Part 7

“Marcelly’s plumb outdone, I know, ’kase _ye_ hev fund out ez she war streck with yer good looks, Teck, an’ called ye han’some. Laws-a-massy, gals air mighty purblind an’ foolish critters; they think the men air gin over ter studyin’ ’bout’n ’em, an’ tryin’ ter sense what they mean, when the fellers, mos’ likely, air jes’ standin’ with thar arms akimbo, a-lookin’ at the weather-signs, an’ a-wonderin’ what the chances air fur huntin’ ter-morrer.”

She glanced toward Jepson with a laugh, expectant of ready acquiescence. But there was upon his face, distinct enough even in the closing shadows, an expression so haughty, so aloof and unresponsive, that the little dame was at first perturbed and troubled, but presently grew angered in turn.

“A spiteful sinner!” she exclaimed to herself; “mad now, jes’ ’kase Marcelly ’lowed he hed no religion,—an’ he ain’t got none.”

All her facile cleverness was roused, however, and she was mindful, too, of the interests of the approaching election. Thus, although she struck, it was with a cautious hand and a crafty insight.

“But I reckon mos’ly,” she said, lowering her voice cautiously, “ez Marcelly war tormented, bein’ feared ez Clem Sanders mought hear somehows ez she hed been streck with yer good looks. I’ll be bound _that_ skeered her.”

She forbore for a moment to mark how her shaft had sped. She sat motionless, her feet perched on the rung of the chair, and she looked very small and unintentional, and reflective, as she placidly contemplated the night scene. The fireflies fluctuated in the dank shadows, that gloomed duskily about the porch; now close at hand, now a momentary gleam far away in a bosky tangle, still multiplying, till they seemed some elusively glittering network spread as a snare for the darkness. The mountains had become invisible in the blackness, save for their rigid summit-lines against the sky. The frogs chanted by the water-side, and katydids were monotonously shrilling in the orchard. The grating of Teck Jepson’s chair on the floor, as he abruptly shifted his position, was the only sound that broke upon the quiet with the jarring effect of interruption, and as Mrs. Strobe turned she saw his face thrown into strong relief by the rays of a tallow dip within, which Marcella had just kindled. The white light streamed forth as far as the great gourd-leaves behind his head, eliciting their faint green color with the interstices of olive-hued shadows. His face had relaxed; it was haughty no longer. There was an alert anxiety in the blue eyes which the mountain girl fancied so deep. He had taken off his hat, and pushed back his dark hair from his forehead. He was frowning a little, and yet he hardly noticed the sudden flare of light upon his face; his compressed lips had softened, had parted. He said nothing. Another voice came out of the darkness:—

“I dunno what Clem Sanders mought ondertake ter set hisse’f up ter git mad fur, ’kase Marcelly ’lows ez this one or that one air good-lookin’,” “Woolly” spoke up, with an acrimony and a decision which showed that his discourse was not exclusively confined to the placid “baa.” “Clem Sanders hain’t got no right ter say nuthin’ ’bout good-lookin’ folks, the Lord above knows, all marked up with cinders an’ soot ez he be. I’ll be bound Marcelly ain’t a-goin’ ter interrupt herse’f studyin’ ’bout what Clem Sanders thinks ’bout good looks.”

“What ye talkin’ ’bout? Hev yer senses deserted ye?” the grandmother remarked to the “frequent visitor,” with a tart familiarity induced, perhaps, by the frequency of his visits. “Ye can’t expect a blacksmith ter be nuthin’ but cindery an’ sooty,—like folks ez plow gits miry. None ter choose ’twixt ’em, I’m a-thinkin’.”

“I know that.” Andy Longwood made a feint of acquiescence; then continued droningly, as one who has a grievance, “But Marcelly ain’t mindin’ Clem Sanders,—else she ain’t the gal I take her fur. Looks so grizzly an’ sooty, I ain’t s’prised none ef the Satan ez Pa’son Donnard seen settin’ on the anvil in the forge warn’t nuthin’ but Clem hisself.”

“Shucks!” said the uncompromising Isabel. “_He_ hed wings an’ hawns, ’cordin’ ter pa’son, an’ Clem hain’t nare one.”

“Waal, I don’t keer,” growled “Woolly.” “Clem’s a sight ter be seen, a scandal ter the jaybirds.”

“That don’t make no differ!” cried the little old woman, stanch in argument. “Blacksmithin’ air a powerful fine business; the folks in Brumsaidge couldn’t git along ’thout Clem. An’ afore him,—shucks! way back in the Bible times they hed smiths, an’ I reckon they war ez sooty an’ cindery then ez now; dirt ain’t improved none noways, ez I onderstan’, sence them days. Thar war a man then, what the Bible speaks respec’fully of, by the name o’ Tubal Cain,—a cunning workman,—warn’t thar, Teck?” She appealed to him with animation as to a Biblical authority, expecting an eager and interested response; but he only said, “Yes’m,” with an evident effort, cleared his throat, and was silent.

Eli Strobe had risen in obedience to some signal from indoors. “Kem in ter supper.” His big voice rumbled out with all its wonted intonations of hospitality. If Jepson had not been otherwise absorbed, he might have noted the candidate’s self-control remarkable in so tantalizing an episode. It did not escape Mrs. Strobe’s keen attention, and she deported herself with a trifle of gay bravado, feeling beyond the reach of retribution, since the dictates of policy so hampered deserts.

“Waal, sir, eatin’ supper by a tallow dip,—who ever hearn the beat!” remarked Isabel. “A leetle mo’, an’ we would all hev gone ter bed hongry.”

“It do be a powerful late supper.” Mrs. Strobe had a slightly harried aspect; if conscience abode within her, it wielded its power in her housewifely instincts. “Be ye hongry, Teck,—ye an’ Andy an’ Eli? It’s all Marcelly’s fault, a-furgittin’ ter dish up supper till nigh on ter bed-time. An’ me, too: I jes’ sot an’ talked, I will ’low, ez ef my tongue war tied in the middle an’ workin’ at both e-ends.”

The feeble focus of the candle dully glowed in the centre of the table, sending out a subdued glimmer upon the faces that surrounded it amidst the encompassing obscurity. A vague glimpse was had of the smoke-blackened ceiling just above, with a rich dash of color where a cluster of strings of red peppers hung. The walls darkly merged into shadows; the fire was a smouldering, tawny-tinted coal; the ceaseless night sounds came through the open door,—the chirring of insects, the sigh of the woods, and the fret of the torrent. As Marcella waited upon them, she was invisible most of the time in the dark periphery of the circle: occasionally there were transitory visions of the fair dispenser of hospitality, the white light falling on her delicate face, and floating hair, and rounded arm, and deft hand, as perchance she leaned forward and tendered the cracked blue bowl of honey to one or the other of the guests; then only an alert, noiseless shadow, slipping about in the kindred gloom.

It was a silent meal, albeit the little old dame and Isabel were among the partakers. When they all repaired again to the porch, they found the moonlight there, with yellow slanting rays and long, melancholy shadows, and the distorted waning disk itself hung in the purple spaces above the black mountain that the house faced. The fireflies were quenched; only now and then a feeble gleam stole forth from a dark cluster of gourd-leaves. The perfume of the orchard was sweet on the air; the dew glittered on the low summits of the old gnarled trees. The men and the old woman lighted their pipes, and the coterie silently smoked, while Marcella sat on the steps of the porch, in the full radiance of the midsummer sheen, her idle hands folded upon one knee, her lustrous eyes turned upward to the moon, the wind lightly tossing her curling hair. Within, the candle still sputtered, while Isabel washed the dishes and pans,—this being her allotted task,— and made a great clatter to better express her industry.

It was all very still without; a constraint oppressed the group. Each had regrets in the premises, and harbored resentments. The occupation of smoking, the meditative languor which the consumption of tobacco warrants, precluded the necessity for conversation, and afforded an interval for the recuperation of the downcast spirits of the company. Small wonder that Clem Sanders, listening from his roof-room window, heard no laughing or talking at Strobe’s!

Suddenly the shrill clamor of a screech-owl invaded the nocturnal quietude; again and yet again, with its sinister, mirthless chuckle supplementing and seeming to ridicule its own hysteric outcry. It grated upon the nerves of Mrs. Strobe, already subjected to some unusual tension.

“Laws-a-massy, jes’ listen ter that thar n’isy fow-_el_. He be a-goin’ ter screech thar haffen the night, I’ll be bound; an’ he air a sure sign o’ death, ter holler nigh a chimbly. Jes’ listen at him, now, a-laffin’ at the corpse!” Once more the low, joyless, mocking merriment jarred the air. “Take yer dad’s gun thar, Marcelly, an’ run down in the orchard, an’ fire it off at him. He be right yander in that thar sheep-nose apple-tree.”

Marcella rose slowly. “I’ll drive him off,” she said, “but I ain’t a-goin’ ter fire no gun off at him; the critter hev got ez good a right ter live ez I hev. I’ll fling a sheep-nose apple at him, an’ that be ez much ez I be a-goin’ ter do ter him.”

“Listen at the sassiness of the stiff-necked generation!” exclaimed the old woman, evidently the exordium of a tirade against the young folks nowadays. But Marcella was already far down the grassy slope, and out of hearing; and with one scornful glance after her, Mrs. Strobe put her pipe into her mouth, and sourly relapsed into silence.

The high grass, tasseled and rank, glimmered with dew. The moonlit spaces wore a finer and a fairer lustre for the deep romantic shadows that hung about the boughs. There were long and glittering arches, where the fruited branches interlaced, and in the dappling shade beneath, the boles, all at regular intervals, had a columnated effect; and these arboreal aisles seemed endless. Even the homelier incidents of the orchard shared the enchantment of the moonlight: some blight that had fallen on one of the goodly branches had bereft it of leaves and fruit, and a web that had been woven about it shone, a refulgent gauze, and radiated a delicate and fibrous splendor. Down these simple ways Marcella went, the light upon her face; her hair fluttered with the slight breeze; her step was sure and free; she seemed so ethereal that she too might have been some embellishing fantasy of the night. The bird of ill-omen had ceased to cry, as if her very presence exorcised all evil fortunes. She paused, gazing upward, the moonbeams full on her shining eyes. She had lifted one arm and laid hold of a fruit-freighted bough. It seemed strange that she did not see the owl, so well she realized how it must look, up among the boughs somewhere, demurely silent, shuffling down, and suppressing, as it were, its fearful identity among its mottled feathers, its head askew as it watched her with its big yellow eyes. She had her hand upon the retributive apple; a sudden footfall,—Teck Jepson was approaching along the dewy colonnade.

The owl was safe, very safe indeed: a pity that the “fow-_el_” might not have known this, and have spared itself the anguish of fright that it endured, as it sat almost within arm’s length, discreetly silent, refraining from stirring claw or feather, and wisely looking down upon them.

The bough was shaking with more than the wind, for Marcella’s hand trembled on the unplucked apple.

Jepson’s hat was thrust on the back of his head. His face, too, was distinctly visible as he approached. Somehow he had never seemed to her so tall, so imperious of temper, so impressive, as now. But there was a trifle of embarrassment in his manner, and he only said,—

“Whar’s that thar ow-_el_?”

“I dunno,” faltered Marcella.

He did not seem to care. His mind was evidently little concerned with the “fow-_el_.”

He paused, looking steadily at her, as if he expected her to speak again. But she still stood silent, the moonlight in her lustrous eyes and on her upturned face, her hand on the apple as it swung on the low bough.

“I never expected ter hear ez ye hed been talkin’ ’bout me that-a-way; I never looked fur it,” he said.

The quick color surged into her cheeks; her eyes flashed; she let go the bough so suddenly that, swinging elastically into its place, the little owl was almost dislodged from its perch, and it tightened its toes and even slightly spread its wings to keep its balance. It uttered a low sound, a sort of mutter, that they might have heard had they not been too absorbed; and it was with a kind of resentful dignity that it settled itself again in its feathers, and cocked its head askew, and looked down at them with its round, bright eyes.

“An’ I dunno what sorter man ye kin be, ter kem makin’ remarks ter me ’bout’n it,” she cried indignantly.

“I hev knowed ye sech a little time, I reckon nobody would hev expected sech from you-uns,” he resumed.

She stood for a moment in blank amazement. Then she seemed ready to burst into tears. “I never said it ’cept ter granny,—an’ who would hev thunk o’ her settin’ up an’ tellin’ it all ter you-uns, not knowin’ ye war the same one? Ye never tole we-uns yer name, that evenin’. I jes’ ’lowed ye war kin ter Bowles.”

“I don’t keer who ye said it ter,” he declared, his voice full of reproach. “I ain’t keerin’ fur nuthin’ ’ceptin’ ye thunk it,—an’ I never done nuthin’ ter make ye think it.”

Once more she looked at him, aghast. She put up her hand again to the bough, now for the sake of support.

“Tellin’ folks, an’ settin’ out ter b’lieve ez I be a hypercrite, an’ _purtend_ ter be pious, an’”—

“Oh!” she exclaimed, with a note of comprehension and relief so marked that he paused abruptly, and demanded sternly,—

“What did you-uns ’low I war talkin’ ’bout?”

She did not answer. Her expression had suddenly changed, as she stood under the bough. No dryad, no ethereal native of the tree, could wear a face more airily lightsome, more elfinly gay, than she, looking out through the sheen and the flickering shadow.

“Waal,” said he, staring blankly at her, “What war _ye_ a-talkin’ ’bout?”

She only shook her head in gleeful silence.

“Ye never said nuthin’,” he resumed, seeking to review the conversation that he might unravel its mystery, “’ceptin’ I war a—a”—he stumbled at the word,—“a hypercrite, an’ a sinner;—yes, an’ special good-lookin’, but I never minded _that_.”

Her face had grown conscious again. “I reckon not,” she remarked dryly.

“_Ye_ mind that, though,” he said penetratingly, at last; “that’s what ye thought I war talkin’ ’bout, hey? Waal, I jes’ mind ye callin’ me a sinner, an’ sayin’ ez I _purtend_ ter be pious.”

He noted her instant relief at the change of the subject. “Ye don’t mind folks knowin’ ye called ’em sinners,” he continued, “but whenst it comes ter _handsome_ sinners”—

He desisted, in pity for the look in her face.

“I tell ye now, Marcelly,” he said gravely, as they mechanically took their way together toward the house, “ye may ’low ez I be hard-hearted, an’ cruel-eyed, an’ got no religion, but I be a-goin’ ter furgive ye fur them words,—like a Christian!”

It was the first wrong that he had ever overlooked. He found forgiveness easy to be exercised, and very sweet.

She stole a shy look at his face. “That’s powerful good in ye,” she said softly. “I war jes’ a-talkin’ ter be a-talkin’, an’”—

Their shadows, close together, followed them over the shining grass, and for a time they were silent as they approached the group on the porch.

He paused abruptly, and looked down at her.

“An’ I don’t want ye ter be aggervatin’ yerse’f by ’lowin’ ez I ain’t goin’ ter do all I kin fur Eli in the ’lection. What ye said ain’t goin’ ter hender. I’ll vote fur him, an’ git all others I kin ter do likewise.”

Marcella began to experience a sensation as of coals of fire heaped upon the head. She could only murmur, “I war jes’ a-talkin’ ter be a-talkin’.”

That night, from time to time, as the hours wore on and the house was still, the little owl in the apple-tree lifted its voice and shrilled aloud, and laughed in sinister and chuckling mirth, while the moon slowly climbed the skies. And Mrs. Strobe, turning on an uneasy pillow, evolved bitter reflections concerning the inefficiency of the present generation.

“Sen’ two hearty young folks—one of ’em mos’ seven feet high ’ceptin’ what’s lackin’—down inter a orchard ter fling a apple at a ow-_el_ an’ drive him off,—an’ a body would think they hed invited the critter ter bide ter supper, an’ sing hyme chunes arterward.”

VI.

Whatever might be the character of the nocturnal visitant of the forge, it seemed safe enough in the broad glare of sunlight; and as it was the voting-place of the district, it was by no means deserted on that momentous Thursday in August when the election was held. Marcella had felt throughout the canvass the terrible strain of suspense, but when the day had drawn near she was deprecatory of decision, and wished that if the worst must be it might not be at once.

“A body would ’low, ter hear ye a-goin’ on, that Eli war ter be hung ter-day,” her grandmother remarked, tartly. “He ain’t los’ a ounce o’ flesh nor a hour o’ sleep sence he war a candidate, an’ he went off from hyar this mornin’ high-colored ez common. An’ look at you-uns—big-eyed, an’ pale-faced, an’ lean-lookin’, an’ fluttery—drapped the blue bowl an’ bruk it in two; an’ Is’bel patterns arter ye, till thar ain’t no ch’ice fur a fool ’twixt ye. Shucks! I mus’ be mistaken,” sarcastically; “they be goin’ surely ter hang Eli.”

From time to time, during the rich and dewy morning hours, when the bees droned about the blooming clover in the orchard aisles, and the birds were abroad in the highways of the skies, Marcella parted the sheltering vines on the porch, that she might look forth unobserved upon the voters gradually assembling at the polls. She knew many of them by sight, and was informed concerning their disposition toward her father’s pretensions; and thus her heart weighed heavily or grew buoyant, as enemies or friends were in the majority. They came chiefly on horseback, and there were rows of saddle-horses hitched to the rack before the wide door of the forge, and to the boughs of trees hard by, and even to the badly chinked logs of the building itself; sometimes they dully drowsed, sometimes impatiently pawed, sometimes fell to bickering together, and necessitated the interposition of their masters to readjust their status. Many of the farmers had come in ox-wagons. The teams had been unyoked, and were leisurely munching the feed, spread out in the dappling shadows upon the ground before them. Casting a vote, the inalienable right of an American citizen, seemed a lengthy and serious matter, and was not to be lightly discharged; during the main portion of the day it busied the denizens of the surrounding slopes, and thus deliberately they saved the country. The assemblage presented, therefore, something of the aspect of an exclusively masculine picnic, for such women and children as had been permitted to gratify a long-cherished hankering to “view” the populous Settle_mint_ had hied them decorously to the houses of various relatives,—the tender ties of consanguinity thus utilized on this auspicious occasion,—and were seen no more during the day. Old friends met, and smoked, and talked at great length. The state of crops in various localities elicited anxious inquiries; old gossip that had been on its last legs suddenly developed a new and brisk pair of limbs, and circulated like a fresh scandal. Parson Donnard could not have failed to hear his name excitedly coupled with that of the devil, as he threaded his way through the crowd; but mindful of his vision, he placed no false nor sensitive interpretation upon this association, and there was an elongation of his thin compressed lips which in an ungodly man one might have thought singularly like a smile of flattered vanity. The heavy jeans-clad mountaineers reverently made way for him, and there was a perceptible abatement of the guffaws and slowly drawled jokes as he passed. But as in more cultured communities, the observance and the feeling were not always in close compatibility, and the criticism he encountered was as if he were of this world.

“I dunno why pa’son be ’lowed ter vote,” said Joe Bassett, as he sprawled on the protruding roots of a tree; two mountaineers perched hard by on the tongue of an ox-wagon from which the team had been released, and a third reclined on a saddle which he had thrown upon the ground. “Pa’son can’t run fur nuthin’,” continued Bassett; “he can’t go ter the Legislatur’, nor nuthin’, nor be sher’ff. They don’t let preachers hold office, nor butchers set on a crim’nal jury,”—thus seeking in his ignorance to reconcile the incongruities and oddities of the law.

“Pa’son oughter be a-studyin’ ’bout a seat ’mongst the angels, stiddier gittin’ registered ’mongst the qualified voters o’ the deestric’,” said Gideon Dake, who always confirmed Bassett’s views, or added corollary matter.

“What be Teck Jepson a-bobbin’ ’bout fur, like a float on a fish-line?” demanded Bassett. “Actially a-stoppin’ the pa’son mighty nigh at the door of the forge. Looks ter be a-wrastlin’ in prayer with the old man,—in an’ about goin’ ter save the pa’son’s soul, fust thing ye know.”

“Hain’t you-uns hearn,” said Dake, quickly seizing the opportunity to regale the professed gossip with a new story, “how turrible smitten Teck Jepson an’ Marcelly Strobe hev got, all of a suddint? An’ Teck air a-workin’ fur the lection like he war demented. I made him beg an’ beg _me_ fur nigh on ter a hour ter vote fur Eli,—like I hed counted on doin’ all the time. Now Teck’s argufyin’ with the pa’son.”

“Every time I hear o’ Marcelly Strobe she hev got another feller a-danglin’. ’Pears like ter me she _mus’_ be a-foolin’ some o’ them boys,” Bassett commented sourly.

“Laws-a-massy, jes’ look at Teck,” said Dake, laughing slightly, albeit his teeth were closed hard upon the quid of tobacco in his mouth, “he hev gin the old man his arm an’ air jes’ a-draggin’ the pa’son up ter the polls! Wouldn’t trest the pa’son’s word ter vote fur Eli; gone in ter see the job well done. Waal, sir,”—he shifted his position as the young and the old man disappeared together within the door,—“that’s jes’ the way he done me. I couldn’t hev got away from him, arter I hed promised ter vote for Eli, ef I hed wanted ter.”

There was a momentary hiatus in the conversation, when a tall, lank man, some twenty-eight or thirty years of age, with high cheek-bones and a sunburned, narrow face, joined the group. He had a bright, quick glance, and a smouldering spark of irritation aided its effect. His countenance wore a ready and propitiatory smile, the candidate’s smile, that seemed automatic in some sort, and not subject to the same springs that sufficed as motor for his other expressions. He flung himself upon a pile of shucks and hay, the forage of neighboring oxen, and he chewed a long straw as he talked.

“Hy’re, boys,” he said, agreeably. “How do the chances o’ the ’lection ’pear ter you-uns?” For he was Joshua Nevins, a candidate for constable, and Eli Strobe’s much-feared rival.

“Mighty well,” said Bassett, reassuringly.

“Whyn’t ye go an’ vote, Dake?” said the candidate, leaning forward to scan Gideon Dake’s countenance.

“Ye ain’t goin’ ter try ter git folks ter vote twict, air ye?” said Dake, jocosely. “I hev voted wunst ter-day, an’ they tells me ez that be ez off’n ez the law allows.”

“I hopes ye voted the right way,” said Nevins, with a bland and mollifying demonstration of the candidate’s smile.