"An" I"ll dance at the weddin" with right good will an" a nimble toe," declared the dealer, vivaciously. "I"ll be glad ter see that couple settled. That gal couldn"t make up her mind ter let Walter Wyatt go, an" yit no woman in her senses would hev been willin" ter marry him. He war ez onresponsible ez-ez-fox-fire."
"An" ez onstiddy ez a harricane," commented another.
"An" no more account than a mole in the yearth," said a third.
The ghost at the window listened in aghast dismay and became pale in sober truth, for these boon companions he had accounted the best friends he had in the world. They had no word of regret, no simple human pity; even that facile meed of casual praise that he was "powerful pleasant company" was withheld. And for these and such as these he had bartered the esteem of the community at large and his filial duty and obedience; had spurned the claims of good citizenship and placed himself in jeopardy of the law; had forfeited the hand of the woman he loved.
"Minta Elladine Riggs ain"t keerin" nohow fer sech ez Watt," said the semblance of the setter, with a knowing nod of his red head. "I war up thar at the mill whenst the news kem ter-day, an" she war thar ter git some seconds. I hev hearn women go off in high-strikes fer a lovyer"s death-even Mis" Simton, though hern was jes her husband, an "a mighty pore one at that. But Minta Elladine jes listened quiet an" composed, an" never said one word."
The batten shutter was trembling in the ghost"s hand. In fact, so convulsive was his grasp that it shook the hook from the staple, and the shutter slowly opened as he stood at gaze.
Perhaps it was the motion that attracted the attention of the dealer, perhaps the influx of a current of fresh air. He lifted his casual glance and beheld, distinct in the light from the kerosene lamp and imposed on the white background of the mist, that familiar and individual face, pallid, fixed, strange, with an expression that he had never seen it wear hitherto. One moment of suspended faculties, and he sprang up with a wild cry that filled the little shanty with its shrill terror. The others gazed astounded upon him, then followed the direction of his starting eyes, and echoed his frantic fright. There was a wild scurry toward the door. The overturning of the lamp was imminent, but it still burned calmly on the elevated hearth, while the shoeing-stool capsized in the rush, and the red head of its lowly occupant was lowlier still, rolling on the dirt floor. Even with this disadvantage, however, he was not the hindmost, and reached the exit unhurt. The only specific damage wrought by the panic was to the big barn-like doors of the place. They had been stanchly barred against the possible intrusion of the constable of the district, and the fastenings in so critical an emergency could not be readily loosed. The united weight and impetus of the onset burst the flimsy doors into fragments, and as the party fled in devious directions in the misty moonlight, the calm radiance entered at the wide-spread portal and illuminated the vacant place where late had been so merry a crew.
THE UNITED WEIGHT AND IMPETUS OF THE ONSET BURST THE FLIMSY DOORS INTO FRAGMENTS
Walter Wyatt had known the time when the incident would have held an incomparable relish for him. But now he gazed all forlorn into the empty building with a single thought in his mind. "Not one of "em keered a mite! Nare good word, nare sigh, not even, "Fare ye well, old mate!""
His breast heaved, his eyes flashed.
"An" I hev loant money ter Jim, whenst I hed need myself; an" holped George in the mill, when his wrist war sprained, without a cent o" pay; an" took the blame when "Dolphus war faulted by his dad fur lamin" the horse-critter; an" stood back an" let Pete git the meat whenst we-uns shot fur beef, bein" he hev got a wife an" chil"ren ter feed. All leetle favors, but nare leetle word."
He had turned from the window and was tramping absently down the road, all unmindful of the skulking methods of the spectral gentry. If he had chanced to be observed, his little farce, that had yet an element of tragedy in its presentation, must soon have reached its close. But the fog hung about him like a cloak, and when the moon cast aside the vapors, it was in a distant silver sheen illumining the far reaches of the valley. Only when its light summoned forth a brilliant and glancing reflection on a lower level, as if a thousand sabers were unsheathed at a word, he recognized the proximity of the river and came to a sudden halt.
"Whar is this fool goin"?" he demanded angrily of s.p.a.ce. "To the graveyard, I declar", ez ef I war a harnt fur true, an" buried sure enough. An" I wish I war. I wish I war."
He realized, after a moment"s consideration, that he had been unconsciously actuated by the chance of meeting the wagon, returning by this route from the cross-roads" store. He was tired, disheartened; his spirit was spent; he would be glad of the lift. He reflected, however, that he must needs wait some time, for this was the date of a revival-meeting at the little church, and the distillers" wagon would lag, that its belated night journey might not be subjected to the scrutiny and comment of the church-goers. Indeed, even now Walter Wyatt saw in the distance the glimmer of a lantern, intimating homeward-bound worshipers not yet out of sight.
"The saints kep" it up late ter-night," he commented.
He resolved to wait till the roll of wheels should tell of the return of the moonshiners" empty wagon.
He crossed the river on the little foot-bridge and took his way languidly along the road toward the deserted church. He was close to the hedge that grew thick and rank about the little inclosure when he suddenly heard the sound of lamentation from within. He drew back precipitately, with a sense of sacrilege, but the branches of the unpruned growth had caught in his sleeve, and he sought to disengage the cloth without such rustling stir as might disturb or alarm the mourner, who had evidently lingered here, after the dispersal of the congregation, for a moment"s indulgence of grief and despair. He had a glimpse through the shaking boughs and the flickering mist of a woman"s figure kneeling on the crude red clods of a new-made grave. A vague, anxious wonder as to the deceased visited him, for in the spa.r.s.ely settled districts a strong community sense prevails. Suddenly in a choking gust of sobs and burst of tears he recognized his own name in a voice of which every inflection was familiar. For a moment his heart seemed to stand still. His brain whirled with a realization of this unforeseen result of the fantastic story of his death in Eskaqua Cove, which the moonshiners, on the verge of detection and arrest, had circulated in Tanglefoot as a measure of safety. They had fancied that when the truth was developed it would be easy enough to declare the men drunk or mistaken. The "revenuers" by that time would be far away, and the pervasive security, always the sequence of a raid, successful or otherwise, would once more promote the manufacture of the brush whisky. The managers of the moonshining interest had taken measures to guard Wyatt"s aged father from this fantasy of woe, but they had not dreamed that the mountain coquette might care. He himself stood appalled that this ghastly fable should delude his heart"s beloved, amazed that it should cost her one sigh, one sob. Her racking paroxysms of grief over this gruesome figment of a grave he was humiliated to hear, he was woeful to see. He felt that he was not worth one tear of the floods with which she bewept his name, uttered in every cadence of tender regret that her melancholy voice could compa.s.s. It must cease, she must know the truth at whatever cost. He broke through the hedge and stood in the flicker of the moonlight before her, pale, agitated, all unlike his wonted self.
She did not hear, amid the tumult of her weeping, the rustling of the boughs, but some subtle sense took cognizance of his presence. She half rose, and with one hand holding back her dense yellow hair, which had fallen forward on her forehead, she looked up at him fearfully, tremulously, with all the revolt of the corporeal creature for the essence of the mysterious incorporeal. For a moment he could not speak. So much he must needs explain. The next instant he was whelmed in the avalanche of her words.
WITH ONE HAND HOLDING BACK HER DENSE YELLOW HAIR ... SHE LOOKED UP AT HIM
"Ye hev kem!" she exclaimed in a sort of shrill ecstasy. "Ye hev kem so far ter hear the word that I would give my life ter hev said before. Ye knowed it in heaven! An" how like ye ter kem ter gin me the chanst ter say it at last! How like the good heart of ye, worth all the hearts on yearth-an" buried hyar!"
With her open palm she smote the insensate clods with a gesture of despair. Then she went on in a rising tide of tumultuous emotion. "I love ye! Oh, I always loved ye! I never keered fur n.o.body else! An" I war tongue-tied, an" full of fool pride, an" faultin" ye fur yer ways; an" I wouldn"t gin ye the word I knowed ye war wantin" ter hear. But now I kin tell the pore ghost of ye-I kin tell the pore, pore ghost!"
She buried her swollen, tear-stained face in her hands, and shook her head to and fro with the realization of the futility of late repentance. As she once more lifted her eyes, she was obviously surprised to see him still standing there, and the crisis seemed to restore to him the faculty of speech.
"Minta Elladine," he said huskily and prosaically, "I ain"t dead!"
She sprang to her feet and stood gazing at him, intent and quivering.
"I be truly alive an" kickin", an" ez worthless ez ever," he went on.
She said not a word, but bent and pallid, and, quaking in every muscle, stood peering beneath her hand, which still held back her hair.
"It"s all a mistake," he urged. "This ain"t no grave. The top war dug a leetle ter turn off a revenuer"s suspicions o" the moonshiners. They put that tale out."
Still, evidently on the verge of collapse, she did not speak.
"Ye needn"t be afeared ez I be goin" ter take fur true all I hearn ye say; folks air gin ter vauntin" the dead," he paused for a moment, remembering the caustic comments over the deal of the cards, then added, "though I reckon I hev hed some cur"ous "speriences ez a harnt."
She suddenly threw up both arms with a shrill scream, half nervous exhaustion, half inexpressible delight. She swayed to and fro, almost fainting, her balance failing. He caught her in his arms, and she leaned sobbing against his breast.
"I stand ter every word of it," she cried, her voice broken and lapsed from control. "I love ye, an" I despise all the rest!"
"I be powerful wild," he suggested contritely.
"I ain"t keerin" ef ye be ez wild ez a deer."
"But I"m goin" to quit gamesome company an" playin" kyerds an" sech. I expec" ter mend my ways now," he promised eagerly.
"Ye kin mend "em or let "em stay tore, jes ez ye please," she declared recklessly. "I ain"t s.n.a.t.c.hed my lovyer from the jaws o" death ter want him otherwise; ye be plumb true-hearted, I know."
"I mought ez well hev been buried in this grave fer the last ten year" fer all the use I hev been," he protested solemnly; "but I hev learnt a lesson through bein" a harnt fer a while-I hev jes kem ter life. I"m goin" ter live now. I"ll make myself some use in the world, an" fust off I be goin" ter hinder the murder of a man what they hev got trapped up yander at the still."
This initial devoir of his reformation, however, Wyatt found no easy matter. The event had been craftily planned to seem an accident, a fall from a cliff in pursuing the wagon, and only the most ardent and cogent urgency on Wyatt"s part prevailed at length. He argued that this interpretation of the disaster would not satisfy the authorities. To take the raider"s life insured discovery, retribution. But as he had been brought to the still in the night, it was obvious that if he were conveyed under cover of darkness and by roundabout trails within striking distance of the settlements, he could never again find his way to the locality in the dense wilderness. In his detention he had necessarily learned nothing fresh, for the only names he could have overheard had long been obnoxious to suspicion of moonshining, and afforded no proof. Thus humanity, masquerading as caution, finally triumphed, and the officer, blindfolded, was conducted through devious and winding ways many miles distant, and released within a day"s travel of the county town.
Walter Wyatt was scarcely welcomed back to life by the denizens of the cove generally with the enthusiasm attendant on the first moments of his resuscitation, so to speak. He never forgot the solemn ecstasy of that experience, and in later years he was wont to annul any menace of discord with his wife by the warning, half jocose, half tender: "Ye hed better mind; ye"ll be sorry some day fur treatin" me so mean. Remember, I hev viewed ye a-weepin" over my grave before now."
A reformation, however complete and salutary, works no change of ident.i.ty, and although he developed into an orderly, industrious, law-abiding citizen, his prankish temperament remained recognizable in the fantastic fables which he delighted to recount at some genial fireside of what he had seen and heard as a ghost.
""Pears like, Watt, ye hed more experiences whenst dead than living"," said an auditor, as these stories multiplied.
"I did, fur a fack," Watt protested. "I war a powerful onchancy, onquiet ghost. I even did my courtin" whilst in my reg"lar line o" business a-harntin" a graveyard."
A CHILHOWEE LILY
Tall, delicate, and stately, with all the finished symmetry and distinction that might appertain to a cultivated plant, yet sharing that fragility of texture and peculiar suggestion of evanescence characteristic of the unheeded weed as it flowers, the Chilhowee lily caught his eye. Albeit long familiar, the bloom was now invested with a special significance and the sight of it brought him to a sudden pause.
The cl.u.s.ter grew in a niche on the rocky verge of a precipice beetling over the windings of the rugged primitive road on the slope of the ridge. The great pure white bloom, trumpet-shaped and crowned with its flaring and many-cleft paracorolla, distinct against the densely blue sky, seemed the more ethereal because of the delicacy of its stalk, so erect, so inflexibly upright. About it the rocks were at intervals green with moss, and showed here and there heavy ocherous water stain. The luxuriant ferns and pendant vines in the densely umbrageous tangle of verdure served to heighten by contrast the keen whiteness of the flower and the isolation of its situation.
Ozias Crann sighed with perplexity as he looked, and then his eye wandered down the great bosky slope of the wooded mountain where in marshy spots, here and there, a sudden white flare in the shadows betokened the Chilhowee lily, flowering in myraids, holding out lures bewildering in their mult.i.tude.
"They air bloomin" bodaciously all over the mounting," he remarked rancorously, as he leaned heavily on a pickaxe; "but we uns hed better try it ter-night ennyhows."
It was late in August; a moon of exceeding l.u.s.tre was in the sky, while still the sun was going down. All the western clouds were aflare with gorgeous reflections; the long reaches of the Great Smoky range had grown densely purple; and those dim c.u.mberland heights that, viewed from this precipice of Chilhowee, were wont to show so softly blue in the distance, had now a variant amethystine hue, hard and translucent of effect as the jewel itself.
The face of one of his companions expressed an adverse doubt, as he, too, gazed at the illuminated wilderness, all solitary, silent, remote.
""Pears like ter me it mought be powerful public," Pete Swofford objected. He had a tall, heavy, lumpish, frame, a lackl.u.s.ter eye, a broad, dimpled, babyish face incongruously decorated with a tuft of dark beard at the chin. The suit of brown jeans which he wore bore token variously of the storms it had weathered, and his coa.r.s.e cow-hide boots were drawn over the trousers to the knee. His attention was now and again diverted from the conversation by the necessity of aiding a young bear, which he led by a chain, to repel the unwelcome demonstrations of two hounds belonging to one of his interlocutors. Snuffling and nosing about in an affectation of curiosity the dogs could not forbear growling outright, as their muzzles approached their shrinking hereditary enemy, while the cub nestled close to his master and whimpered like a child.