Part 6

Squire Quimbey sat in his place among the justices. Despite his pride of office, he had not the heart for business that might formerly have been his. More than once his attention wandered. He looked absently out of the nearest window at the neighboring dwelling--a little frame-house with a green yard; a well-sweep was defined against the gray sky, and about the curb a file of geese followed with swaying gait the wise old gander. "What a hand for fow-_els_ Eveliny war!" he muttered to himself; "an' she hed luck with sech critters." He used the obituary tense, for Evelina had in some sort passed away.

He rubbed his hand across his corrugated brow, and suddenly he became aware that her husband was in the room, speaking to the chairman of the county court, and claiming a certificate in the sum of two dollars each for the scalps of one wolf, "an' one painter," he continued, laying the small furry repulsive objects upon the desk, "an' one dollar fur the skelp of one wild-cat." He was ready to take his oath that these animals were killed by him running at large in this county.

He had stooped a little in making the transfer. He came suddenly to his full height, and stood with one hand in his leather belt, the other shouldering his rifle. The old man scanned him curiously. The crude light from the long windows was full upon his tall slim figure; his yellow hair curled down upon the collar of his blue jeans coat; his great miry boots were drawn high over the trousers to the knee; his pensive deer-like eyes brightened with a touch of arrogance and enmity as, turning slowly to see who was present, his glance encountered his father-in-law's fiery gaze.

"Mr. Cheerman! Mr. Cheerman!" exclaimed the old man, tremulously, "lemme examinate that thar wild-cat skelp. Thanky, sir; thanky, sir; I wanter see ef 'tain't off'n the head o' some old tame tomcat. An' this air a painter's"--affecting to scan it by the window--"two ears 'cordin' to law; yes, sir, two; and this"--his keen old face had all the white light of the sad gray day on its bleaching hair and its many lines, and his eager old hands trembled with the excitement of the significant satire he enacted--"an' this air a wolf's, ye say? Yes; it's a Kittredge's; same thing, Mr. Cheerman, by a diff'ent name; nuthin' in the code 'bout'n a premium fur a Kittredge's skelp; but same natur'; coward, bully, thief--_thief_!"

The words in the high cracked voice rang from the bare walls and bare floors as he tossed the scalps from him, and sat down, laughing silently in painful, mirthless fashion, his toothless jaw quivering, and his shaking hands groping for the arms of his chair.

"Who says a Kittredge air a thief says a lie!" cried out the young man, recovering from his tense surprise. "I don't keer how old he be," he stipulated--for he had not thought to see her father so aged--"he lies."

The old man fixed him with a steady gaze and a sudden alternation of calmness. "Ye air a Kittredge; ye stole my daughter from me."

"I never. She kem of her own accord."

"Damn ye!" the old man retorted to the unwelcome truth. There was nothing else for him to say. "Damn the whole tribe of ye; everything that goes by the accursed name of Kittredge, that's got a drop o' yer blood, or a bone o' yer bones, or a puff o' yer breath--"

"Squair! squair!" interposed an officious old colleague, taking him by the elbow, "jes' quiet down now; ye air a-cussin' yer own gran'son."

"So be! so be!" cried the old man, in a frenzy of rage. "Damn 'em all--all the Kittredge tribe!" He gasped for breath; his lips still moved speechlessly as he fell back in his chair.

Kittredge let his gun slip from his shoulder, the butt ringing heavily as it struck upon the floor. "I ain't a-goin' ter take sech ez that off'n ye, old man," he cried, pallid with fury, for be it remembered this grandson was that august institution, a first baby. "He sha'n't sit up thar an' cuss the baby, Mr. Cheerman." He appealed to the presiding justice, holding up his right arm as tremulous as old Quimbey's own. "I want the law! I ain't a-goin' ter tech a old man like him, an' my wife's father, so I ax in the name o' peace fur the law. Don't deny it"--with a warning glance--"'kase I ain't school-larned, an' dunno how ter get it. Don't ye deny me the law! I _know_ the law don't 'low a magistrate an' a jestice ter cuss in his high office, in the presence of the county court. I want the law! I want the law!"

The chairman of the court, who had risen in his excitement, turning eagerly first to one and then to the other of the speakers, striving to silence the colloquy, and in the sudden surprise of it at a momentary loss how to take action, sat down abruptly, and with a face of consternation. Profanity seemed to him so usual and necessary an incident of conversation that it had never occurred to him until this moment that by some strange aberration from the rational estimate of essentials it was entered in the code as a violation of law. He would fain have overlooked it, but the room was crowded with spectators. The chairman would be a candidate for re-election as justice of the peace at the expiration of his term. And after all what was old Quimbey to him, or he to old Quimbey, that, with practically the whole town looking on, he should destroy his political prospects and disregard the dignity of his office. He had a certain twinge of conscience, and a recollection of the choice and fluent oaths of his own repertory, but as he turned over the pages of the code in search of the section he deftly argued that they were uttered in his own presence as a person, not as a justice.

And so for the first time old Joel Quimbey appeared as a law-breaker, and was duly fined by the worshipful county court fifty cents for each oath, that being the price at which the State rates the expensive and impious luxury of swearing in the hearing of a justice of the peace, and which in its discretion the court saw fit to adopt in this instance.

The old man offered no remonstrance; he said not a word in his own defence. He silently drew out his worn wallet, with much contortion of his thin old anatomy in getting to his pocket, and paid his fines on the spot. Absalom had already left the room, the clerk having made out the certificates, the chairman of the court casting the scalps into the open door of the stove, that they might be consumed by fire according to law.

The young mountaineer wore a heavy frown, and his heart was ill at ease. He sought some satisfaction in the evident opinion of the crowd which now streamed out, for the excitements within were over, that he had done a fine thing; a very clever thought, they considered it, to demand the law of Mr. Chairman, that one of their worships should be dragged from the bench and arraigned before the quarterly county court of which he was a member. The result gave general satisfaction, although there were those who found fault with the court's moderation, and complained that the least possible cognizance had been taken of the offence.

"Ho! ho! ho!" laughed an old codger in the street. "I jes knowed that hurt old Joel Quimbey wuss 'n ef a body hed druv a knife through him; he's been so proud o' bein' jestice 'mongst his betters, an' bein' 'lected at las', many times ez he hev run. Waal, Abs'lom, ye hev proved thar's law fur jestices too. I tell ye ye hev got sense in yer skull-i-bone."

But Absalom hung his head before these congratulations; he found no relish in the old man's humbled pride. Yet had he not cursed the baby, lumping him among the Kittredges? Absalom went about for a time, with a hopeful anxiety in his eyes, searching for one of the younger Quimbeys, in order to involve him in a fight that might have a provocation and a result more to his mind. Somehow the recollection of the quivering and aged figure of his wife's father, of the smitten look on his old face, of his abashed and humbled demeanor before the court, was a reproach to him, vivid and continuously present with his repetitious thoughts forever re-enacting the scene. His hands trembled; he wanted to lay hold on a younger man, to replace this aesthetic revenge with a quarrel more wholesome in the estimation of his own conscience. But the Quimbey sons were not in town to-day. He could only stroll about and hear himself praised for this thing that he had done, and wonder how he should meet Evelina with his conscience thus arrayed against himself for her father's sake. "Plumb turned Quimbey, I swear," he said, in helpless reproach to this independent and coercive moral force within. His dejection, he supposed, had reached its lowest limits, when a rumor pervaded the town, so wild that he thought it could be only fantasy. It proved to be fact. Joel Quimbey, aggrieved, humbled, and indignant, had resigned his office, and as Absalom rode out of town toward the mountains, he saw the old man in his crumpled brown jeans suit, mounted on his white mare, jogging down the red clay road, his head bowed before the slanting lines of rain, on his way to his cheerless fireside. He turned off presently, for the road to the levels of the Cove was not the shorter cut that Absalom travelled to the mountains. But all the way the young man fancied that he saw from time to time, as the bridle-path curved in the intricacies of the laurel, the bowed old figure among the mists, jogging along, his proud head and his stiff neck bent to the slanting rain and the buffets of his unkind fate. And yet, pressing the young horse to overtake him, Absalom could find naught but the fleecy mists drifting down the bridle-path as the wind might will, or lurking in the darkling nooks of the laurel when the wind would.

* * * * *

The sun was shining on the mountains, and Absalom went up from the sad gray rain and through the gloomy clouds of autumn hanging over the Cove into a soft brilliant upper atmosphere--a generous after-thought of summer--and the warm brightness of Evelina's smile. She stood in the doorway as she saw him dismounting, with her finger on her lips, for the baby was sleeping: he put much of his time into that occupation. The tiny gourds hung yellow among the vines that clambered over the roof of the porch, and a brave jack-bean--a friend of the sheltering eaves--made shift to bloom purple and white, though others of the kind hung crisp and sere, and rattled their dry bones in every gust. The "gyarden spot" at the side of the house was full of brown and withered skeletons of the summer growths; among the crisp blades of the Indian-corn a sibilant voice was forever whispering; down the tawny-colored vistas the pumpkins glowed. The sky was blue; the yellow hickory flaming against it and hanging over the roof of the cabin was a fine color to see. The red sour-wood tree in the fence corner shook out a myriad of white tassels; the rolling tumult of the gray clouds below thickened, and he could hear the rain a-falling--falling into the dreary depths of the Cove.

All this for him: why should he disquiet himself for the storm that burst upon others?

Evelina seemed a part of the brightness; her dark eyes so softly alight, her curving red lips, the faint flush in her cheeks, her rich brown hair, and the purplish kerchief about the neck of her yellow dress. Once more she looked smilingly at him, and shook her head and laid her finger on her lip.

"I oughter been sati'fied with all I got, stiddier hectorin' other folks till they 'ain't got no heart ter hold on ter what they been at sech trouble ter git," he said, as he turned out the horse and strode gloomily toward the house with the saddle over his arm.

"Hev ennybody been spiteful ter you-uns ter-day?" she asked, in an almost maternal solicitude, and with a flash of partisan anger in her eyes.

"Git out'n my road, Eveliny," he said, fretfully, pushing by, and throwing the saddle on the floor. There was no one in the room but the occupant of the rude box on rockers which served as cradle.

Absalom had a swift, prescient fear. "She'll git it all out'n me ef I don't look sharp," he said to himself. Then aloud, "Whar's mam?" he demanded, flinging himself into a chair and looking loweringly about.

"Topknot hev jes kem off'n her nest with fourteen deedies, an' she an' 'Melia hev gone ter the barn ter see 'bout'n 'em."

"Whar's Pete?"

"A-huntin'."

A pause. The fire smouldered audibly; a hickory-nut fell with a sharp thwack on the clapboards of the roof, and rolled down and bounded to the ground.

Suddenly: "I seen yer dad ter-day," he began, without coercion. "He gin me a cussin', in the court-room, 'fore all the folks. He cussed all the Kittredges, _all_ o' 'em; him too"--he glanced in the direction of the cradle--"cussed 'em black an' blue, an' called me a _thief_ fur marryin' ye an kerry-in' ye off."

Her face turned scarlet, then pale. She sat down, her trembling hands reaching out to rock the cradle, as if the youthful Kittredge might be disturbed by the malediction hurled upon his tribe. But he slept sturdily on.

"Waal, now," she said, making a great effort at self-control, "ye oughtn't ter mind it. Ye know he war powerful tried. I never purtended ter be ez sweet an' pritty ez the baby air, but how would you-uns feel ef somebody ye despised war ter kem hyar an' tote him off from we-uns forever?"

"I'd cut thar hearts out," he said, with prompt barbarity.

"Thar, now!" exclaimed his wife, in triumphant logic.

He gloomily eyed the smouldering coals. He was beginning to understand the paternal sentiment. By his own heart he was learning the heart of his wife's father.

"I'd chop 'em inter minch-meat," he continued, carrying his just reprisals a step further.

"Waal, don't do it right now," said his wife, trying to laugh, yet vaguely frightened by his vehemence.

"Eveliny," he cried, springing to his feet, "I be a-goin' ter tell ye all 'bout'n it. I jes called on the cheerman fur the law agin him."

"Agin _dad_!--the law!" Her voice dropped as she contemplated aghast this terrible uncomprehended force brought to oppress old Joel Quimbey; she felt a sudden poignant pang for his forlorn and lonely estate.

"Never mind, never mind, Eveliny," Absalom said, hastily, repenting of his frantic candor and seeking to soothe her.

"I _will_ mind," she said, sternly. "What hev ye done ter dad?"

"Nuthin'," he replied, sulkily--"nuthin'."

"Ye needn't try ter fool me, Abs'lom Kittredge. Ef ye ain't minded ter tell me, I'll foot it down ter town an' find out. What did the law do ter him?"

"Jes fined him," he said, striving to make light of it.

"An' ye done that fur--_spite_!" she cried. "A-settin' the law ter chouse a old man out'n money, fur gittin' mad an' sayin' ye stole his only darter. Oh, I'll answer fur him"--she too had risen; her hand trembled on the back of the chair, but her face was scornfully smiling--"he don't mind the _money_; he'll never git you-uns _fined_ ter pay back the gredge. He don't take his wrath out on folkses' _wallets_; he grips thar throats, or teches the trigger o' his rifle. Laws-a-massy! takin' out yer gredge that-a-way! It's _ye_ poorer fur them dollars, Abs'lom--'tain't him." She laughed satirically, and turned to rock the cradle.

"What d'ye want me ter do? Fight a old man?" he exclaimed, angrily.

She kept silence, only looking at him with a flushed cheek and a scornful laughing eye.

He went on, resentfully: "I ain't 'shamed," he stoutly asserted. "Nobody 'lowed I oughter be. It's him, plumb bowed down with shame."

"The shoe's on the t'other foot," she cried. "It's ye that oughter be 'shamed, an' ef ye ain't, it's more shame ter ye. What hev he got ter be 'shamed of?"

"'Kase," he retorted, "he war fetched up afore a court on a crim'nal offence--a-cussin' afore the court! Ye may think it's no shame, but he do; he war so 'shamed he gin up his office ez jestice o' the peace, what he hev run fur four or five times, an' always got beat 'ceptin' wunst."

"Dad!" but for the whisper she seemed turning to stone; her dilated eyes were fixed as she stared into his face.

"An' I seen him a-ridin' off from town in the rain arterward, his head hangin' plumb down ter the saddle-bow."

Her amazed eyes were still fastened upon his face, but her hand no longer trembled on the back of the chair.

He suddenly held out his own hand to her, his sympathy and regret returning as he recalled the picture of the lonely wayfarer in the rain that had touched him so. "Oh, Eveliny!" he cried, "I never war so beset an' sorry an'--"

She struck his hand down; her eyes blazed. Her aspect was all instinct with anger.

"I do declar' I'll never furgive ye--ter spite him so--an' kem an' tell _me_! An' shame him so ez he can't hold his place--an' kem an' tell _me_! An' bow him down so ez he can't show his face whar he hev been so respected by all--an' kem an' tell _me_! An' all fur spite, fur he hev got nuthin' ye want now. An' I gin him up an' lef him lonely, an' all fur you-uns. Ye air mean, Abs'lom Kittredge, an' I'm the mos' fursaken fool on the face o' the yearth!"

He tried to speak, but she held up her hand in expostulation.

"Nare word--fur I won't answer. I do declar' I'll never speak ter ye agin ez long ez I live."

He flung away with a laugh and a jeer. "That's right," he said, encouragingly; "plenty o' men would be powerful glad ef thar wives would take pattern by that."

He caught up his hat and strode out of the room. He busied himself in stabling his horse, and in looking after the stock. He could hear the women's voices from the loft of the barn as they disputed about the best methods of tending the newly hatched chickens, that had chipped the shell so late in the fall as to be embarrassed by the frosts and the coming cold weather. The last bee had ceased to drone about the great crimson prince's-feather by the door-step, worn purplish through long flaunting, and gone to seed. The clouds were creeping up and up the slope, and others were journeying hither from over the mountains. A sense of moisture was in the air, although a great column of dust sprang up from the dry corn-field, with panic-stricken suggestions, and went whirling away, carrying off withered blades in the rush. The first drops of rain were pattering, with a resonant timbre in the midst, when Pete came home with a newly killed deer on his horse, and the women, with fluttering skirts and sun-bonnets, ran swiftly across from the barn to the back door of the shed-room. Then the heavy downpour made the cabin rock.

"Why, Eveliny an' the baby oughtn't ter be out in this hyar rain--they'll be drenched," said the old woman, when they were all safely housed except the two. "Whar be she?"

"A-foolin' in the gyarden spot a-getherin' seed an' sech, like she always be," said the sister-in-law, tartly.

Absalom ran out into the rain without his hat, his heart in the clutch of a prescient terror. No; the summer was over for the garden as well as for him; all forlorn and rifled, its few swaying shrubs tossed wildly about, a mockery of the grace and bloom that had once embellished it. His wet hair streaming backward in the wind caught on the laurel boughs as he went down and down the tangled path that her homesick feet had worn to the crag which overlooked the Cove. Not there! He stood, himself enveloped in the mist, and gazed blankly into the folds of the dun-colored clouds that with tumultuous involutions surged above the valley and baffled his vision. He realized it with a sinking heart. She was gone.

* * * * *

That afternoon--it was close upon nightfall--Stephen Quimbey, letting down the bars for the cows, noticed through the slanting lines of rain, serried against the masses of sober-hued vapors which hid the great mountain towering above the Cove, a woman crossing the foot-bridge. He turned and lifted down another bar, and then looked again. Something was familiar in her aspect, certainly. He stood gravely staring. Her sun-bonnet had fallen back upon her shoulders, and was hanging loosely there by the strings tied beneath her chin; her brown hair, dishevelled by the storm, tossed back and forth in heavy wave-less locks, wet through and through. When the wind freshened they lashed, thong-like, her pallid oval face; more than once she put up her hand and tried to gather them together, or to press them back--only one hand, for she clasped a heavy bundle in her arms, and as she toiled along slowly up the rocky slope, Stephen suddenly held his palm above his eyes. The recognition was becoming definite, and yet he could scarcely believe his senses: was it indeed Evelina, wind-tossed, tempest-beaten, and with as many tears as rain-drops on her pale cheek? Evelina, forlorn and sorry, and with swollen sad dark eyes, and listless exhausted step--here again at the bars, where she had not stood since she dragged her wounded lover thence on that eventful night two years and more ago.

Resentment for the domestic treachery was uppermost in his mind, and he demanded surlily, when she had advanced within the sound of his words, "What hev ye kem hyar fur?"

"Ter stay," she responded, briefly.

His hand in an uncertain gesture laid hold upon his tuft of beard.

"Fur good?" he faltered, amazed.

She nodded silently.

He stooped to lift down the lowest bar that she might pass. Suddenly the bundle she clasped gave a dexterous twist; a small head, with yellow downy hair, was thrust forth; a pair of fawn-like eyes fixed an inquiring stare upon him; the pink face distended with a grin, to which the two small teeth in the red mouth, otherwise empty, lent a singularly merry expression; and with a manner that was a challenge to pursuit, the head disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared, tucked with affected shyness under Evelina's arm.

She left Stephen standing with the bar in his hand, staring blankly after her, and ran into the cabin.

Her father had no questions to ask--nor she.

As he caught her in his arms he gave a great cry of joy that rang through the house, and brought Timothy from the barn, in astonishment, to the scene.

"Eveliny's _home_!" he cried out to Tim, who, with the ox-yoke in his hand, paused in the doorway. "Kem ter stay! Eveliny's _home_! I knowed she'd kem back to her old daddy. Eveliny's kem ter stay fur good."

"They tole me they'd hectored ye plumb out'n the town an' out'n yer office. They hed the insurance ter tell _me_ that word!" she cried, sobbing on his breast.

"What d'ye reckon I keer fur enny jestice's cheer when I hev got ye agin ter set alongside o' me by the fire?" he exclaimed, his cracked old voice shrill with triumphant gladness.

He pushed her into her rocking-chair in the chimney-corner, and laughed again with the supreme pleasure of the moment, although she had leaned her head against the logs of the wall, and was sobbing aloud with the contending emotions that tore her heart.

"Didn't ye ever want ter kem afore, Eveliny?" he demanded. "I hev been a-pinin' fur a glimge o' ye." He was in his own place now, his hands trembling as they lay on the arms of his chair, a pathetic reproach was in his voice. "Though old folks oughtn't ter expec' too much o' young ones, ez be all tuk up naterally with tharse'fs," he added, bravely. He would not let his past lonely griefs mar the bright present. "Old folks air mos'ly cumberers--mos'ly cumberers o' the yearth, ennyhow."

Her weeping had ceased; she was looking at him with dismayed surprise in her eyes, still lustrous with unshed tears. "Why, dad I sent ye a hundred messages ef I mought kem. I tole Abs'lom ter tell Joe Boyd--bein' as ye liked Joe--I wanted ter see ye." She leaned forward and looked up at him with frowning intensity. "They never gin ye that word?"