Part 4

Teck Jepson had seldom known the twinge of ridicule. He looked away convinced that she was secretly laughing in triumph at his discomfiture because of this adroit turn of the conversation. But when he again glanced at her she had relapsed into her former attitude, her chin in her hand, her foot on the stone, looking out silently and dreamily. Her aspect was little that of a doughty opponent in a war of words, and he took heart of grace.

“That’s fust rate fur a perfessin’ member,” he declared. He did not fail to observe that she winced. “I’ll b’lieve that whenst I see that thar frequent vis’tor’s white scalp, an’ no sooner.”

For a moment it seemed as if she might laugh again. Then she turned upon him with genuine anger, not less serious that it was sudden:—

“I ain’t able ter see what gin ye a call ter meddle in it. The frequent vis’tor ain’t wantin’ ter be baptized, an’ ain’t a-ondertakin’ ter go ter heaven along o’ you-uns or enny other survigrous saint. Ef he kin git the folks he wants ter ’sociate with in this worl’, the Lord’ll hev ter poke him up with a mighty sharp stick ter make him keer ennythin’ ’bout the nex’ worl’. That’s the state o’ the frequent vis’tor. Whenst I see ye kemin’ in this place, whar me an’ my little sister, Is’bel, hed got fust ter keep dry, I’d hev made ye stan outside, ef I’d know’d ye hed no mo’ manners than ter ax me who kems a-courtin’ an’ who don’t. I ’lowed, though, from the way ye cavorted down yander ter the baptizin’, ez ye war powerful perlite an’ pious, bein’ sech a Christian, an’ yer mind warn’t set on courtin’. Talkin’ ’bout courtin’ ter folks ye never see afore!”

“I’ll be bound I know jes’ who ye air,—yer dad an’ all yer folks,” he declared, in hasty self-justification. “’Tain’t ez ef ye’d met up with a stranger,—somebody from North Ca’liny, or the Lord knows whar. I mus’ hev seen ye agin an’ agin, ’ceptin’ I jes’ don’t take much notice o’ young folks,” he added, in a staid, middle-aged manner. “Is’bel,”—he leaned forward and addressed the child, a tousled headed, barefooted, wiry little lass of ten or twelve, who had been listening silently and staring at him,—“what’s yer dad’s name?”

“Eli Strobe,” piped out Isabel.

“Thar, now!” he exclaimed triumphantly. “Eli Strobe’s cousin married my half-brother, an’ I hev got ez much right ter talk ’bout courtin’ ez enny frequent vis’tor.”

This conclusive logic seemed to daunt the girl. She offered no further reproof, and there was a sort of diffidence in her defeated mien,—the more as he continued: “I be mighty keerless o’ who air in this worl’; my interus’ air in them ez hev gone afore. ’Pears ter me thar ain’t none lef’ like ’em—none like Samson, an’ Daniel, an G’liath.”

A vague solemnity dawned upon her face, at the mention of these names. She sat listening in brooding silence, her crystal-clear eyes on his face as he talked.

“I wisht I hed lived in them days, herdin’ sheep, or suthin’,” he added.

“Ye’d be dead now,” she remonstrated.

“Air ye one o’ them ez cling ter this mortial life?” he demanded, in rebuke. “It’s jes’ a span, a breath, a mist fur the wind ter scatter.”

“Waal, it be powerful comfort’ble whilst it lasts,” she argued.

He glanced at her and shook his head, and then relapsed into silence. The continuous rain was now glimpsed through the mist, and again sounded dully from out the invisibilities of the vapors. Its monody accented the increasing chill of the air. A broad flicker of lightning, diffused through all the fine gray lines, showed the distant looming mountains and cliffs without, and illumined her pensive face.

“Yes, sir,” he declared, shifting his position, his stalwart figure tense and alert, “none like ’em now. I couldn’t holp thinkin’, whenst I war a witness in the court down yander in Glaston, what pore shakes that thar jedge war compared ter Sol’mon. Sol’mon, now, would hev put Jake Baintree through,—he’d hev fund out a way ter fix his guilt on the sinner. ’Member the time,” he cried vivaciously, “Sol’mon hed ter jedge ’twixt them two wimmin ez claimed one baby?”

She nodded doubtfully. The event was not to her in the nature of a reminiscence.

“Lord!” he exclaimed excitedly. “I war afeard fur about three minits ez that thar leetle critter would git cut in half! I never war so all-fired skeered.”

He fell into silence, revolving in his mind the animation of the scene,—the splendid hall in which the kingly judge pronounced sentence, the crowds of soldiers and priests, the tumult of applause at this vindication of his wisdom, this brilliant exploit of his administrative genius.

How the spectacle allured the mountaineer! How vacant the modern voids!

Once more he stirred and sighed.

“Yer dad’s runnin’ agin fur constable,” he said, a trifle wistfully; to such interests, forsooth, he must turn.

There came a shade of anxiety into her face.

“Yes, sir,” she replied, the title a tribute to his arrogations of seniority and to his piety, of a strange quality though she felt it to be. She took one of the ears of the old hound in her fingers and pleated it, as she looked consciously away. The sleeping dog, vaguely discommoded, now and again lifted his head with a vigorous shake, and then dropped it.

The face of Isabel suddenly seemed less youthful. It too bore that anxiety so troublous and pathetic in women and children when they can only suffer, and cannot help. “They think Eli ain’t goin’ ter be ’lected agin,” he said sagely to himself. “Suthin’ ’s bruk.”

“Waal, Eli’s a mighty good man,” he observed aloud, his kindlier impulses uppermost. “He’s apt ter do his best, an’ that’s all the fur we kin go in this life. He stayed up on the mounting along o’ we-uns one night, not long ago, an’ he bruk the lonesomeness astonishin’.”

The face of the elder sister was suddenly irradiated; a triumph was in her eyes all tenderly shining.

“Dad air a mos’ survigrous talker, sure,” she assented warmly. “Dad air powerful good comp’ny. ’Tain’t often dad ain’t got suthin’ ter say. I tell ye, it air wuth while ter stop an’ cock yer ears, whenst dad begins ter talk. Dad air ekal ter enny pa’son, ef the truth war knowed, ain’t he, Is’bel?”

Isabel seemed almost profane in the eager precipitancy of her assent. But it was only “Laws-a-massy, yes!” that she said with so emphatic an accent. The child’s face had flushed beneath its freckles. She sat upright, bending steadily on Jepson her concentrated gaze, its intensity redoubled in effect by the very close juxtaposition of her small, piercing dark eyes.

“That’s a fac’.” Teck joined the laudations, their ebullition of enthusiasm proving infectious. “Eli’s a smart man, an’ a good man, too.”

“So good ter us chillen!” cried the elder girl, her eyes alight,—“me an’ Is’bel; ain’t he, Is’bel?”

“Laws-a-massy, yes!” Isabel once more seemed to swiftly take her oath upon it.

“Why, ef ennything goes wrong thar at home,—the cow gits inter the corn, or the gate swags off’n the henges,—an’ dad gits ter ragin’ ’bout’n it, they hev jes’ got ter say, ‘’Twas Is’bel an’ Marcelly lef’ the bars down,’ or ‘The gals war a-swingin’ on the gate.’ An’ like ez not we hedn’t been a-nigh thar. An’ dad, he jes’ cools down ez quick. ‘’Twar them leetle darters, war it? Waal,’” imitating Strobe’s slow bovine glance, “‘’tain’t goin’ ter ’sturb _me_!’ But ef it hed been ennybody else, though!” The elder sister shook her head in a way that promised amplest retribution, and laughed again.

“Yer name’s Marcelly, air it?” Teck Jepson said ponderingly.

“Done fund that out, hev ye?” she exclaimed. Then, with a swift transition back to the paternal perfections, she continued, “Dad’s a tremenjious scholar,—kin read an’ write s’prisin’. Dad’s been ter school, I tell ye, an’ what he larnt thar warn’t how ter ketch grasshoppers. Dad’s the bes’ shot in Brumsaidge Cove. Nobody kin shoot agin dad, though, bein’ constable,”—her voice fell with the sedateness of her logic,—“he ain’t gin over ter shootin’-matches, like he war. An’ dad kin arrest _ennybody_,” she declared sweepingly, “bein’ constable. The sher’ff ain’t got no mo’ power over folks, sca’cely.”

“An’ dad ’lows the sher’ff be made out’n dough, besides,” said Isabel suddenly. “Dad say a biscuit hev got ez much backbone ez that thar sher’ff.”

Her sister flashed a warning glance at her. Then Marcella’s own bright face fell. “I reckon that’s one reason he hev got a better chance o’ bein’ ’lected agin than dad hev. Some folks ’low ez dad hev set too much store by the law,” she observed, lowering her voice, and allured into a confidential mood by Jepson’s apparent appreciation of “dad.” “Some say ez dad hev whetted the law’s scythe powerful sharp, whilst his own hev been lef’ ter rust. He hev been mo’ tuk up with seein’ arter the law, than gittin’ ’lected agin, an’—an’”—she hesitated—“folks air agin him, an’ bound ter git him beat.”

Isabel fixed an eager electioneering gaze on Jepson’s face. “Do you-uns vote down in Brumsaidge?” she interrogated him.

“I kin vote fur him—ef I wants ter,” he said, a trifle waggishly. “But I ain’t a-goin’ ter let ye buy my vote, so ye needn’t try.”

“I dunno ez I be a-tradin’,” said Isabel shortly.

“Is’bel, hush up!” exclaimed the repressive elder sister, glancing apprehensively at Jepson to note the effect of the child’s curt speech.

But as he lounged upon the ledges of the rock, his head supported on his hand, he was looking with languid good-humor at Isabel, and had evidently taken no offense.

“Dad say it be powerful aggervatin’ ter run fur office,” resumed Marcella. “He say he don’t mind sarvin’ the people,—that’s mighty easy, fur the law be laid down plain, an’ he sets a heap o’ store by the law; but it’s a powerful differ ter please this man an’ not git that one set catawampus, an’ mos’ of ’em air goin’ ter be middlin’ mad, no matter what he does or don’t do. An’ he say sometimes he feels, whenst he be axin’ ’em ter vote fur him, like flyin’ roun’ an’ kickin’ ’em all right an’ lef’, an’ goin’ home fur good.”

“Waal, I ain’t never seen no candidate fur office do sech ez that yit, an’ I’d be powerful glad ef I war ’lowed ter live till I did see it,” he retorted, the sensibilities of the suffrage with which he was endowed becoming roused at the suggestion.

She looked at him a trifle deprecatingly; then, with that daring impulse which often furnishes a false step with stumbling sequelæ, she pursued the subject: “Granny ’lows it fairly sets her teeth on aidge ter hear me a-honin’ an’ a-moanin’ ’bout the ’lection, an’ dad’s chances, an’ voters, an’ the office, an’ sech. An’ she say ’tain’t nowise perlite an’ sensible for wimmin-folks ter spen’ thar time in sech ez they ain’t got no business in. I can’t holp dad nor hender. But I jes’ feel like ez ef I could take a rifle an’ stan’ at the polls, an’ shoot down them ez don’t vote fur dad!” Her eyes flashed, albeit she looked half laughing at him. “T’other night thar war a man at our house ez don’t b’long somehows ter dad’s party.”

“Which party?” demanded Jepson, smiling.

“Dunno. Dad’s. An’ this man, he said: ‘I be powerful sorry I can’t vote fur ye, Eli, kase ye air on the t’other side.’ An’ dad he say, ez slow an’ onconsarned, ‘Don’t vote fur me, ef ye’d ruther not. It ain’t goin’ ter kill me ter git beat.’ An’ I jes’ spoke up, an’ I say, ‘Naw, it air goin’ ter _kill me_!’”

“Ye look toler’ble live yit,” commented Teck Jepson.

“Granny ’lowed she war so ’shamed o’ me, she could hev made soup out’n me, or minch meat, ez onconsarned ez ef I’d been a Shanghai.”

“What did Eli say?”

“Oh, nuthin’. Dad ’lows ez everything I do air right an’ jes’ so—me an’ Is’bel, don’t he, Is’bel?”

“Laws-a-massy, yes,” Isabel affirmed, without hesitation.

The rain was gradually subsiding. One could see beyond the jagged roof of the niche, far across the valley, the gray lines sparsely falling with a free motion and an effect of vast lengths, reaching as they did to the zenith. The dreary mists were gathering themselves together to coalesce in some uncomprehended symmetry of vaporous form, and in silent march were betaking themselves thence with reluctant and exiled mien. Dissimilar, as of a different texture and an alien origin, was the vague gray haze, hardly discernible, rising from the dank earth, and suspended only a few feet above. Suddenly the sun smote it, and how it glistened, now amethystine, now pearly, now a gilded gauze! The wooded mountain-side was splendidly green again, attesting that the rich, ripe August was still straying along the slopes. A sense of renewal, revivification, was in the silver-shotted misty intervals. The moist leaves, glossy and emerald, stirred in the air. Every blade of grass about the portal of the grotto wore globular gauds, as the raindrops caught the light where they swung. A quail called and called down the wet, briery tangles,—sweet vibrant tones! And all at once, that splendid apotheosis of color, that supreme triumph of light, the rainbow, was set in the clouds. How far it reached,—how far!—from sombre Chilhowee to the Great Smoky Mountains,—and the vast landscape beneath was spanned by the glowing arch. And now it was dimmed, as the light fluctuated, and again it glowed in pristine brilliancy and softness; for albeit the rain still fell, the sun shone.

Teck Jepson watched the change with meditative eyes. The old dog took note of it, too, yawning with an expansive expression, and coming down off the ledges, dragging one slow foot after the other. He sat down on the wet grass, heedless of the drops that fell upon him, and gazed gravely about as if he appreciated the scenery.

“Look at old Watch, now,” commented Isabel. “Arter takin’ so much trouble ter keep hisself dry an’ out’n the storm, he air goin’ ter git ez wet ez ef he hed been in the thick of it. Ain’t that jes’ percisely like a dog!”

“Waal, Watch ain’t got no call ter be like nuthin’ else.” Marcella spoke absently, hardly heeding what she said, only mechanically defending her canine friend. She was leaning back amongst the vines that hung down dry and even a trifle dusty within the rift, and trembled above her head and rested on her shoulder. Her eyes seemed to share the pensive brilliance of the hour, so full of a dreaming light, so softly shadowed by the melancholy droop of the long lashes, they were, as she looked, unseeing, into the illuminated sun set, through the soft falling of the glittering rain. The spirited pose of her delicate head on its slender throat was hardly less marked, in this moment of languor, than when held alert and upright. All her lithe and slender figure was relaxed, as she leaned back in the bower that the vines wove for her, and toyed with a tendril in her hand.

Jepson gazed long and silently at her, as she sat there, wondering again that he should never before have seen her. He felt now as if they had often met, and he became sensible of the repetitious impression in a sort of doubting amazement. Her characteristics he seemed to have long ago conned. He was prepared for every turn of her alert head, every sudden uplifting of her definite arrogant eyebrows above those soft eyes. He even felt a fostering familiar regard for the wish nearest her heart, and in the fullness of a warm partisan impulse he abruptly spoke:—

“I’ll tell ye right now what’s doin’ Eli mo’ harm with the voters o’ the deestric’ ’n ennythin’ else. It’s this hyar everlastin’ upholdin’ o’ Jake Baintree.”

“It’s the law’s upholdin’ Jake Baintree!” said Marcella quickly.

The dream-light had fled from her face; she looked at him with a shifting spark deep in her clear eyes, betokening a disquieted spirit and a touch of anger.

He changed his attitude, and glanced out over the landscape. “I never expect ter spend my time argufyin’ with enny gal-folks,” he said in an offhand way, and with a laughing sneer. “But ye kin set it down, ef ye air minded ter. Yer dad’s cavortin’ roun’ an’ upholdin’ Jake Baintree, kase this leetle old yearthly jedge down yander didn’t hev sense enough or law enough ter fix his sin on him, air a-goin’ ter defeat Eli,—besides all else folks hev got agin him. Ye mark my words.”

“Waal, I dunno but they hed ez soon take the jedge’s say-so ez yourn.”

She resembled her father, when she gave herself to argument; the slow, calculating glance that she bent upon Jepson, as she turned her head, was singularly like the look she sometimes mimicked.

“I ain’t a-settin’ up my say-so agin the jedge’s,” he responded, quickly. “It’s the fac’s. He can’t git around ’em. An’ Eli can’t git around ’em. An’ the folks in the _dee_stric’ can’t git around ’em. The storm will burst some day, though. The Lord will repay.”

There was an anxious flush on her usually pale face. Her eyes were bright and restless. The irritation of not being able to reconcile her father’s opinions with the prospect of success was smouldering in her manner, and suddenly flamed out in words.

“From all I hev seen, ye air likely ter take the Lord’s jobs off’n his hands. He needn’t bother ’bout repayin’ nobody in Brumsaidge, whar sech a headin’ man ez ye air be a-loose. Ye’ll repay. Ye wouldn’t let Jake Baintree git baptized, kase ye ’low he killed a man ez the jury say he didn’t kill, an ’kase ye fund somebody’s old clothes hid somewhar. Mebbe he’ll never git ter the baptizin’ p’int agin. He can’t get the sperit whenst he wants it; he can’t whistle it back like a dog that follows him.”

“Ef he ever hed the sperit no man kin harm him. Did he gin Sam’l Keale time ter think on salvation? Ez the Lord bade me, so I did act,” he protested.

She relapsed into silence.

“Jake Baintree be plumb cur’ous,” said Isabel, knitting her brows, and laughing,—a constrained demonstration that had no mirth in it. She had wearied of the discussion, which she scarcely understood, and resorted with a freshened zest to gossip.

“How be he cur’ous?” demanded Jepson.

“Waal,” said Isabel, twisting the corner of her apron in and out of her fingers, “he _looks_ cur’ous. An’ he sets an’ stare-gazes an’ stare-gazes the fire. An’ he kin read an’ write. He larnt in jail. An’ his folks dunno what ter make o’ him, nohow. He don’t talk none, sca’cely. They ’low he war jes’ a boy whenst he went away, an’ now he be a plumb differ, ez ef he war somebody else. Mebbe he air somebody else.” Isabel paused, with a contortion of the countenance, showing all her jagged teeth, as if she sought to express in some facial way the extreme curiousness of Jake Baintree.

“How do ye know so much about him?” demanded Jepson, surprised.

“Marcelly, she useter go thar a heap, an’ I jes’ up an’ go with Marcelly. Marcelly, she useter tote ’em things, whenst they war so powerful pore an’ tormented how ter git along,—roastin’-ears an’ ’taters,—and holped ’em weave some. She war holpin’ ’em weave whenst he kem home.”

A sudden repulsion seized Teck Jepson. “_He_ ain’t the frequent vis’tor?” he exclaimed.

Marcella drew back, with an abrupt cry. “Jake Baintree!” she said in horror.

There was a moment of embarrassment. He had his regrets that he had spoken, and she had hers that she had answered. With a woman’s tact, she would have passed it by. But he made a blundering, clumsy attempt to better the situation, and asked, with a feint of mirth, “Who be that thar frequent vis’tor, ennyhows?”

“Ye kin hev that fur a riddle,” she said, with a chilly accent. She glanced loftily past him, as she rose. “Kem ’long, Is’bel; it’s quit rainin’, an’ we hed better be a-startin’.”

She stood for a moment, tall, fair, erect, under the rugged arch, which was massively imposed upon the clearing sky. A red suffusion of light was over the valley. The mountains were darkling and purple. An inexpressible sense of freshness blended with the eventide languors. All the woods were vibrant with the ceaseless chirr of the cicada, and the antiphonal chanting of frogs rose and fell by the water-side. Pensiveness pervaded the hour, and melancholy. Far-away cattle, homeward bound, were lowing and clanking their mellow bells. And the misty air ministered to the sun’s splendors, and bore its elongated rays far into space in gorgeous amplifications. The ground was dank, and Isabel’s bare feet pattered along with a noisy sound, and she was beset with forebodings.

“I’ll be bound the foot-bredge over the ruver air nigh under water by this time, an’ I ain’t one o’ the swimmin’ kind,” Isabel observed with callow pertness. “I warn’t raised ter be a frawg.”

Jepson had hesitated behind the two girls. Isabel’s words seemed to suggest his opportunity. “I mought ez well g’long home with you-uns ez no,” he remarked. “’Tain’t out’n my way none ter the Settlemint, an’ I’ll holp ye over the log.”

They trudged along silently through the forest, with its ceaseless pulsations of sound: Isabel in the van, the other two walking side by side, and the dog of the “frequent visitor” following. Sometimes the shadows fell on Marcella’s fair face, sometimes the roseate glow of the west; and Jepson found a fascination undreamed of before in noting their fluctuations. Her expression betokened little favor toward him,—less, perhaps, than he realized. He had never sought the approval of others, and disapproval he was not quick to discern, since he had no self-disparagement to keep his fears alert.

Long before they reached the river they heard the water roaring, but the unhewn log that served as foot-bridge, thrown from bank to bank, was not yet submerged, and the two girls walked swiftly and lightly across, with no need of assistance. Suddenly the woods gave way, and Broomsedge Cove lay before them, vague in the closing dusk. Half a dozen log cabins were scattered at long intervals, for this was “the Settlemint,”—their red lights growing distinct since the day had so waned. The sky was crimson above, and seemed to touch the gaunt, black, towering mountains that circled close about the sequestered nook. A star was gleaming near the horizon. Voices rose fitfully and fell to silence, and all was mute save for the nocturnal song of the woods, and presently a few strokes of an axe at some wood-pile, that set the echoes all a-hewing.

They paused beside a rail fence inclosing one of the cabins, where the flare of firelight flickered out into the passage between the two rooms. Marcella’s face had become only a vague suggestion, white in the closing dusk, as they stood together a moment at the gate. For she had spoken at last, offering the customary invitation to come in and stay to supper.

“I mus’ be a-travelin’ up the mounting,” he drawled in response. Then he hesitated. “This air the fust time I ever seen ye, but I reckon ’twon’t be the las’.”

He strode off then, and she watched him as he went with his assured gait and singularly erect pose. A deft, swift step he had, too, and she was presently gazing into the closing obscurity where he had disappeared.

“I’d jes’ ez lief ’twould be the las’,” she said to herself,—“I’d jes’ ez lief.”

IV.