ye moughtn't! Fur ef enny o' these hyar that S'briny _hev_ entertained air angels, they air powerful peart at hidin' it, sure!"

Once more she cast a caustic glance at the group, and her sarcastic laughter fell upon the air, sharply treble.

If celestial visitants, these were certainly well disguised. Espey glanced at the bloated face of the inebriate husband of Jerusha, tremulous, full of sudden fits and starts; at Jerusha herself, slatternly, slothful, and down at the heel, a snuff brush in her mouth, and her forlorn discontent with life in general on her weak, flabby face; at the old, feeble-minded man dozing and muttering in the corner,--he had once in his life worked in the Lost Time mine, and he sometimes gave Espey a sudden start by bringing out the name with a deep, full, blood-curdling curse. Henrietta Timson's thankfulness had merged into a suspicion that too much gratitude was expected of her, and she was prone to magnify the lighter tasks which she selected, and went about with an overworked drudging air, and with some distinct proclivity for the rôle of martyr. It was a furtive, jealous eye which she cast upon Mrs. Larrabee, at home, competent, and emphatically in command. The children, nevertheless, were disposed to take undue advantage of their protectress; and the smaller they were, the more capable, by reason of her leniency, of imposing upon her. This disposition characterized even an infant turkey, which had contracted some disease by exposure to the inclemency of the weather, and, being put into a basket of cotton to recuperate, found its way out, from time to time, with a cotton girdle adhering about its middle, and, with a fifelike voice, made the grand tour of the hearth, in imminent danger of catching fire in its cotton gear, causing her acute anguish lest it should be baked alive and before its time.

Even Mrs. Larrabee herself,--if there were aught spiritual about her, it must have been in the ends of her fingers. She was much given to wearing a sunbonnet, in the depths of which her thin, pallid face had a look like marble, with its keen, straight features. Her busy eye had not casual observation: she looked at the children to see if they were sick or cold or hungry; at Jerusha's husband to descry if perchance he were drunk again; at Jack Espey to discover if he wanted aught, and if he had no want or ailment she noticed him not at all. He could hardly have been more free to come and go as he would, and the long hours when he and Larrabee were away at the still passed altogether without remark. It was nevertheless to her that he resolved to open his heart. The door was ajar, and he could see that the long, loitering summer night had come at last. Through the gap in the trees the stars were visible, glowing white above the sombre mountains in the distance; he could not distinguish a constellation,--only a whorl of brilliant stellular points of light in the scant interval where the black leaves of the oak, as distinct and as dark as if cut of bronze, failed to fill the space between the threshold and the zenith. It was not long now before she would be at leisure, and sleep would silence the juvenile members of the family, except indeed the turkey, which, though unclassified amongst nocturnal fowl, was wont to pipe lugubriously in the dead watches of the night, necessitating the uprising of the mistress of the house with a draught of water and a light lunch of corn-meal batter to compose it once more to slumber. As Espey observed it gadding about on its long legs, disproportioned to the size of its body even when begirt with the cotton batting, he sagely thought that Mrs. Larrabee's tolerance toward its exacting idiosyncrasies was the result of no sense of obligation to it or its kind. "She's a powerful good-hearted woman, and smart, too," he said to himself; "she's got enough sense ter hev some feelin's."

The evening, passed in winding the yarn, wore slowly away to him after his resolve. He was very taciturn and still, and Mrs. Haight, finding so acquiescent a coadjutor, grew industrious, and hank succeeded hank upon his motionless and submissive wrists. His silence did not discourage her flow of words. On the contrary, it assumed the narrative form in lieu of their usual dialogue; and as the fervor of reminiscence waxed, her small black eyes grew brighter, her parchment-like cheek flushed, and, with her red "shoulder shawl" and big white cap and snowy hair and blue apron, she looked like some fairy godmother. And indeed, as she briskly wound the thread, now blue, now red, and again gray "clouded" with white, it might have seemed that she wielded some sorcery to reduce to this humble fireside utility this wild-eyed, defiant spirit. The young desperado, his belt stuck full of weapons, was oddly at variance with the solicitude which he now and again exhibited when a troublous tangle developed, and the thread perversely knotted and broke. The firelight that flickered on his face, the fairer from his sojourn in the sunless depths of the Lost Time mine, his great boots and spurs, his pliant attitude and submissive gestures, and his aged and incongruous companion served also to show what speed was made in disposing of the youthful gentry for the night. With that perverse disinclination for bedtime which betrays the old Adam in the youngest infant, they severally resisted, each to the best of his very respectable capacity. One or two of tender years, having been hustled up the ladder to the loft, came down again in scant attire, and he who had triumphed over the rickets, and whose bed was in a box, resuscitated himself from amongst the bedclothes whenever he was stowed away, but finally was overtaken, and fell asleep on the old house-dog's neck as he lay snoring on the hearth.

Espey was of that type of man to whom juvenility is neither comical nor alluring. Duty was revealed to him in graduated doses adapted to the age of the taker, and he was disposed to make no allowance to infants for delinquency. It seemed to him that Mrs. Larrabee's patience was much misplaced, and he now and again gazed with disapproving eyes at the group. He was obliged to linger long before she was at leisure and sitting in front of the hearth with the shovel in her hand, ready to heap the ashes over the coals to keep the fire till day. The two beds in the room were edged with the tow-heads of the children, sleeping crosswise; the baby's box-crib and the turkey's basket had each its wonted occupant; and if the dreams that went up from the conclave could have been materialized, what wild display of phantasmagoria they would have made! The door had been barred up against the possible marauder of the elder's apprehension, and the black bear of juvenile dread. The shadows of the two loiterers were on the red, dully illumined ceiling, two gigantic, distorted heads of dusky brown.

"I war sorter waitin' fur Jasper," observed Espey disingenuously, having noticed that Mrs. Larrabee looked inquiringly at him. "I reckon he be a-visitin' down at Tems's."

"Mebbe so," she acquiesced succinctly, rasping the shovel on the hearth. She seemed indisposed for conversation.

"Mis' Haight's mighty good comp'ny," he continued, leaning sideways in his chair, with his elbow on its back as he supported his head in his hand. "Talkin' 'bout old times, an' her courtin' days, an' sech."

For, according to Mrs. Haight's own account, she had been a truculent heart-breaker in her hey-day. There were few names that one might mention, native to her locality, which she could not have worn had she chosen. She always alluded cavalierly to the husband she had and to the one she had lost as "toler'ble samples o' the whole b'ilin'."

Mrs. Larrabee's immobile face was more inexpressive than before, as the red light sought it out in the depths of her sunbonnet. She had her secret doubts as to this wholesale destruction of the peace of youth a half century ago.

"Toler'ble interestin' ter me!" protested Espey suddenly. "I hev been sorter in love myse'f--leastwise"--He did not continue to qualify, for Mrs. Larrabee turned her face, illumined by maternal interest, upon him. "It's gin me a heap o' trouble, too," he broke out impetuously, divining her sympathy.

She was looking at him tenderly, remembering her own youth and her own young lover, dead and gone this many a year. Jacob Larrabee had, in happier days, laughed retrospectively at his own lackadaisical woe and wakeful nights and anxious doubts. "Sech a _funny_ fool I war. Thar may hev been ez _big_ fools, but I'll swar I war the _funniest_." But his woe had always appealed to her commiseration, and she was glad she had consciously been no factor in it. "I wouldn't hev hed ye so tormented fur nuthin', Jacob, ef I hed knowed," she would say gently.

Jack's young face, worn with fiercer griefs and turmoils and keener fears, was appealing in its anxious lines; her warm motherly heart went out to him. He leaned his hands on his knees, and assumed a confidential tone.

"Now, Mis' Lar'bee," he said, "I 'lowed I'd ax ye what this hyar gal means. I hev done everything I knowed how ter please her,--even whenst she tole me ter go a-perlitin' around another gal. I done _jes' like she ordered_, an' what ye s'pose she done?"

"What?" demanded his partisan confidante angrily, knitting her brows heavily.

"She hit me."

"Did she hurt ye?" exclaimed Mrs. Larrabee sympathetically, dropping her voice in contemplation of the enormity.

Remembering the relative proportions and force of Adelicia and himself, Espey and his woe were out of countenance for the nonce. He laughed a little sheepishly. "Naw," he admitted reluctantly. "She didn't hurt me none ter speak on."

Mrs. Larrabee's brow cleared. "Sonny, 'twar jes' love-licks," she suggested, in old-fashioned maternal phrase.

"Naw, sir! Naw, sir!" Espey shook his head with grave protest. "She war too leetle ter hurt me, she war bound ter know. She jes' wanted ter hurt my feelin's. An' she done it, too."

Mrs. Larrabee's face was all commiseration; and suddenly a truly feminine curiosity became manifest. "Whar do the gal live? Hyarabouts or in Tanglefoot?"

However far a man may trust a woman, he never trusts her completely. Jack Espey caught himself sharply. "It's fur off,--mighty fur, 'pears like ter me," he said mendaciously. "Now, Mis' Lar'bee, I wants ter git yer advices. What ails the gal ter treat me that-a-way, jes' 'kase I done her bid an' gin the t'other gal good-evenin', full perlite like she told me ter do? What ails her?"

"Pride," said Mrs. Larrabee sternly. She could be severe enough with people whom she did not see, and her mental image of a buxom termagant was far enough removed from the fragile and shrinking Adelicia.

Espey looked at her with doubtful, troubled eyes. "Jes' turned on me an' smit me!" he protested. "I feel like I'll never git over that lick. I'll die of it yit!"

"Pride!" fiercely reiterated Mrs. Larrabee. "An' ef ye wanter make her repent it, ye jes' perlite up the t'other gal fur true! Whenst I went back ter Tanglefoot Cove, I'd show sech manners ez it ain't used ter,--ye'd better b'lieve I would. That thar gal 'lows she kin git ye too easy, too powerful cheap. T'other gal good lookin'?"

"Waal," drawled Espey uneasily, evidently contemplating apprehensively this heroic treatment for the small smiter, "nobody don't look purty ter me but one, an' she's plumb beautiful, ter my mind."

"Oh, shucks!" Mrs. Larrabee exhorted him scornfully.

"T'other gal hev got the name of it, though," he said reluctantly, plainly jealous for the preëminence of his lady love. "T'other gal is named a reg'lar gyardin lily fur beauty."

"Waal, then, perlitin' 'round her won't go so turrible hard with ye," said Mrs. Larrabee discerningly. "Though mebbe ye hed better let the 'gyardin lily' inter the secret, 'kase she mought fall in love with ye an' yer perliteness."

But Jack Espey shook his head; he had bitter cause to distrust candor. "I can't go 'round warnin' the gals against me," he said sturdily. "Ef she falls in love with me, she'll jes' hev ter fall out agin, that's all."

He sat for a little time gazing moodily at the fire, and contemplating the details of this scheme of reprisal. Then, with a curt good-night, he rose and tramped off to the roof-room, which he shared with Jasper and a delegation of the larger boys; leaving Mrs. Larrabee covering the embers, and pausing now and again, as she knelt on the hearth, with the red light on her statuesque features, to ponder on the lover of her past youthful days, and the sensible advice she had given Jack Espey to reduce the inordinate pride of the arrogant, arbitrary damsel of his heart in Tanglefoot Cove.

But the bars so stoutly made fast against the door were not destined to keep their place that night. The moon had long before slipped from the vaguely illumined limited space of the sky, which her own light had rendered faintly blue, down behind a jutting crag of the western mountains; it glowed a sombre purple as the crescent passed, with a pearly gleaming mist half revealed against the black summits about it. The white stars, whiter still, pulsated in the darkening sky. So pervasive a sense of silence was in their mute splendor that even the benighted mountain wilderness seemed to assert many voices, strange, murmurous, unknown to the light. Espey, stretched upon his pallet in the recess of the dormer window above the porch, with his wakeful, troublous thoughts, languidly sought to differentiate the sounds. He heeded the rustle of a vagrant zephyr, the twitter of a nestling, the murmur of the spring in the rocks near at hand, the never silent chirring of the cicada of the Southern summer night. But what was it in the insensate world of crag and forest and mountain and chasm that drew a long breath, and paused, and once more sighed heavily, and again resigned itself to silence? He could see in the rifts of the clapboards above his head a palpitating white star,--how its heart of fire beat! He felt his own pulses throb heavily, and the next moment they seemed to cease. A new sound intruded into the monotony of the mountain stillness. He heard it once far away, and then silence. He lifted himself upon his elbow and listened, with dilating eyes. Only the sense of the noiseless dewfall, the cracking of a sun-dried clapboard, the swift scurrying of a mouse amongst the rafters, and once more silence, or that mysterious voice of the night which rose and fell in the cadence of sighs. He was about to lie down when the sound came again,--distinct this time, unmistakable, so close at hand that it seemed the very malice of fate that he should not have distinguished it earlier. It was the hoofbeat of horses, and they came at a swift gallop,--so swift that he had hardly a moment to take counsel with himself, in a turmoil of doubt and fear; his foot was barely on the stairway when a heavy tread fell upon the little porch, and a sturdy fist thundered at the door.

Into the dusky red darkness of the room below--for the glow of the embers could hardly be reckoned as light--a feeble white glimmer was stealing. Mrs. Larrabee, without her sunbonnet for once, had hustled on her homespun dress, buttoned all awry, and was striking a light for a tallow dip. Perhaps its dim flicker revealed the young man standing high in the deep shadows on the stair that led to the roof-room, or perhaps she only distinguished his step in the midst of the clamor at the door, for she called out suddenly to him, "Open the door, Jack, open the door, sonny, no matter who it be! Every chile in the house will be a-swarmin' up d'rectly ef that thar bangin' be 'lowed ter go on, an' I reckon we'll _never_ git the baby inter bed agin!"

The turkey was already awake and alert, its piercing pipe adding to the confusion and nervous stress of the situation, as Jack Espey, after one irresolute moment, strode to the door, and Mrs. Larrabee rose from her knees on the hearth and stood in the dusky brown background, shading with her hand the timorous flame of the candle.

Perhaps it was well for Jack Espey that the bars went down with so resolute and hearty a clangor, for, as he confronted the men at the door, they did not doubt that they faced the son of the house.

"Widder Lar'bee lives hyar?" said a keen, tall, dark-eyed man, with high cheek-bones and a hooked nose, above which his thick black eyebrows met. His soft black hat had a sort of peaked crown, and he wore a suit of plaided "store clothes," as befitted one having access to the towns, but which were much creased, and his boots were drawn, country fashion, over his trousers to the knees.

"Air that enny reason ter bust the door down?" demanded Espey, looking at the stout battens as if expecting to discern injury as it swayed in his hand.

Mrs. Larrabee interposed blandly, "I be Widder Lar'bee. 'Tain't no use ter talk loud. I got some mighty fractious chil'n hyar 'sleep."

The fractious turkey stood upon the hearth and piped till the end of its tail quivered with the energy of its vocalization. A cricket was shrilling keenly. The trivial sounds seemed to throb in Espey's brain when the visitor said, "I be dep'ty sher'ff o' this county, Mis' Lar'bee, an' I hear ez thar war a stranger in the Cove a-puttin' up hyar."

The two men behind the officer looked over his shoulder, their bearded faces sharply inquisitive.

"Naw, sir, I ain't got no stranger hyar; not but whut I would take 'em in,--me an' my son hev made a rule o' that,--but we-uns bide too fur off'n the road." She did not account Espey a stranger, so accustomed a figure had he become in the domestic circle.

There was a definite disappointment in the officer's keen, high-featured face.

Mrs. Larrabee turned to Espey. "Ye ain't hearn o' enny stray man hyarabouts, hev ye, sonny?"

"Thar be a stranger down at Tems's," said Espey; "though I reckon he ain't done nuthin' agin the law,--saaft-spoken an' perlite an' peaceable."

The high-featured face was contorted in a jocose grimace, to which the meeting of the black eyebrows gave a singularly sinister effect. Espey felt his heart sink as the official winked at him.

"Perliteness would have been wuth mo' ter this man ef he could hev showed manners sooner. War mighty onpolite indeed in Tanglefoot Cove, Mis' Lar'bee, an' shot a man."

"Kilt him?" she demanded in a bated voice, and turning pale. She held the candle awry, as she spoke, and the flickering light as the tallow melted and dripped heavily on the floor showed only her own straight features and masses of brown hair, dulled with gray, coiled at the back of her head.

Espey's overladen heart thumped heavily. The cold drops stood thick on his face, all in the shadow, white and drawn with suspense.

"In an' about,--a sorter livin' death. An' sence he hev got so much worse his folks want the malefactor apprehended straight. We hearn ez he air hyarabouts or in Persimmon Cove, one. An' ez the constable o' this deestric' air sick abed,--ailin' old cattle like him oughtn't ter be 'lowed ter hold office!--the high sher'ff sent me ter look arter him, ef I could come up with him. Waal,"--he was turning away,--"I'm sorry I hed ter roust ye and yer son up this time o' night."

Mrs. Larrabee took no note of this misdescription. Her thoughts were engrossed by a sudden hospitable intention.

"Wouldn't a bite an' a sup hearten ye up sorter, arter so much ridin' in the night wind?" she drawled amiably.

The deputy, despite his lean, lank, ill-nourished air, was susceptible to the allurements of the pleasures of the table. He hesitated, and a very little urgency sufficed to induct him into a chair by the side of the fire, while Mrs. Larrabee ransacked her stores for the bite and sup, which were more easily promised than provided.

He was new to his office, and disposed to magnify its dignities and difficulties, as he and his two companions waited for the refection, while Espey stirred up the fire and rescued the turkey, which had burrowed into a mound of dead ashes, still permeated, however, with the grateful warmth of the embers.

"Ye'd be plumb s'prised, Mis' Lar'bee, at the slyness o' sech malefactors, an' the trouble they'll gin. Now I be a stranger ter this e-end o' the county, an' what with the constable sick everybody sorter holds back 'bout informin' the officer o' the law; turrible 'fraid lest the folks in gineral takes it out on them, ye know. Some 'lows I be a-trappin' moonshiners; an' that ain't my business at all. I got no mo' agin moonshiners 'n I hev agin whiskey. It's all one ter _me_. I don't c'lect the tax, an' I don't pay it nuther. I drinks mos'ly on treats, sech ez this." He held up his glass, for Espey had proffered the product of the Lost Time still, and it seemed to him at the moment that the very jug looked conscious. "I couldn't git a critter ter kem with me ter-night 'thout reg'lar summonsin' a posse: one man ailin'; t'other man, sick wife; another man, sore foot; another man, lame horse. Course _I_ could hev _made_ 'em kem," waving the hand with the glass in it with a capable gesture; "but I didn't want ter be harsh an' requirin' with the citizens, 'kase, ye know," with a sudden sly geniality illumining his countenance, "I mought want ter run fur sher'ff myse'f some day,--that is, ef the old man was ter git done with the office," he added, mindful of his tenure through the favor of the high sheriff. "Now this hyar man," pointing out one of his followers, who bore with a sort of wooden equanimity the united gaze of Mrs. Larrabee and Espey, "he be a stranger hyarabouts, too,--kems from my deestric', frien' o' mine,--so o' course he warn't acquainted hyarabout, nuther."

Mrs. Larrabee's perceptions detected something embarrassing to a sensitive nature in this invited survey of the silent, bearded man, who had not opened his mouth except to put a biscuit into it. As amends, she handed him the plate anew, and the second biscuit silently went the way of the first.

"Now this hyar other man,"--the officer indicated a short, square-set fellow,--"he war powerful leetle 'quainted round hyar, though he kem from neighboring ways, the Gap; so he ondertook ter p'int out yer house"--

The short man interposed in great haste, and with his mouth full:--

"Though I hev never hed nuthin' agin you-uns, Mis' Lar'bee, an' I hope ye won't lay it up agin me, marm. I knowed 't war mighty safe,--'kase you-uns warn't the sort ter harbor evil-doers 'gainst the law an' sech ez that,--hevin' been powerful well 'quainted with yer husband whenst he war a boy; an' this hyar dep'ty war so powerful partic'lar, an' I didn't see how ter git out'n it, an'"--The crumbs in his throat and the scruples in his heart combined to choke his utterance, and as the climax came in a paroxysm of coughing, Mrs. Larrabee turned to the officer.

"I got nobody hyar wuss'n yerse'f, sher'ff," she drawled, with a slow smile.

"Waal, now, Mis' Lar'bee," said the officer, probably mindful of political hopes, "ef ever ye want ennything of me, ye jes' lemme know. I wanter show ye how I'll remember this hyar squar meal ter-night. I ain't one o' them ez can't remember dinner till it's dinner time agin." He smiled gallantly upon her from under his superabundance of brows. Then he turned to Espey. "I been so well treated it makes me plumb bold ter ax another favior. I want ye ter git on yer horse an' ride with me ter set me in the road ter Tems's. Nare one o' these men air 'quainted with the way."

His dark eyes hardened under his sinister black brows, and Espey, who had taken heart of grace, felt his hope of escape annihilated in the instant. His eyes were fastened with a fixed stare on the officer's face; his nerves were all a-quiver; his heart seemed to stand still; a cold, insidious thrill crept along the fibres of his skin. The conviction seized him that the conversation which had seemed so incidental was merely a blind devised for the purpose of getting him apart from the women and children, that he might be captured with less ado or less danger to the bystanders, perhaps further from the chance of rescue. He thought of rescue, himself, of Jerusha's husband blind drunk in the shed-room, of Jasper away at the Lost Time mine. Through some other sense than that of conscious sight he was aware of the movements of the deputy's comrades: that one, seated in the chair, was carefully examining his revolver; that the other was standing beside the door with his hand on the latch. But Espey's eyes never quitted the face of the sheriff, who apparently took note of this fixed, unresponsive gaze.

"Air he deef?" he demanded of Mrs. Larrabee, and was about to repeat his demand in a louder key, when his hostess interposed.

"No deefer than them in gineral be who ain't willin' ter hear," she muttered. "Go saddle yer critter, Jack. 'Twon't take ye long." Then, in a lower aside, "Ye'll jes' hev ter guide 'em ez fur ez Tems's, ennyhow."

Her insistence constrained him; and indeed no alternative was definite to his mind. He turned with a bewildered, submissive mien toward the door.

The chill midnight air, blowing freshly on his face as he held it open and the draught rushed through, revived him like the very breath of freedom. The obvious opportunity flashed through his mind like an inspiration. He could give them the slip while saddling the horse. He would have the start of them even if by only a few paces. Let him but once get foot in the stirrup again, with the kindly shield of the darkness about him, and he would give them a good run through this pathless mountain wilderness. He caught up his saddle that lay upon the floor, and made for the door again with a sudden eager alacrity.

He heard an abrupt clanging noise, as one hears a sound in sleep, muffled, unreal, distant. It was only when he saw one of the men stoop and rise again and follow him that he realized what had happened. One of the stirrup irons had fallen from the saddle, unbuckled perhaps in the unwarranted juvenile curiosity of the meddling youngsters of the house. The deputy sheriff also followed. "I'll put that on agin whilst ye air a-ketchin' an' a-bridlin' of the nag," he said.

Espey heard the loud, strident tones of his hasty farewells as he took leave of Mrs. Larrabee,--he evidently intended to return no more,--and then he was by the young man's side in the barn, followed by his two companions. For the horse was not in the pasture lot; he had repaired to the shelter of the barn, and had stretched himself on his bed of straw. At the first indication of the prospect of journeying the roan struggled up, and, with a sound of greeting that was almost articulate, came out from the stall, ready and willing to be saddled and bridled. Espey experienced a sort of animosity toward the creature for his unreasoning alacrity. He was even denied the poor respite which the usual delay in catching the horse might have given.

In his numbing, silent despair as he buckled the girth and slipped the bridle over the horse's head and the bit into his mouth, he took no definite heed of his surroundings, and yet they were all impressed upon his consciousness. He noted, uncaring, how the horse tossed up his head askance at the stranger's touch, when one of the men laid his hand on the powerful shoulder and opined that he must be a "toler'ble good goer." He was aware, somehow, of the blue-black, translucent gloom of the air, and the differing darkness with its effect of solidity, of the fodder stack looming close by, of the fantastic roof of the little log cabin against the stars, and of a vague sense of motion where the invisible smoke curled up from the chimney, faring off into the dense shadow of the foliage of the great trees. The door was still open, and the yellow light fell far out into the darkness; in the interior he could see the gaunt, tall form of Mrs. Larrabee walking back and forth, and in her arms the baby, who had been roused by the falling of the spur. The child needed little tenderness, in his robust self-sufficiency, and was elderly indeed for such infantile coddling. His fat legs stuck far out of her arms, and his bawling objections to the interruption of slumber attested temper rather than delicacy. Espey realized how her heart would go out to a real trouble,--how she would feel for him if she only knew! Somehow the thought of that fictitious anguish of sympathy soothed him for the moment, and he was resigned to say to himself that it was best as it was. She could have done naught. He was no child like the others to cling to her in a sort of fervid faith in her omnipotence. No; resistance would only have endangered her and hers. And so he was strengthened to put his foot in the stirrup and ride away, with the sheriff at his right hand, and the other men close behind, all looking alertly forward into the gloom. The roan horse, fresh from slumber, was beginning to feel his hay and corn, snuffing the quickening wind, pulling on the bit, and forging on at a more speedy gait. The other men noticed this, for now and again, with a touch of the spur, they closed up, and the roan horse was in the centre of the squad.