Part 2

His acerbity had evaporated in the interest of the narration, and in the evolution of an excellent reason for her ignorance of these things that had happened previous to her advent into the neighborhood. He did not notice that she took no advantage of the excuse to upbraid him with his readiness to find fault, and that she made no rejoinder as she sat, her head depressed, her whole attitude crouching, her dilated eyes fixed with a horror-stricken fascination upon the pygmy burial-ground, in that broad, lucent expanse of the yellow moonlight which was still streaming through the illuminated gorge of the mountains into an otherwise dusky world. The events of the afternoon were reasserting themselves in his mind. He laughed a little as he reviewed them.

"Fee hed been huntin' with me ter-day, an' this valley man--I b'lieve they 'lowed his name war Shattuck, an' he air a lawyer whar he kem from; he don't dig fur a living--whenst he hearn 'bout that, he say, quick ez lightning: 'Would ye know the spot agin? What made ye leave the jar thar? What made ye put the slab back?' An' Fee--ye know how crusty an' sour an' cantankerous he be--he say, 'Them Leetle People air _folks_, an' I hev no call ter go grave-robbin' ez I knows on!' That thar Shattuck turned fire-red in a minit. He air a mighty nice, sa-aft-spoken, perlite man, though spindlin'. An' he talked mos'ly ter me arter that--Fee stood by an' listened--an' I liked Shattuck middlin' well. He 'lowed ez 'twar important ter know fur the history of the kentry--an' he did sound sorter like he war vagrantin' in his mind--ter know ef them Leetle People war grown folks or jes' chil'n. He b'lieves they war jes' chil'n, but ef he could see jes' one skull he could tell."

Adelaide gasped; she reached out her hand mechanically and laid it upon the feet of the baby curled up in his soft, warm nest. Her husband's glance absently followed her movement, but he went on unheeding:

"An' Fee, standin' stare-gazin' him, ez sullen ez a bar with a sore head, axed, 'How kin ye tell?' ez much ez ter say, 'Ye lie!' But Shattuck war perlite ez ever. 'Many ways; by their teeth, for instance--their wisdom teeth.' Then he went a-maunderin' on 'bout a man he knowed ez could jes' take a bone o' a animal ez he never seen, ez lived hyar afore the flood, an' tell how tall 'twar an' what it eat--I do declar' he did sound like he war crazy, though he _looked_ sensible ter the las'--an' this l'arned man could actially medjure an' make a pictur' of sech a animal out'n a few bones. An' Fee, he jes' stood listenin' long enough ter say, 'Them Leetle People never done me no harm, an' I ain't goin' ter do them none jes' 'kase they air leetle an' dead, an' can't holp tharse'fs. They may hev hed a use fur thar teeth in thar lifetime; I hain't got no use fur 'em now.' An' he whurled around an' put his foot inter his stirrup an' war a-goin' ter ride off, whenst the valley man cotch his bridle an' say, 'Ye hev got no objections ter my excavatin' on yer land, though?'"

Yates laughed lazily. "I do declar' 'twar too durned funny. Fee didn't know what the long-tongued sinner meant by 'excavatin',' an' I didn't nuther till arterward. But Fee, he jes' wanted ter be contrairy, no matter what, so he jes' say, powerful glum, 'I dun' no' 'bout that,' and rid off down the road. An' this Shattuck, he jes' stood lookin' after Fee with his chin cocked up in the air, an' he say, 'That's a sweet youth!' He speaks out right plain an' spunky fur sech a spindlin' man. Everybody laughed but Rhodes; _he_ looked mightily tuck back ter hev his friend making game o' the mounting folks. Fee's vote counts jes' the same ez ef he war ez pleasant ez a basket o' chips. So Rhodes, he sorter frowned up an' say, 'Ye don't onderstan' Felix Guthrie. He air a good-hearted man, but he ain't been treated right, an' it's sorter soured him. He's good at heart, though.' An' this Shattuck 'peared ter take the hint; he say sorter stridin' about, off-hand, an' that leetle soft hat o' his'n on the side o' his head, 'I mus' make frien's with him, then; I mus' git on the right side o' him.' An' up spoke one o' them Peakes--they war holpin' ter look on at the few ez war willin' ter dig--'The only way,' he say, 'ter make frien's with Fee Guthrie air ter fondle him with a six-shooter.' Shattuck laffed. But Rhodes, he be a-shettin' him up all the time, an' a-hintin' at him, an' a-lookin' oneasy. Rhodes air skeered 'bout his 'lection, ef the truth war knowed."

He stretched his arms above his head and drew a long sigh of pleasurable reminiscence. "We hed a right sorter sociable evenin'. I'll be bound they air all over yander at the infair now. I know Rhodes danced at the weddin' the t'other night at Gossam's, an' they do say he kissed the bride, though they mought hev been funnin' 'bout'n that."

He looked at her once more, noticing at last the absorbed, intent expression of her lustrous, thoughtful eyes; the thrill of some feeling unknown to him was in her hand as she laid it upon his, and asked in an irrelevant, mysterious, apprehensive tone, "What do 'excavate' mean?"

"Hey?" he exclaimed. He had already forgotten what he had said, in the flexibility of his shallow mental processes, and recalled it by an effort. "Shucks! Jes' dig--that's all. Folks hev got a heap o' cur'ous words o' late years."

Her grasp tightened convulsively on his arm, "'Mongst the graves o' the Leetle People?"

He nodded, looking at her with vague surprise and gathering anger.

"He sha'n't!" she cried, finding her voice suddenly, and it rang out shrilly into the soft, perfumed night air. "It's in rifle range--the Leetle People's buryin'-groun'. I hev got aim enough ter stop his meddlin', pryin' han's 'mongst them pore Leetle People's bones. An' I'll do it, too," she added, in a lower tone.

Her grasp had relaxed, for he had sprung to his feet and stood looking at her, infinitely shocked, the image of the unoffending gentleman and scholar, whom she threatened, in his mind, all unaware how it differed from the ghoul of her ignorant fancy.

"Adelaide!" he exclaimed, with that accent of authority which he seldom assumed, "hesh up! Tech that rifle, an' I'll turn ye out'n my door!"

She, too, was standing; she turned a stony face, white in the moonlight, upon him as if she could not realize his words, but her eyes were slowly kindling with a fury before which he quailed.

He was, however, in every way the stronger, and the gravity of the crisis taught him how to use his strength.

"Take them words back," he reiterated, as if all unaffrighted, "or I'll turn ye out'n my house forever, an' ye'll leave leetle Mose hyar, for _he_ b'longs ter me!"

The fear that had quivered in his heart seemed suddenly translated into her eyes; they looked an eloquent reproach, then, suddenly, all the fire was quenched in tears, and she sank down sobbing by the side of the cradle, leaving him standing there triumphant, it is true, but finding bitterness in his victory. He sat down, presently, in his former posture, feeling ill-used and reproachful and indignant. It was difficult to resume the conversation in the tone which he had maintained, and as she persistently wept, he resorted to reproaches.

"I dun' no' what in Canaan is the reason ye an' me can't git along 'thout quar'lin'. We never used ter quar'l none in our courtin' days, an'"--as a fresh burst of sobs acquiesced in this statement, he hastened to put the blame upon her--"ye never used ter talk so like a durned fool." The chilly sensation which her threat, so full of horror, had caused him, renewed for the moment its thrill.

"'Tain't like a fool," she declared, lifting her tearful face. "Ef 'tis, then the law's a fool--the law, ez ye set sech store on. Ain't the law agin diggin' up folks's bones? I ain't a-goin' ter do nothin' 'bout'n it, but ef ennybody war cotched at sech in the _mounting_-folks's buryin'-groun' they'd hev a few ounces o' lead ter tote off inside of 'em ef they could git away at all, an' ye know they would."

The difference of their standpoint--his normal views unconsciously modified by the talk of the scientific theorist, in which sentiment was easily subordinated to the acquisition of valuable knowledge, none of which could he adequately impart at second hand to her, quivering as she was with the idea of sacrilege and the sanctity of the tomb--baffled him for the moment; he hesitated; he found no words to convey the impressions he had received; then he gave way to the anger always the sequence of the antagonism of opinion between them.

"Ye don't sense nuthin', an' ye dun' no' nuthin', an' ye can't l'arn nuthin'."

"I don't want ter l'arn sech ez ye 'pear ter pick up in the settlemints," she retorted, with spirit. "Robbin' the dead an' sech! I'd ruther stay at home an' jes' 'sociate with leetle Moses--a sight ruther."

"I hedn't!" he declared, roughly. He rose to his feet. "I don't hev no peace at home. I reckon I mought ez well go whar I don't get quar'led with ez much. I mought jes' ez well be at the infair ez hyar."

"Jes' ez well," she sarcastically assented.

He stepped past her into the room to lay aside his shot-pouch and powder-horn, as not meet accoutrement for a festive gathering.

"Ye hed better kerry yer rifle. Ain't ye 'feared ef ye leave it hyar I mought take aim at suthin' in the Leetle People's buryin'-ground?" she said, looking up at him from her lowly seat on the floor, her eyes hard and dry and bright.

"Edzac'ly--fool enough fur ennything," he declared; but it was empty-handed that he stepped out into the moonlight.

She made no effort to detain him; she did not call him back. He paused when in the shadow of the great hickory-trees about the spring, and looked up at the little house. The moon was above the mountains, nearly full and radiant. Trailing luminous mists crept over the summits after it, and caught the light. All the world shared in its gracious splendors now, and the great gap, the gorge of the river, bereft of the unique illumination its rugged vistas had monopolized while all was dark about it, seemed melancholy and pensive, of reduced prominence and blurred effect.

The dew glistened on the slanting roof of the little log-cabin; the vines swayed duplicated by their moving shadows, and where the moonlight fell unbroken through the doorway he saw, against the dark background of the interior, Adelaide, still sitting on the floor beside the cradle, and he heard the monotone of the rockers as they thumped to and fro.

He heard it long after distance had nullified the sound. The wayside katydids sang their song in chorus with it; the tree-toad shrilling stridulously but bore it a burden. Even the roar of the water-fall was secondary, however it might pervade and thrill the wilderness. More than once, as he went along the dark and dewy road, he paused doubtfully, half minded to retrace his way. "I oughtn't ter hev tuck Adelaide up so sharp. Sence she hev hearn the notion ez them Leetle People war jes' leetle chil'n, like Mose, she'll set mo' store by 'em, jes' ter compli_mint_ him, ter the las' day she live. I'd hate ter be sech a fool 'bout leetle Mose ez she be." He shook his head solemnly as he stood in the road, fragrant with the odor of the azaleas in the undergrowth and the balsamic breath of the low-hanging firs, which were all fibrously a-glitter wherever the moon touched the dew in the dense midst of their shadows. "An' she 'pears to think herse'f gifted with wisdom now'days, an' sets up ter make remarks ez sobersided ez ef she war risin' fifty year old. 'Fore she war married she never hed no 'pinions on nuthin'--ez frisky as a squir'l an' ez nimble. An' now'days she ain't got nuthin' but 'pinions, an' air ez sot in her doctrines an' ez solemn ez the rider, an' ez slow-spoken."

While he still hesitated, there came into his mind a foretaste of this slow diction, fashioned to reproach or to ill-disguised triumph in sedulously casual phrase, that would greet him should he return home, his threat of attending the infair all unaccomplished. He would have been glad enough to be sitting once more upon the low step of the little porch, with Adelaide and the cradle of the slumbering Dagon close by; but the pleasures of the festive gathering, grown all at once strangely vapid and sterile to his imagination, lay between him and the return to this calm domestic sphere; otherwise he would relinquish all pretence of conserving those elements of primacy which he should arrogate and maintain.

"It's time Adelaide hed fund out who's the head o' this hyar fambly. 'Tain't her, an' 'tain't leetle Mose, an' she ain't a-goin' to l'arn no younger."

II.

In those open fields near the Pettingill cabin where the infair was in progress, the moonlight seemed to reach its richest effulgence. There was something in the delicate blue-green tint of the broad blades of the waving Indian corn, where the dew lay with a glitter like that of the whetted edge of a keen weapon, which was not revoked by the night, being of so chaste and fine a tone that it comported with that limited scale of color which the moon countenances. With the unbroken splendor upon this expanse, all the brighter because of the deep sombre forests above and the dense dark jungle of the laurel below--for the corn stood upon so steep a slope that how the crop was cultivated seemed a marvel to the unaccustomed eye--it was visible a long way to Stephen Yates as he approached on the country road; even after he had crossed the little log foot-bridge over the river, and commenced the steep ascent of a wooded hill, he could still catch glimpses now and then of this dazzling green through the heavy black shadows of the great trees, from the foliage of which every suggestion of color had been expunged. Another light presently came from a different direction, goading the dulled and preoccupied mind of the young man into fresh receptivities. A sound arose other than the tinkling metallic tremors and gurglings of the mountain stream--the sound of a fiddle; a poor thing enough, doubtless, but voicing a wild, plaintive melody, which pervaded the woods with vibrant rhythmic tones, even in the distances, where it wandered fitfully and faint, and now and again was lost. It issued from out a great tawny flare, under the dense boughs of the trees, that grew a brighter yellow as Yates drew nearer, soon resolving itself into the illuminated squares of the doors and windows of the Pettingill cabin. More than once figures, with gigantic shadows that reached high up among the trees, eclipsed these lights, and suggested to him the superannuated spectators of the festivity, looking in upon it from porch and window. Certain masses of shadow began to be differentiated amidst the dusky, tawny vistas in the darkness, now only vaguely asserting an alien texture from the heavy shade of the foliage, and now becoming definite and recognizable as sundry household furnishings, evicted and thrust upon the bare ground to make room for the dancing. The loom cut a sorry figure standing out under the trees. Dimly discerned, it seemed to wear an aspect of forlorn astonishment, consciously grotesque and discouraged. And then, as the path wound, it receded to obscurity, and his attention was bespoken by the spinning-wheels close by the wood-pile, all a-teeter on the uneven flooring of the chips, and now and again, as if by a common impulse, awhirl in a solemn, hesitant revolution, as some tricksy wind came out of the woods and went its way.

A sinuous turn of the river brought it close to the Pettingill cabin, and in the darkness he could see the stars, all come down to the earth, the splendid Lyra playing in the ripples. A flare, too, from the festive halls glassed itself in certain shallows; the rainbow hues of the warping bars hard by were reflected on this placid surface, and the great gaunt frame for the first time beheld its skeleton proportions. The rhythmic beat of the untiring feet on the puncheon floor of the cabin pulsed with the palpitations of the stars; the fiddle sang and sang as ceaselessly as the chanting cicada without, and the frogs intoning their sylvan runes by the water-side. All the night seemed given over, in a certain languorous, subtly pensive way, to the rustic merry-making of the infair, and only Stephen Yates felt himself an intruder and out of place. As his step fell upon the porch, in its most secluded and shadowy corner, he winced to note the quick, alert turning from the window of a shaggy gray head, and the keen, peering eyes of the hospitably intent father of the bridegroom who made the feast.

"Ye, Steve!" he cried out, "what ye kem a-sneak-in' up ter the house that-a-way fur? Howdy! howdy!"

This stentorian welcome, pitched high to drown the sound of the dancing and the long-drawn cadence of the violin, diverted the attention of the by-standers, who, their faces unfamiliar in the combined effects of the high lights from the windows and the deep shadows of the darkness without, all turned to gaze at the new-comer and to assist at the colloquy.

"We-uns hev all been a-gittin' married round hyar lately. Whar's that purty wife o' yourn? Lef' her at home?" Genuine dismay and covert rebuke were in the very inflections of the host's voice, although he sought to make it as hearty and effervescent as before. "Lef' her at home? Ter mind the baby? Waal, we air a-goin' ter miss her, but mebbe the baby would hev missed her mo'. Waal, _ye_ air welcome, ennyhow."

"They tell me, Yates," remarked one of the by-standers, with the pious intention of making himself disagreeable, "ez you-uns hev got the meanes' baby in the kentry. Plumb harries ye out'n house an' home with the temper of him."

"I have hearn that, too," affirmed another, the gleaming teeth of his half-illumined face attesting his relish of the abashed attitude of the forlorn Benedict. "I hev hearn 'way down ter Hang-Over Mountain big tales 'bout'n the survigrous temper o' that thar brat o' yourn. They 'low they kin hear him holler plumb ter the Leetle Tennessee."

The others exchanged glances of derision. The goaded father plucked up a trifle of spirit.

"He _may_ have a survigrous temper, an' he _do_ holler; he hev got the lungs ter do it; fur I tell ye now he's a _whale_! He air goin' ter be the Big Man o' these mountings--a reg'lar Samson!"

"Sure enough?" demanded the host, who, in his double character of entertainer and father, showed more interest in "leetle Mose" than the bachelors felt, except as he subdued his paternal relative and rendered him ridiculous.

"Yes, sir! Git him to stand on his feet, sir, an' I tell ye his head will reach that high." Yates measured off a length of the post at least twice the height of Moses. "_He's a whale!_" And, with a gravely triumphant nod, he pushed boldly into the room, although he knew that the rows of elderly women against the wall were commenting upon his "insurance" in appearing without his wife, thence proceeding, doubtless, to tear the character of the "leetle Moses" in such manner as that flimsy and much rent and riddled fabric was capable of being further shred.

The floor trembled and elastically vibrated to the tread of the dancers. The fiddler was seated in a rickety chair, precariously perched upon a table that evidently felt also the recurrent thrills of the measured pace. An intimation of the reverence in which his genius was held was given in the generous glass at the feet of the musician, never allowed to grow empty, however often, with a dexterous downward lurch, he caught it up and applied it to his lips in the intervals of the "figures," which he cried aloud in a stentorian voice. The big boots on his long crossed legs swayed above the heads of the company; his own head was not far from the festoons of red peppers swinging from the brown beams, his face was rapt, his cheek rested on the violin; his eyes were half-closed, and yet his vision was clear enough to detect any effort on the part of a passer-by to perpetrate the threadbare joke of appropriating the glass at his feet devoted to his refreshment. Then the fiddle-bow demonstrated a versatile utility in the sharp rap which it could deal, and its swiftness in resuming its more ostensible uses. There was little laughter amongst the young hunters and their partners. They danced with glistening eyes and flushed cheeks and a solemn agility, each mandate of the fiddler watched for with expectant interest, and obeyed with silent alacrity. They were all familiar to Steve Yates, looking on from the vantage-ground of his twenty-two years at the scenes of his youth, as it were; for in this primitive society the fact that he was a married man rendered him as ineligible for a dancing partner as the palsy could have done. Only Leonard Rhodes seemed something of a novelty. He hailed from the county town, and was a candidate for the Legislature. In the nimble pursuance of the road to success and fame he mingled in the dance, and he would have esteemed it fortunate could his devoirs have always been as congenial. He affected a pronounced rural air, although even his best manners were further from the cosmopolitan standard at which he habitually aimed than he himself realized. He was a tall, well-built, brown-haired young man, with a deeply sunburned face, a small, laughing brown eye, a reddish-brown, waving beard of a fine tint and lustre, which he usually had dyed a darker tone to evade the red shade considered so great a defect in that region. Owing to the length of his absence from his home in the interests of his canvass, and the lack of the village barber and his arts, its color had quite regained its pristine value. He wore sedulously his old clothes, which, upon his handsome figure, hardly looked so old or so plain or so democratic as he would fain have had his constituents see them, or, indeed, as the garments would have seemed on another man. He danced impartially and successively with every girl in the room; and it was well for his political prospects, doubtless, that he had such elastic and tough resources for this amusement at his command, since the neglect of any one of the fair might have resulted in the loss of an indefinite number of votes among her relatives of the sterner sex. His opponent, a family man forty-five years of age, was in disastrous eclipse. The elder candidate could only stand in a corner with some old codgers, who were painfully unresponsive to his remarks and his jolly stories, and whose attention was prone to wander from his long, cadaverous, bearded face as he talked, and to follow the mazes of the dance.

Yates bethought himself of Rhodes's friend, the archæologist, and catching sight of him lounging in a window opposite, his face lighted with the first suggestion of pleasure that the evening had offered. He made the tour of the room gradually, pausing now to keep out of the way of the dancers; now darting mouse-like along the wall in the rear of a couple advancing to the centre; now respectfully edging past a row of the mountain dowagers seated in splint-bottomed chairs, and talking with loud, shrill glee, bestowing but scant recognition on the man who had left his wife at home. At last, after many hair-breadth escapes, he reached Mr. Shattuck, still lolling upon the window-seat.

"How hev ye been a-comin' on?" Yates demanded, looking down at him with a pleased smile.

For Mr. Shattuck, without the affectation of rustic proclivities, made his way so fairly into the predilections of the mountaineers that his friend Rhodes, who held himself a famous tactician and full of all the finer enterprises to capture public favor, had asked more than once how he managed it.

"I _don't manage_ it," the other had said.