Part 12

“Teck Jepson gone an’ c’mitted murder,—laws-a-massy! I jes’ feel how the members o’ the church in Piomingo Cove ez be always a-laffin’ an’ gibin’ at we-uns, will crack thar heels tergether an’ shout whenst they hear ’bout’n it.”

“That thar smooth-faced, fat, jokified Brother ’Zekiel Johns always tuk every chance ter gin a dab at the ‘Brumsaidge brethren,’ ez he say it.” Mrs. Donnard drawled her mimicry in good clerical fashion.

Even the placid Jube was touched by this prophecy of the rejoicing of the opposite religious faction. He shifted his position as he sat on the step, and frowned in perplexed discomfiture, looking even more like his father with these solemn corrugations. It seemed to him at the moment worth while saving one’s soul to spite the folks in Piomingo Cove.

“I’d hev ’lowed,” he observed, “ez arter Satan hisself kem hyar an’ sot hisself up thar in public in the forge, squattin’ on the anvil, ez them fellers, Eli Strobe an’ Teck Jepson, mought hev knowed ez bad luck would hev got inter thar fightin’. Eli jes’ a-boundin’ out in the road under the mare’s huffs, an’ Teck ridin’ the off’cer o’ the law down!—they knowed the devil hev been viewed in Brumsaidge wunst, ennyways, ef they didn’t know ’bout his workin’s sence.”

The old man lifted his chin from the hands clasped upon his stick. The nostrils of his long, thin, bony nose dilated like those of a frightened horse; his eyes widened and brightened, showing a lighter tint than their usual gray.

“What workin’s, son?” he demanded.

Jube looked at him in the closing dusk, and mysteriously shook his head.

Mrs. Donnard had not observed the allusion nor the look.

“Racin’ an’ bettin’ air sinful,” she declared, “an’ that thar tearin’-down, good-lookin’ Teck Jepson hev got mighty little religion ef he don’t know it.”

The old man had a sudden monition of the discipline seemly in his own family. “Warn’t ye one o’ them a-racin’, son?” he asked, although he had had the evidence of his own eyes to the fact. There was a momentary pause.

“Jes’ sorter runnin’ the horse-critter along the road,” said the parson’s son, as if defining a material difference.

The old man in a manner accepted the distinction.

“Waal, sonny, ye mus’n’t do sech. ’Tain’t right, an’ it air agin the law.”

“Yes, sir,” said the dutiful Jube.

“Though ye wouldn’t hev run nobody down,” said the mother.

“Naw’m.” Jube found it very easy to coincide.

Mrs. Donnard, convinced that there was no more news from the Settlement to be gleaned, rose presently, and went indoors to “dish up” supper. The two men, left alone upon the porch, grew more confidential.

“Jube,” said the parson eagerly, lowering his voice, “what d’ ye mean ’bout the devil’s workin’s in Brumsaidge sence?”

Jube looked, cogitating and silent, down the slope, where the great dark trees rose, dense, and heavy, and glooming. The sky was far lighter than the earth, and here only was color distinguishable,—the pallid blue tint that barely permitted to be seen the fluctuating glitter of a timorous star. Above Chilhowee, far away, the sickle of the moon was reaping the shadowy mists, gray and crimson, touched with an afterglow of the sun; a vague swath of light was left behind her keen and glistening blade. The voice of a nighthawk sounded raucous and sudden, and once more the heavy silence brooded.

“Waal, dad, I dunno ef I hev enny call ter say nuthin’ ’bout it; I promised I wouldn’t tell.”

“Laws-a-massy, Jube, who tole ye?” demanded the parson, agitated.

Jube stirred uneasily. His unlucky allusion to the matter had escaped him unwittingly. He was beginning to understand that he should be urged to explain, and his tact and invention were deplorably inadequate to the emergency.

“I promised Clem Sanders I wouldn’t tell,” he said desperately.

“Waal, Jubal, I’ll gin ye ter onderstand ez this ain’t no matter fur ye an’ Clem Sanders ter keep ter yerse’fs,” said the old man severely. “I war gin ter view the Enemy in that thar forge, an’ ef ennythin’ hev kem o’ sech I hev got the right ter know it.”

This logic freed Jube’s conscience, and absolved him, as it were, from his broken promise.

“He hev been thar agin!”

The stick fell from Parson Donnard’s grasp, and rolled noisily along the puncheon floor.

“Who?” he gasped, with trembling lips and starting eyes, expectant of the answer that came suppressed—

“Satan!”

Parson Donnard sat as one petrified.

“He kem thar,” said Jube, with lowered voice and many furtive glances toward those glooming woods, “one night whenst Clem didn’t know nuthin’ ’bout’n it, bein’ at home an’ asleep; but Dake, he see the forge alight an’ hearn the hammers a-strikin’, an’ he ’lowed ’twar Clem. He tole Clem arterward, an’ it like ter skeered Clem ter death, kase he ’lowed mebbe ’twar that thar _dead Clem Sanders_,—what ye seen lookin’ through the winder at him whenst he played kyerds,—a-hammerin’, with the devil a-strikin’ fur him!”

“My stars!” exclaimed the trembling parson.

“Yes, sir!” said Jube, flattered by the extreme interest with which his narrative was received, its intensity being altogether unexpected. “Yes, sir, Clem ’lowed ez ’twar Satan ez mus’ do the strikin’, an’ not the smith work; kase Clem ’lows ez sech takes a heap o’ ’speriunce, an’ dealin’ in metals air a mighty partic’lar business, an’ Satan air a heap too smart ez ter ’low he kin do reg’lar smith work ’thout he hed a power o’ teachin’. Strikin’ air all Satan would be ekal ter round a forge, Clem say. Waal, sir, two or three nights arterward Clem hears suthin’, an’ looks out’n the roof-room winder; an’ thar he see the forge lit up an’ hearn the hand-hammer an’ the sledge, clink-clank, clink-clank, jes’ ez nat’ral! Clem ’lowed it made him feel powerful bad ter hev his harnt a-walkin’ ’bout his own forge ’fore he air dead; he tuk it fur a sign, an’ it went so ter his heart ez he got off’n his feed fur a few days. But that night, ez he got closer an’ closer ter the forge”—

“Did—did Clem go thar?” demanded the old man breathlessly.

“_Yes_, sir!” said Jube. He paused to look at the sky, dark and fully instarred now; all its scintillating splendors were suddenly quenched into neutral monotony, while a ghastly quiver of sheet lightning broadly fluctuated through the infinite spaces of the firmament, and over the long, lonely stretches of wood and mountain. Then it died away, leaving the constellations supreme in the night, and the dark stillness brooding in the woods.

“He got plumb up ter the winder, sir, ’cordin ter Clem,” Jube continued cautiously.

“An’—an’—what did he see?” interrupted the parson.

“He stumbled an’ fell right at the winder, an’ they hearn the noise inside, an’ in a minit it war all dark an’ still in the forge, ’ceptin’ that the doors they shut with a bang. Clem went in; he fund nuthin’ an’ nobody. A leetle fire smouldered on the h’ath, but the anvil war a-ringin’ like all possessed.”

Parson Donnard sat with a rigid face, but half revealed by the dull light that came from the fire within, and all unnoted by his careless son. He had possessed himself anew of his stick, and had resumed his accustomed attitude, his hands clasped upon the head of the stout cane, and his chin resting upon them. But these hands were unsteady, and now and again his lips trembled. He was secretly aware, as he gazed out into the blank darkness, that the vision he had seen was revealed in a manner merely to his spiritual sight. It was rather suggested to his own insulted moral perceptions by the future possibilities to the jocund group. In fact, he had not intended his description of it literally; he had given it in some sort as a parable, the version of the actual scene translated by an acute and anxious discernment. He had never gauged the limits of his own credulity in the visions of others, and he did not at the time realize that he overstepped the bounds of verity when he construed the tableau according to the moral needs of his hearers. It was salutary that Satan should sit upon the anvil amidst that merry crew, and visibly rejoice in their wicked sports. And who knows but that he did! The parson claimed the benefit of the doubt, and the vision of his spiritual eye was thereby improved. The idea was eminently restrictive and calculated to impress Clem Sanders that he himself, in some future reflective mood, should gaze back through the windows of memory, solemn and regretful, upon the futile wasted hours of a riotous youth. The parson’s figurative language had unforeseen possibilities, and had set the “harnt” of a living man a-walking before its time. He had not concerned himself greatly with the misapprehension when it first came to his notice. He had not dreamed of strange consequences astir. Despite the natural strength of his mind, his uncultivated instinctive knowledge of human nature, his gift of rude eloquence, he was densely ignorant, saturated in superstition, and even his religion held alternating elements of terror and of bliss. He began to fear that thus unguardedly speaking a judgment was to be sent upon him. His hasty figurative words, unjustifiably used, were forthwith made true. He thought, poor soul, that he had conjured up the devil, to stalk abroad in Broomsedge Cove, where, as well he knew, the denizens were ill prepared to meet him! Not in the guise of a ravening wolf, nor a black dog, but “bat-wise,” gigantic and weird, a creature of the night, accompanied by that familiar, yet horribly unfamiliar, presentment of the blacksmith. “I hev gin Clem over. I hev los’ my sheep.” He groaned aloud in the misery of his reflections.

Perhaps it was the courage of desperation, the unrecognized hope that never dies till every vital spark be extinct, perhaps only the stanch and adventurous spirit of the old mountaineer,—woodsman and hunter as well as parson,—that nerved him to say, “It air some human critter, mebbe, bent on no good.” Then he presently observed, “Jube, I be goin’ ter watch that thar forge this night, an’ every night till I see who it air ez kems.”

Jube recoiled. “Lord A’mighty, dad, _I_ wouldn’t fur nuthin’. ’Pears like ye oughtn’t ter resk it.” Then gathering reassurance with the reflection, “Mam won’t let ye, nohow.”

“Thar ain’t no need for her to know it.” And after a pause, “I ain’t a-goin’ ter tell her,” added the parson.

Mrs. Donnard, the best of wives, would willingly have sacrificed the whole congregation rather than let the parson risk an encounter with the enemy. Parson Donnard knew it was necessary to sedulously hold his tongue in order to be able to keep his own resolution, and thus her devotion, making his cause her own, cherishing enmities for his sake, tolerating friendships, sharing alike haps and mishaps—at last resulted in exclusion from his confidence! It was a lesson of doubtful expediency for Jube to observe the disingenuousness of the parson, as like unto other men as if he had felt no outpouring of the spirit, while he ate the good supper that she had cooked, and wore a placid and incidental countenance, and lighted his pipe after the meal was concluded, and established himself upon the porch in a definite and settled manner as if a fixture for the evening. And how, with his own practice to the contrary, should he preach to Jube, and young people generally, upon the beauty of confidence in the family relations, of the dangers of secrecy, of the necessity of setting good examples, and of amply and quickly returning the blessings that one enjoys of fine traits in others by double measure to them, pressed down and running over!

The unconscious Mrs. Donnard, almost pathetic in her unconsciousness, scoured the skillet with ashes, and now and again lifted her voice and sang a fragmentary measure, broken by leaning down and rising up, and mounting upon chairs to place plates and sundry other table ware upon the high shelf, otherwise beyond her reach. Once the hiatus was occasioned by the parson, who put his head into the door to say he was “obligated” to go down to the Settlement to see how Eli Strobe was, when she placidly assented, and went on singing as before. It was Jube who, looking in at her cheerful industry, felt the pang of remorse,—he the good-for-naught; not the worthy parson, plodding off, feeling that she knew as much as was good for her.

Jube went too, having volunteered in an unguarded moment—repenting of it immediately afterward, but unable to extricate himself—to show his father a certain choice coigne of vantage on the mountain above, where one could easily overlook the road and the forge, and yet be at a considerable distance. “It’s so steep a body mought slip spang down onto the roof, ef ye didn’t scotch yerse’f with a bowlder. Git ahint one o’ them bowlders,—that’s the dinctum.”

The moon had sunk in the unknown world behind Chilhowee. The blackness on the earth was dense and unbroken, save that here and there the flare from some cabin that they passed revealed the vague outline of the building, the dully illuminated oblong space of the open doorway, a few zigzag lines of the rail fence close at hand thus suggesting the features of the familiar scenes which the night had annulled. Above, the stars blazed in great glory and a scintillating multiplicity, but gave little appreciable light, and the parson was glad that Jube, with his younger eyes and his active step, was with him, when they began to toil up a rugged and brambly pathless ascent. The old man struggled valiantly along,—they had passed through the Settlement, the father observing to the son, by way of keeping his word to Mrs. Donnard, that they would stop and inquire for Eli Strobe upon their homeward way, if it were not then too late,—and he was beset by the terror of meeting some one of his flock here and now, where his errand would be inexplicable. He plunged boldly among the briers; he toiled through steep stony passes; he puffed, and tugged, and made every hearty effort to swiftly betake himself out of the way of any accidental encounter. Once a sudden stir in the bushes hard by caused his heart to spring into his throat, and his quick mind to anxiously canvass some hobbling methods of explaining his position,—the next moment, the mellow clangor of a cow-bell; the creature was lying belated, perhaps, on the slope, and had moved her head, hearing their steps, and no more.

He was indefinably perplexed and embarrassed by an odd, unrecognizable change in Jube. A sort of half-subdued hilarity grated on him, sundry smothered guffaws, gleeful allusions to previous capers, of which the parson had never heard and vaguely understood. Only now and then did Jube subside, with a returning realization of the identity of his companion. For the night air, the mountain wind, the secrecy, the excitement, the quivering expectancy of their errand, had begun to make themselves felt in Jube’s blood, —a rapid current, and susceptible of considerable elation and exhilaration. The spirit of adventure was astir within him, and only at times was dashed by the remembrance that the parson was—the parson.

When they reached their objective point, Parson Donnard sank down upon a ledge of rock that his son indicated to him, his knees against a bowlder lying hard by, that he might not slide down the steep incline upon the very roof of the forge. He noted how he seemed to face the great concave of the sky, how definite the western mountains stood against the starry expanse, and how distinct certain objects had become even in the pitchy blackness, now that his eyes were in some sort accustomed to it.

“Thar’s the forge, right down yander under this laidge,” observed Jube, with that wild gayety in his tone which bewildered the old man, who deprecated it. “Ef ye war ter lean over, dad, an’ stretch out yer arm, yer hand would be plumb over the chimbly. Laws-a-massy”—Jube rocked himself in the joy of his reminiscence—“don’t I ’member how me an’ some o’ them t’other boys got up hyar one night, an’ drapped a leetle gunpowder down into the chimbly. An’ Clem say, ‘Lord A’mighty what’s that?’ An’ then I drapped a leetle mo’ yit, an’ Clem hollered, skeered, till suddint he smelt it, an’ out he kem with a bar o’ red-hot iron in his hand, a-dustin’ up the mounting. ’Twar a dark night, an’ he jes’ looked plumb like the devil hisself.”

“Hesh, Jube, hesh! ye air talkin’ mighty loud.” The old man shrank from the sound of his voice.

“An’ I seen him,” continued Jube, “an’ durned ef I warn’t so full o’ laff that I los’ my balance, an’ fell right down thar plumb onter the roof. Clem clomb up an’ got me, he did! But the t’others hed runned off through the woods.”

“Jube, jes’ see ef ye can’t shet up fur awhile,” said the poor parson.

“Waal,” remonstrated Jube, “I jes’ want ter tell ye how I kep’ Clem from bastin’ me ’count o’ that trick. Oh, ho! ’twar the funniest joke on Clem; liked ter never hearn the e-end o’ it, an’”—

“I don’t want ter hear no joke,” said Parson Donnard sternly and ill at ease; perhaps he felt a personified joke himself, perched on the beetling ledges of the mountain in the middle of the night, in imminent danger of rheumatism, and in the society of his rollicking son. It would be a gay day for the flock of Brother Ezekiel Johns, in Piomingo Cove, if his enterprise and position should be discovered, and, failing, should become ridiculous. Draw as he might on his large resources of explanation, his license of metaphor and spiritual phrasing, he could not justify the facts with the frivolous Jube in company.

“This air a solemn ’casion, an’ we hev kem out, it may be, ter meet the Enemy. ’Pears ter me ye air a mighty junketin’ an’ jiggetty sort o’ boy fur a pa’son’s son, gigglin’ an’ jokin’ all the time.”

The parson spoke with acrimony; perhaps at that moment he himself would have administered with right good will “the bastin’” that Clem had spared.

“No use ter take arter me kase the devil kems a-lopin’ ’round in Brumsaidge,” retorted Jube, surlily. “I hain’t hed no dealin’s with the devil.” He spoke of the Enemy familiarly; he was accustomed to hear so much of him. “Ef I war a-talkin’, ’twouldn’t hender him none from kemin’; _he_ ain’t afeard o’ _me_, I reckon.”

He relapsed, however, into silence, preserving a wounded manner which was of great avail generally with his parents, and which advertised that some one had been “tromplin’ on his feelin’s,” as he was wont to phrase it.

The night was wearing on: once the glittering dart of a falling star shot swiftly athwart the dark expanse. They could hear the pensive night sigh in its reverie. Jube now and again shifted his position, a few loose stones rolling beneath his feet. The tedium of the delay wore heavily upon him. Once as the clarion note of a cock rang out, with its response from the echoing crags, he ventured to say in a low voice, “Thar now!” as a reproach for the lateness of the hour. And more than once afterward he yawned with ostentatious fatigue. Differently, indeed, had the time been beguiled when he and his cronies awaited the propitious moment to throw gunpowder into the smith’s forge fire. But then the bellows was at work, with its noisy respirations, and the anvil clamored, and the behests of secrecy were not inconsistent with sound. Now the forge in the black abyss below was as silent as the grave,—as dark. No stir save that of the torrent in the deep obscurity of its channel, its current throbbing like the pulse of the night. No light in all the world,—not even at Eli Strobe’s cabin, where the watchers’ candle by the bedside had burned late; no light save the glister of the great stars.

Suddenly—the parson’s hand falls with a light touch on Jube’s; a step along the road, was it? The wind—a vagrant blast—comes a-rustling down and stirs the dust; the dry, arid scent of it rises to their perch; and again a step. Distinct now, a regular advancing footfall along the road, so dark, so dark under that glittering array of all the hosts of heaven. An approach, a sound—no more! But was the echo so strong, so keen, or was the step followed closely by another?

The parson’s breath came in quick gasps through his half-parted dry lips. He trembled throughout all his gaunt frame. For the footfalls had followed the road at the base of the mountain, and had paused at the door of the forge.

All at once the old man, quivering on the ledge, started violently, and came near falling into the depths below, rescuing himself only by the strong clutch of his sinewy hands at the jagged rock on which he sat. For a sound had issued into the null silence,—a long, terrible, jarring sound. A wild, fantastic mimicry of a crowing cock, ending in a sonorous wail, profaned the solemn stillness, and was strident in all the echoes. The next moment his angry blood was throbbing in his temples. Jube’s arms were still flapping in his grotesque mockery, and his gay, inadvertent laugh rang out, forgetful of all in the ecstatic opportunity,—of his father, their solemn mission, the purpose of the invaders of the forge, the spiritual enemy; boisterously joying in the sudden exclamation of fear below and the quick retreating footfalls.

“Stop! Stop! Who be that down thar?” exclaimed the parson’s authoritative voice. “War ye a-wantin’ ter get in the forge?”

A momentary silence below,—seemingly a whisper; then, “Whar’s that thar rooster? Naw; I war jes’ a-goin’ ter turn roun’. I kem down hyar ter inquire arter Eli Strobe, ’lowin’ they’d watch all night, an’ I wouldn’t hev time ter-morrer; but I see the house air dark.”

“Who be ye? What’s yer name?” asked the parson.

Again a momentary hesitation. Then, “Ain’t that Pa’son Donnard?”

The old man writhed under the cumbrous dignity of his identity. How much easier and happier just now to be Jube, burdened with no veneration of the community to live up to! He had never tasted the bitterness of such humility as he experienced now.

“I be Pa’son Donnard,” he said as sonorously as he might, “a sarvent of the Lord.”

Another vague whisper. Then, aloud, “Laws-a-massy, pa’son, what be ye a-doin’ of up in the mounting in the middle of the night?—nigh day, ef the truth war knowed.”

“I kem out,” said the parson slowly, “ter wrastle with the sperit.” He did not think it needful to say in what sense.

“Yes, sir,” said the voice below, with an intonation of deep respect. “I never would hev ’lowed ’twar you-uns, though. I never war so skeered!”

The parson stuttered in his haste. Whatever construction might be placed upon his intentions and the hour, he would repudiate that wild vocalization of the crowing Jube’s.

“I hev brung my son along; I hev got Jube up hyar.”

“Edzac’ly,” said Jube, with a facetiously accurate hiccough.

“Air Jube a-wrastlin’ with the sperit, too?” demanded the unknown from below; the intention of the scoffer was in his tone.

“Ye shet up,” said Jube, promptly. “I know ye. I know yer voice. Ye be Jake Baintree. I’ll kem down an’ wrastle with you-uns, fust thing ye know.”

In the interval a sudden faint flicker of sheet lightning wavered across the dark world. Jube’s eyes were young and very keen.

“Who be that thar with ye?” he cried out in a changed tone.

An interval—was it cogitation? was it consultation?

“Nobody,” said Jake Baintree sturdily,—“nobody be with me.”

“I ’lowed I seen somebody jes’ now,” urged Jube.

“Shadder, I reckon,” said the voice unconcernedly. “Good-night.”

He moved off into the obscurity, and Jube sank down beside his father, laying an excited clutch on his arm. “Thar war another man with him, a strange man, dressed diff’ent, ez I never see afore.” He listened to the retreating footfalls. “Thar air two of ’em,—two of ’em, keeping step keerful, and walking like one man!”

The parson rose, his stiff joints creaking.