Part 3

“It's only a question of time, Pole,” he said. “He suspects me now, but is not sure. It won't be long before the full story will reach him, and then we'll have to meet. As far as I am concerned, I'd rather have had it over with. I've swallowed a bitter pill this mornin', Pole.”

“Well, it wasn't a lead one.” Baker's habitual sense of humor was rising to the surface. “Most any sort o' physic's better'n cold metal shoved into the system through its own hole.”

There was a step in the store. Pole looked down again.

“It's old Mayhew,” he said. “I'm powerful glad he was late this mornin', Nelson. The old codger would have seed through that talk.”

“Yes, he would have seen through it,” answered Floyd, despondently, as he opened a big ledger and bent over it. Mayhew trudged towards them, his heavy cane knocking against the long dry-goods counter.

“I'll have the law on that fellow,” he growled, as he hung his stick on its accustomed nail behind the stove. “No rampageous dare-devil like that can stand right in my front-door and shoot for mere amusement at the county court-house. This isn't a fort yet, and the war is over, thank the Lord.”

Pole glanced at Floyd.

“Oh, he's jest a little hilarious this mornin', Mr. Mayhew,” he said. “He must 'a' met a mountain whiskey wagon on his way to town. Anyways, you needn't complain; he come in here jest now an' paid off his account in full.”

“What? paid off--Is that so, Nelson?”

Floyd nodded, and then bent more closely over the ledger. “Yes, he paid up to date.”

“Well, that's queer--or I am, one or the other; why, boys, I had that fellow on my dead-list. I didn't think he'd ever raise the money, and if he did I had no idea it would drift our way.”

Floyd left the desk and reached for his hat. Pole was watching him closely.

“Post-office?” he asked.

“Yes.” Pole joined him, and the two walked part of the way to the front-door and paused. Joe Peters was attending a man on the grocery side of the house, and a young woman, neatly dressed, with a pretty figure and graceful movement, stood waiting her turn.

“By gum!” Pole exclaimed under his breath, “that's my little neighbor, Cynthia Porter--the purtiest, neatest, an' best little trick that ever wore a bonnet. I needn't tell you that, though, you old scamp. You've already found it out. Go wait on 'er, Nelson. Don't keep 'er standin' thar.”

Pole sat down on a bag of coffee and his friend went to the girl.

“Good-morning, Miss Cynthia,” he said, his hat in his hand. “Peters seems busy. I don't know much about the stock, but if you'll tell me what you want I'll look for it.”

Turning, she stared at him, her big brown eyes under their long lashes wide open as if in surprise.

“Why--why--” She seemed to be making a valiant effort at self-control, and then he noticed that her voice was quivering and that she was quite pale.

“I really didn't want to buy anything,” she said. “Mother sent me to tell Mr. Peters that she couldn't possibly have the butter ready before to-morrow.”

“Oh, the butter,” Floyd said, studying her face and manner in perplexity.

“Yes,” the girl went on, “she promised to have ten pounds ready to send to Darley, but the calves got to the cows and spoiled everything; that threw her at least a day behind.”

“Oh, that don't make a bit o' difference to us, Miss Cynthia!” the clerk cried out from the scales, where he was weighing a parcel of sugar. “Our wagon ain't goin' over till Saturday, nohow.”

“Well, she will certainly be glad,” the girl returned in a tone of relief, and she moved towards the door. Floyd, still wondering, went with her to the sidewalk.

“You look pale,” he said, tentatively, “and--and, well, the truth is, I have never seen you just this way, Cynthia. Have you been having further trouble at home? Is your mother still determined that we sha'n't have any more of our buggy rides?”

“It wasn't that--_to-day_,” she said, her eyes raised to his in a glance that, somehow, went straight to his heart. “I'll tell you, Nelson. As I came on, I had just reached Sim Tompkins's field, where he was planting com and burning stumps, when a negro--one of Captain Duncan's hands--passed on a mule. I didn't hear what he said, but when I came to Sim he had stopped ploughing and was leaning over the fence, saying, 'Awful, horrible,' and so on. I asked him what had happened, and he told me.” The girl dropped her eyes, her words hung in her throat, and she put a slender, tapering, though firm and sun-browned, hand to her lips.

“Go on,” Floyd urged her. “Tompkins said--”

“He said”--Cynthia swallowed--“that you and Jeff Wade had had words in front of the store and that Wade had shot and _killed you_. I--I--didn't stop to inquire of any one--I thought it was true--and came on here. When I saw you just then absolutely unharmed, I--I--of course it surprised me--or, I mean--”

“How ridiculous!” Floyd laughed mechanically. “There is some mistake, Cynthia. People always get things crooked. That shows how little truth there is in reports. Wade came in here and paid his bill, and did not even speak to me, or I to him.”

“But I heard the shots myself, away down the road,” said the girl; “and as I got near the store I saw a group of men in front of the door. They were pointing down at the sidewalk, and one of them said, 'Jeff stood right there and fired three times.'”

Floyd laughed again, while her lynx eyes slowly probed his face. He pointed at the court-house door. “Cynthia, do you see that envelope? Wade was shooting at it. I haven't been over to see yet, but they say he put three balls close together in its centre. We ought to incorporate this place into a town, so that a thing of this sort wouldn't be allowed.”

“Oh, that was it!” Cynthia exclaimed, in a full breath of relief. “I suppose you think I'm a goose to be so scared at nothing.”

His face clouded over, his eyes went down. A customer was going into the store, and he walked on to the street corner with her before replying. Then he said: “I'm glad, though, Cynthia, that you felt badly, as I see you did, when you thought I was done for. Good-bye, I am going to beg you to let me see you again before long, even if your mother _does_ object.”

As they walked away out of his sight Pole Baker lowered his shaggy head to his brawny hands, his elbows resting on his knees.

“Demed fool!” he exclaimed. “Right now, with his head in the very jaws o' death, he goes on talkin' sweet stuff to women. A purty face, a saft voice, an' a pair o' dreamy eyes would lead that man right into the fire o' hell itself. But that hain't the p'int. Pole Baker, he's yore friend, an' Jeff Wade is a-goin' to kill 'im jest as shore as preachin'.”

When Pole left the store he saw nothing of Floyd, but he noticed something else. He was passing Thigpen's bar, and through the open door-way he caught sight of a row of flasks and bottles behind the counter. A seductive, soothing odor greeted him; there was a merry clicking of billiard-balls in the rear, the thunderous thumping of cues on the floor, and joyous laughter. Pole hesitated and then plunged in. At any rate, he told himself, one drink would steady his nerves and show him some way perhaps to rescue his friend from his overhanging peril. Pole took his drink and sat down. Then a friend came in and gave him two or three more.

It was the beginning of another of Pole's prolonged sprees.

IV

T was Sunday morning a week later. Springtown's principal church stood in the edge of the village on the red-clay road leading up the mountain-side, now in the delicate green dress of spring, touched here and there by fragrant splotches of pink honeysuckle and white, dark-eyed dog-wood blossoms. The building was a diminutive affair, with five shuttered windows on either side, a pulpit at one end, and a door at the other. A single aisle cut the rough benches into two parts, one side being occupied by the men, and the other by the women. The only exception to this rule was the bench reserved, as if by common consent, for Captain Duncan, who always sat with his family, as did any male guests who attended service with them.

The Rev. Jason Hillhouse was the regular pastor. He was under thirty years of age, very tall, slight of build, and of nervous temperament. He wore the conventional black frock-coat, high-cut waistcoat, black necktie, and gray trousers. He was popular. He had applied himself closely to the duties of his calling and was considered a man of character and worth. While not a college graduate, he was yet sufficiently well-read in the Bible and religious literature to suit even the more progressive of mountain church-goers. He differed radically from many of the young preachers who were living imitations of that noted evangelist, the Rev. Tom P. Smith, “the whirlwind preacher,” in that he was conservative in the selection of topics for discourse and in his mild delivery.

To-day he was at his best. Few in the congregation suspected it, but, if he distributed his glances evenly over the upturned faces, his thoughts were focussed on only one personality--that of modest Cynthia Porter, who, in a becoming gray gown, sat with her mother on the third bench from the front. Mrs. Porter, a woman of fifty-five years of age, was very plainly attired in a calico dress, to which she had added no ornament of any kind. She wore a gingham poke-bonnet, the hood of which hid her face even from the view of the minister. Her husband, old Nathan Porter, sat directly across the aisle from her. He was one of the roughest-looking men in the house. He had come without his coat, and wore no collar or neck-tie, and for comfort, as the day was warm, he had even thrown off the burden of his suspenders and they lay in careless loops about his hips. He had a broad expanse of baldness, to the edge of which hung a narrow fringe of white hair, and a healthful, pink complexion, and mild, blue eyes.

When the sermon was over and the doxology sung, the preacher stepped down into the congregation to take the numerous hands cordially extended to him. While he was thus engaged old Mayhew came from the “amen corner,” on the right, and nodded and smiled patronizingly.

“You did pretty well to-day, young man,” he said. “I like doctrinal talks. There's no getting around good, sound doctrine, Hillhouse. We'd have less lawlessness if we could keep our people filled plumb-full of sound doctrine. But you don't look like you've been eating enough, my boy. Come home with me and I'll give you a good dinner. I heard a fat hen squeal early this morning, as my cook, old Aunt Nancy, jerked her head off. It looks a pity to take life on a Sunday, but if that hen had been allowed to live she might have broken a commandment by hunting for worms on this day of rest. So the divine intention may be carried out, after all. Come on with me.”

“I can't, Brother Mayhew, not to-day, thank you.” The young man flushed as his glance struggled on to the Porters, who were waiting near the door. “The fact is, I've already accepted an invitation.”

“From somebody with a girl in the family, I'll bet,” Mayhew laughed, as he playfully thrust the crooked end of his walking-stick against the preacher's side.

“I wish I knew why women are so dead-set on getting a preacher in the family. It may be because they know they will be provided for, after some fashion or other, by the church at large, in case of death or accident.”

The preacher laughed as he moved on shaking hands and dispensing cheery words of welcome right and left. Presently the way was clear and he found himself near Cynthia and her mother.

“Sorry to keep you standing here,” he said, his color rising higher as he took the hand of the girl and shook it.

“Oh, it doesn't matter at all, Brother Hillhouse,” the old woman assured him. “I'll go on an' overtake Mr. Porter; you and Cynthia can stroll home by the shadiest way. You needn't walk fast; you'll get hot if you do. Cynthia, I won't need you before dinner. I've got everything ready, with nothing to do but lay back the cloth and push the plates into their places. I want Brother Hillhouse just to taste that pound-cake you made. I'm a good hand at desserts myself, Brother Hillhouse, but she can beat me any day in the week.”

“Oh, I know Miss Cynthia can cook,” said the minister. “At the picnic at Cohutta Springs last week she took the prize on her fried chicken.”

“I told you all that mother fried that chicken,” said the girl, indifferently. She had seen Nelson Floyd mounting his fine Kentucky horse among the trees across the street, and had deliberately turned her back towards him.

“Well, I believe I _did_ fix the chicken,” Mrs. Porter admitted, “but she made the custards and the cake and icing, besides the poor girl was having a lot of trouble with her dress. She washed and did up that muslin twice--the iron spoiled it the first time. I declare I'd have been out of heart, but she was cheerful all through it. There is Nathan now. He never will go home by himself; he is afraid I'll lag behind and he'll get a late dinner.”

“How are you to-day, Brother Porter?” Hillhouse asked as they came upon the old man, under the trees, a little way from the church.

“Oh, I'm about as common,” was the drawling answer. “You may notice that I limp a little in my left leg. Ever since I had white-swellin' I've had trouble with that self-same leg. I wish you folks would jest stop an' take a peep at it. It looks to me like the blood's quit circulatin' in it. It went to sleep while you was a-talkin' this mornin'--now, I'll swear I didn't mean that as a reflection.” He laughed dryly as he paused at a fallen tree and put his foot upon it and started to roll up the leg of his trousers, but his wife drew him on impatiently.

“I wonder what you'll do next!” she said, reprovingly. “This is no time and place for that. What would the Duncans think if they were to drive by while you were doing the like of that on a public road? Come on with me, and let's leave the young folks to themselves.”

Grumblingly Porter obeyed. His wife walked briskly and made him keep pace with her, and they were soon several yards ahead of the young couple. Hillhouse was silent for several minutes, and his smooth-shaven face was quite serious in expression.

“I'm afraid I'm going to bore you on that same old line, Miss Cynthia,” he said, presently. “Really, I can't well help it. This morning I fancied you listened attentively to what I was saying.”

“Oh, yes, I always do that,” the girl returned, with an almost perceptible shudder of her shoulders.

“It helped me wonderfully, Miss Cynthia, and once a hope actually flashed through me so strong that I lost my place. You may have seen me turning the pages of the Bible. I was trying to think where I'd left off. The hope was this: that some day if I keep on begging you, and showing my deep respect and regard, you will not turn me away. Just for one minute this morning it seemed to me that you had actually consented, and--and the thought was too much for me.”

“Oh, don't say any more about it, Mr. Hillhouse,” Cynthia pleaded, giving him a full look from her wonderful brown eyes. “I have already said as much as I can on that subject.”

“But I've known many of the happiest marriages to finally result from nothing but the sheer persistence of the man concerned,” the preacher went on, ardently, “and when I think of _that_ I _live_, Miss Cynthia--I live! And when I think of the chance of losing you it nearly drives me crazy. I can't help feeling that way. You are simply all I care for on earth. Do you remember when I first met you? It was at Hattie Mayfield's party just after I got this appointment; we sat on the porch alone and talked. I reckon it was merely your respect for my calling that made you so attentive, but I went home that night out of my head with admiration. Then I saw that Frank Miller was going with you everywhere, and that people thought you were engaged, and, as I did not admire his moral character, I was very miserable in secret. Then I saw that he stopped, and I got it from a reliable source that you had turned him down because you didn't want to marry such a man, and my hopes and admiration climbed still higher. You had proved that you were the kind of woman for a preacher's wife--the kind of woman I've always dreamed of having as my companion in life.”

“I didn't love him, that was all,” Cynthia said, quietly. “It would not have been fair to him or myself to have received his constant attentions.”

“But now I am down in the dregs again, Miss Cynthia.” Hillhouse gave a sigh. It was almost a groan.

She glanced at him once, and then lowered her eyes half fearfully to the ground. And, getting his breath rapidly, the preacher bent more closely over her shoulder, as if to catch some reply from her lips. She made none.

“Yes, I'm in the dregs again--miserable, afraid, jealous! You know why, Miss Cynthia. You know that any lover would be concerned to see the girl upon whom he had based his every hope going often with Nelson Floyd, a man about whom people say--”

“Stop!” the girl turned upon him suddenly and gazed into his eyes steadily. “If you have anything to say against him, don't do it to me. He's my friend, and I will not listen to anything against those I like.”

“I'm not going to criticise him.” Hillhouse bit his white, unsteady lip, as he pinched it between his thumb and index finger. “A man's a fool that will try to win a woman by running down his rival. The way to run a man up in a woman's eye is to openly run him down. Men are strong enough to bear such things, but women don't think so. They shelter them like they do their babies. No, I wasn't going to run him down, but I am afraid of him. When you go out driving with him, I--”

Again Cynthia turned upon him and looked at him steadily, her eyes flashing. “Don't go too far; you might regret it,” she said. “It is an insult to be spoken to as you are speaking to me.”

“Oh, don't, don't! You misunderstand me,” protested the bewildered lover. “I--I am not afraid of--you understand, of course, I'm not afraid you will not be able to--to take care of yourself, but he has so many qualities that win and attract women that--Oh, I'm jealous, Miss Cynthia, that's the whole thing in a nutshell. He has the reputation of being a great favorite with all women, and now that he seems to admire you more than any of the rest--” The girl raised her eyes from the ground; a touch of color rose to her cheeks. “He doesn't admire me more than the others,” she said, tentatively. “You are mistaken, Mr. Hillhouse.”

He failed to note her rising color, the subtle eagerness oozing from her compact self-control.

“No, I'm not blind,” he went on, blindly building up his rival's cause. “He admires you extravagantly--he couldn't help it. You are beautiful, you have vivacity, womanly strength, and a thousand other qualities that are rare in this out-of-the-way place. Right here I want to tell you something. I know you will laugh, for you don't seem to care for such things, but you know Colonel Price is quite an expert on genealogical matters. He's made a great study of it, and his chief hobby is that many of these sturdy mountain people are the direct descendants of fine old English families from younger sons, you know, who settled first in Virginia and North Carolina, and then drifted into this part of Georgia. He didn't know of my admiration for you, but one day, at the meeting of the Confederate Veterans at Springtown, he saw you on the platform with the other ladies, and he said: 'I'll tell you, Hill-house, right there is a living proof of what I have always argued. That daughter of Nathan Porter has a face that is as patrician as any woman of English royal birth. I understand,' the colonel went on to say, 'that her mother was a Radcliffe, which is one of the best and most historic of the Virginia families, and Porter, as rough as he is, comes from good old English stock.' Do you wonder, Cynthia, that I agree with him? There really is good blood in you. Your grandmother is one of the most refined and gentle old ladies I have ever met anywhere, and I have been about a good deal.”

“I am not sure that Colonel Price is right,” the girl responded. “I've heard something of that kind before. I think Colonel Price had an article in one of the Atlanta papers about it, with a list of old family names. My father knows little or nothing about his ancestry, but my grandmother has always said her forefathers were wealthy people. She remembers her grandmother as being a fine old lady who, poor as she was, tried to make her and the other children wear their bonnets and gloves in the sun to keep their complexions white. But I don't like to discuss that sort of thing, Mr. Hillhouse. It won't do in America. I think we are what we make _ourselves_, not what others have made of _themselves._ One is individuality, the other open imitation.”

The young man laughed. “That's all very fine,” he said. “When it was your forefathers who made it possible for you to have the mental capacity for the very opinion you have just expressed. At any rate, there is a little comfort in your view, for if you were to pride yourself on Price's theories, as many a woman would, you might look higher than a poor preacher with such an untraceable name as mine. And you know, ordinary as it is, you have simply got to wear it sooner or later.”

“You must not mention that again,” Cynthia said, firmly. “I tell you, I am not good enough for a minister's wife. There is a streak of worldliness in me that I shall never overcome.”

“That cuts me like a knife,” said Hillhouse. “It hurts because it reminds me of something I once heard Pole Baker say in a group at the post-office. He said that women simply do not like what is known as a 'goody-goody' man. Sometimes as coarse a fellow as Pole hits the nail of truth on the head while a better-educated man would miss and mash his thumb. But if I am in the pulpit, I'm only human. It seemed to me the other day when I saw you and Nelson Floyd driving alone up the mountain that the very fires of hell itself raged inside of me. I always hold family prayer at home for the benefit of my mother and sister, but that night I cut it out, and lay on the bed rolling and tossing like a crazy man. He's handsome, Miss Cynthia, and he has a soft voice and a way of making all women sympathize with him--why they do it, I don't know. It's true he's had a most miserable childhood, but he is making money hand over hand now, and has everything in his favor.”

“He's not a happy man, Mr. Hillhouse; any one who knows him can see that.”

“Oh, I suppose he broods over the mystery that hangs over his origin,” said the preacher. “That's only natural for an ambitious man. I once knew a fellow who was a foundling, and he told me he never intended to get married on that account. He was morbidly sensitive about it, but it is different with Floyd. He _does_ know his name, at least, and he will, no doubt, discover his relatives some day. But it hurts me to see you with him so much.”

“Why, he goes with other girls,” Cynthia said, her lips set together tightly, her face averted.

“And perhaps you know, Miss Cynthia, that people talk about some of the girls he has been with.”

“I know that,” said the girl, looking at him with an absent glance. “There is no use going over it. I hear nothing all day long at home except that--that--that! Oh, sometimes I wish I were dead!”

“Ah, that hurts worse than anything I have heard you say,” declared the minister, stroking his thin face with an unsteady hand. “Why should a beautiful, pure, human flower like you be made unhappy because of contact with a--”