Part 13

And now the little house was as lonely as the ark on Ararat. The mists possessed the universe. They filled the forests and lay upon the corn and hid the 'gyarden-spot,' and came skulking about the porch, peering through the vines in a ghostly fashion. Presently they sifted through, and whenever the door was opened it showed them lurking there as if wistfully waiting or with some half-humanized curiosity.

Night stole on, and the ruddy flare of the fire had heightened suggestions of good cheer and comfort, because of these waifs of the rain and the air shivering in chilly guise about the door.

The men came to supper and all went again, except Pete. He was ailing, he declared, and betook himself to bed betimes. The house grew quiet. The grandmother nodded over her knitting, with a limp falling of the lower jaw, occasional spasmodic gestures, and an absorbed, unfamiliar expression of countenance.

Dorinda, in her low chair, sat in the glow of the fire. As it rose and fell it cast a warm light or a dreamy shadow on her delicately rounded cheek and her shining eyes. One dishevelled tress of her dense black hair fell over the red kerchief twisted round her neck. Her blue homespun dress lay in lustreless folds about her. The shadowy and rude interior of the room--the dark brown of the logs of the wall and the intervening yellow clay daubing; the great clumsy warping-bars; the pendent peltry and pop-corn and strings of red pepper swaying from the rafters; the puncheon floor gilded by the firelight; the deep yawning chimney with its heaps of ashes and its pulsating coals--all formed in the rich colours and soft blending of detail an harmonious setting for her vivid, definite face, as she settled herself to work at her evening 'stent.' Her reel was before her; the spokes, worn smooth and dark and glossy by age and use, reflected with polished lustre the glimmer of the fire. She had a broche in her hand, just taken from the spindle. For the lack of the more modern broche-holder she thrust a stick through the tunnel of the shuck on which the yarn was wound, placing the end of it, to hold it steady, in her low shoe; catching the thread between her deft fingers she threw it with a fine free gesture over the periphery of the reel. And then the whirling spokes were only a rayonnant suggestion, so swiftly they sped round and round in the light of the fire, and a musical low whirr broke forth. Now and then the reel ticked and told off another cut, and she would bend forward to tie the thread with a practised dextrous hand.

The downpour of the rain had a dreary, melancholy persistence, beating upon the roof and splashing from the eaves into the puddles beneath. At intervals a drop fell down the wide chimney and hissed upon the coals.

Suddenly there was another splash, differing in its abrupt energy; a foot had slipped outside, and groping hands were laid upon the wall.

Dorinda sprang up with a white face and tense muscles. The old woman was suddenly bolt upright in her corner, although not recognising the sound.

'Hurry 'long, D'rindy,' she said peremptorily, 'you-uns ain't goin' ter reel a hank ef ye don't mosey. What ails the gal?' she broke off, her attention attracted to her grand-daughter's changed expression.

'Thar's suthin' out o' doors,' said Dorinda, in a tremulous whisper. 'I hearn 'em step whenst ye war asleep.'

'I ain't batted my eye this night,' said her grandmother, with the force of conviction. 'I ain't slep' a wink. An' ye never hearn nuthin'.'

There was a bolder demonstration outside; a footfall sounded on the porch, and a hand tried the latch.

'Massy on us! Raiders!' shrieked the old woman, rising precipitately, her knitting falling from her lap, the ball of yarn rolling away and the kitten springing after it.

Dorinda ran to the door--perhaps to put up the bar. But with sudden courage she lifted the latch. Outside were the ghostly vapours, white and visible in the light from within.

She peered out doubtfully for a moment. A sudden rush of colour surged into her face; she made a feint of closing the door and ran back to her work, looking over her shoulder with radiant eyes; she caught up the broche, sticking it deftly in her shoe, seated herself in her low chair, and with her light free gesture led the thread over the reel.

'Massy on us!' shrilled the old woman aghast. 'D'rindy, shet the door! Be ye a-lettin' the lawless ones in on us! raiders an' sech, scoutin' 'roun' in the fog--an' nobody hyar but Pete, ez couldn't be waked up right handy with nuthin' more wholesome'n a bullet--a----'

There was a man's figure in the doorway--a slow, hesitating figure, and Rick Tyler, his face grave and dubious, embarrassed by the complicated effort to look at Dorinda and yet seem to ignore her, trod heavily in, and with a soft and circumspect manner closed the door.

'I kem over hyar, Mis' Cayce,' he remarked, 'ez I 'lowed mebbe the boys war at the still an' yer felt lonesome, bein' ez it air rainin' right smart, an''--he hesitated.

'Howdy, Rick--howdy!' she exclaimed cordially. He had the benefit of her relief in finding the visitor not a raider. 'Jes' sot yer bones down hyar by the fire. Airish out o' doors, ain't it? I'm powerful glad to see ye. D'rindy ain't much company when she air busy, an' the weavin' ain't done yit.'

'I 'lowed ez I mought resk comin' up hyar wunst in a while now,' he said, with a covert glance at Dorinda. 'I ain't keerin' much fur the new sher'ff, 'kase he air a town man, an' don't know me; an' the new constable, he 'lowed over yander ter the store ez he war a off'cer o' the law, an' not a shootin' mark fur folks ez war minded ter hide out; an' Gid Fletcher hev been told ez he'd hev others ter deal with ef he ondertook ter fool along arrestin' me agin. So I hev got no call ter stay ez close in the bresh ez I hev been, though I ain't a-goin' ter furgit these hyar consarns, nuther.'

He glanced down at the glimmer of steel in his belt, where Dorinda recognised her father's pistols.

'Bes' be on the safe side,' said the old woman approvingly, her nimble needles quivering in the light. 'But law! I useter know a man over yandar on Chilhowee Mounting, whar I lived afore I war married, an' he hed killed fower men--though I b'lieve one o' 'em war a Injun--an' he hed no call ter aggervate hisself with sher'ffs nor shootin'-irons, nuther. He walked 'round ez favoured an' free ez my old tur-r-key gobbler. Though some said he hed bad dreams. But ez he war a hearty feeder they mought hev kem from the stummick stiddier the heart.'

The young man listened with a doubtful mien. He was thrown back at his ease in the splint-bottomed chair. One stalwart leg, the boot reaching over his trousers to the knee, was stretched out to the fire; from the damp sole the steam was starting in the warm air. On his other knee one of the shooting-irons in question rested; he held it lightly with one hand. The other hand was thrust into the belt that girded his brown jeans coat. His tawny yellow hair, the ends of a deeper tint, being wet, hung to his coat collar.

His hat, from the broad brim of which raindrops were still trickling, was deposited beneath the chair, and the kitten was investigating it with a dainty, scornful white mitten. He bore the marks of his trials in his sharpened features; his face took on readily a lowering expression, and a touch of anger kindled the smouldering fire in his brown eyes.

'But I hev killed no man,' he said, with emphasis. 'I hev hurt nobody. Ef I hed, 'twouldn't be no more'n I oughter do ter g'long with the sher'ff an' leave it ter men. But I ain't done no harm. An' I don't want ter stay in jail, an' be tried, an' kem ter jedgment, an' sech, an' mebbe hev them buzzardy lawyers fix suthin' on me ennyways.'

All through this speech the old woman tried to interrupt.

'Laws-a-massy, Rick,' she said at length, 'ye hev got mighty tetchy sence ye hev been hid out. I ain't sayin' nuthin' agin you-uns, ez I knows on--nor agin that man that lived on Chilhowee Mounting, nuther. I can't sot myself ter jedge o' him. He war a perfessin' member, an' he hed a powerful gift in 'quirin'; useter raise the chune reg'lar at all the meetin's ez fur back ez I kin remember.'

Her interest in the visit was impaired to some degree by this collision; she would have rejoiced to express her mental estimate of Rick as the 'headin'est critter in the kentry,' but the hospitable instincts constrained her, and she nobly swallowed her vexation. His presence, however, 'hectored' her, and she seized an excuse to absent herself presently, saying that she had to get her clean plaid coat to mend, 'bein' ez when it last hung on the clothes-line that thar fresky young hound named Bose stood on his hind legs ter gnaw it, an' actially chawed a piece out'n it, and I hev ter put a wedge in it afore I kin wear it.'

She creaked away into the next room, and as the door shut he turned his eyes for the first time on Dorinda. The firelight played on the reel, whirling in a lustrous circle before her, on the broche stuck in the rough little shoe, on her arm, uplifted in a graceful curve as she held the thread. Her brilliant eyes were grave and intent; her dense black hair and her dark blue dress heightened the fairness of her face, and the crimson kerchief about her throat was hardly more vivid than the flush on her cheeks.

The knowledge that her embarrassment was greater than his own made him bolder. They sat, however, some time in silence. Then, his heart waxing soft in the coveted domestic atmosphere and the contemplation of the picture before him, he said gently:

'They air all agin me, D'rindy.'

She forgot herself instantly. She looked full at him with soft melancholy deprecation.

'They don't hender ye none,' she said.

'Ye don't sot no store by me nuther, these days, D'rindy,' he went on, with a thrill of elation in his heart belying the doubt and despair in his speech.

The reel ticked and told off another cut. She leaned forward to tie the thread. She could not lift her eyelids now; still he saw the vivid sapphire iris, half eclipsed by the long black lash.

He patted the pistol on his knee.

'Would ye be afeared, D'rindy, ter marry a man ez would hev ter keep his life, and yourn, mebbe, with this pistol? Would ye be afeard ter live in his house along o' him, a hunted critter--an' set an' sing in his door, when the muzzle of a rifle or the sher'ff's revolver mought peek through the rails of the fence? Would ye be afeared?'

He put the weapon slowly into his belt.

'Would ye be afeared?' he reiterated.

The reel stopped. She turned her eyes, dilated with a splendid boldness, full upon him. How they flouted fear!

Such audacity of courage seemed to him gallant in a man; in a woman, expressing faith in his valiance, it was enchanting. He lost his slow decorum. He caught the hand that held the thread. She could not withdraw it from that strong, ecstatic clutch, and as she started, protesting, to her feet, he rose too, overturning the reel; and the kittens made merry confusion in the methodical cuts.

'D'rindy,' he exclaimed, catching her in his arms, 'thar ain't no need ter be afeard! Word kem up the mounting--I got it from Steve Byers--ez when Abednego Tynes war tried he plead guilty, an' axed ter go on the stand an' make a statement. An' he told the truth at last--at last! An' he war sentenced, an' the case war nolle prosequied agin me! An' ye warn't afeared! Ye would hev married me an' resked it. Ye warn't afeard!'

She was tall, and her agitated, upturned face was close to his shoulder. He knew it was simply unpardonable, according to the rigid decorums of their code of manners, but the impetuosity of his joy overbore him, and he bent down and kissed her lips.

Dorinda's courage!--it was gone. She looked so frightened and amazed that he relaxed his clasp.

'Ye know, D'rindy,' he said apologetically, 'I'm fairly out'n my head with joy.'

She stood trembling, her hand pressed to her beating heart, her head whirling. And then, he never forgot it, of her own accord she laid her other hand on his breast.

'I always believed ye war _good--good--good_!'

And the wild winds whirled around the Great Smoky, and the world was given over to the clouds and the night, and the rain fell, and the drops splashed with a dreary sound down from the eaves of the house.

They did not hear. How little they heeded. Within, all the atmosphere was suffused by that wonderful irradiation of love, and happiness, and hope that was confidence. The fire might flare if it listed. The shadows might flicker if they would. It seemed to them at the moment each would never see aught, care for aught, save what was expressed in the other's eyes.

The kitten had waxed riotous in the unprecedented opportunities of the reel, still lying with all its tangled yellow yarn upon the floor. As it sprang tigerishly in the air and fell, fixing its predatory claws in another cut, Dorinda looked down with a startled air.

'Granny'll be axin' mighty p'inted how that thar spun-truck kem ter be twisted so,' she said, crestfallen and prescient. 'It looks like a hurrah's nest.'

'Tell her ez how 'twar the cat,' said Rick.

Dorinda shook her head dubiously.

'The cat couldn't hev got it ef the reel hedn't been flunged on the floor.'

'Let's wind it inter balls, then,' suggested Rick, quick at expedients. 'She'll never know it war tangled. I'll hold it fur ye.'

It was no great hardship for Rick. She lightly slipped the skeins over the wrists that had known sterner shackles. The task required her to sit near him; her face and head were bent toward him as she absorbed herself in the effort to find the end of the thread; sometimes she lifted her eyes and looked radiantly at him.

He had not known how beautiful she was--because he saw her face more closely, he thought, not averted, nor coy, as always before--or was it embellished by that ineffable joy that filled her heart? Well for them both, perhaps, that those few moments were so happy--or is it well to remember a supreme felicity, for this is fleeting. Yellow yarn! she was winding threads of gold. How his pulses thrilled at the lightest flying touch of her fleet hands!

He looked at her--into her eyes if he might--at her round crimson cheek, at her clearly cut chin, at the long lashes, at the black hair drawn back from her brow, where a curling tendril drooped over the temple. And he held the yarn all awry.

It was no first-class job, for this reason and her haste.

'What ails ye ter hustle 'long so, D'rindy?' he asked at last. 'Ye ain't so mighty afeared o' yer granny.'

'Naw,' Dorinda admitted; 'but brother Pete, he be at home ter-night, an' he air toler'ble fractious ef he sees his chance, an' I don't want him a-laffin' at we-uns; kase I hev hearn him say ez when young folks gits ter windin' yarn tergether 'tain't fur love o' the spun-truck, but jes' fur one another.'

Rick laughed a little, slowly. Then, growing grave:

'Ef ye'll b'lieve me, Pete told the word yander ter the still ez Amos Jeemes--a mis'able addled aig he be!--'lowed ter the men at the mill ez he b'lieved ez 'twar the Cayces ez rescued me, the day o' the gaynder-pullin', from the sher'ff.'

She paused, the bright thread in her motionless hand, her fire-lit face bent upon him.

'Amos Jeemes hed better be keerful how he tries ter fix it on we-uns!' she cried, with the tense vibration of anger, 'tellin' the mill an' sech! I hev hearn the boys 'low ez 'twar ten year in the pen'tiary fur rescuing a man from the sher'ff, ef it got fund out.'

'Pete say ez how he jes' laffed at him an' named him a fool.'

'Pete air ekal ter that,' she returned with some sarcasm.

She was deftly winding the yarn once more, the fire showing a deeper thoughtfulness upon her face. Its flicker gave the room a sense of motion; the festoons of scarlet pepper-pods, the long yellow and red strings of pop-corn, the peltry hanging from the rafters, apparently swayed as the light rose and fell; and the warping-bars, with their rainbow of spun-truck stretched from peg to peg, seemed to be dancing a clumsy measure in the corner. The rocking-chair where granny was wont to sit was occupied now by a shadow, and now was visibly vacant.

She looked up into his face with an absorbed un-noting eye. He was pierced by the knowledge that though she saw him, she was thinking of something else.

'Won't the Court let the pa'son go free now, sence they know ye done no crime?' she asked.

'Naw. The pa'son air accused of a rescue, an' whether the man he rescued air convicted or no it air jes' the same ter the law ez agin him. The _rescue_ air the thing he hev got ter answer fur.'

She dropped her hands in her lap and threw herself back in her chair.

'Ten year in prison!' she exclaimed.

Her face was all the tenderest pity; her voice was full of yearning sympathy; she cast her eyes upward with a look that was reverence itself.

'How good he war! I s'pose he knowed ye never done no harm, an' he war willin' ter suffer stiddier you-uns. I never hearn o' sech a man! 'Pears ter me them old prophets don't tech him! I never hearn o' _them_ showin' sech love o' God an' thar feller man. He rescued ye jes' fur that!'

Rick Tyler looked at her for a moment with a kindling eye. He sprang to his feet, throwing the golden skein--it was only yarn after all, a coarse yellow yarn--upon the floor. He strode across the rude hearth and leaned against the mantelpiece, which was as high as his head. The light fell upon his changed face, the weapons in his belt, his long tawny hair, the flashing fire in his eye. He raised his right hand with an importunate gesture.

'D'rindy Cayce, ye air in love with that man!' he said, in a low passionate voice and between his set teeth. 'I hev seen it afore--long ago; but sence ye hev promised ter marry me, ef ye say his name agin, I'll kill him--I'll shoot him through the heart--dead--dead--do ye hear me--_dead_!'

She was shaken by the spectacle of his sudden anger, and she was angered in turn by his jealous rage. There was a dull aching in her heart in the voids left by the ebbing of her ecstatic happiness.

This was too precious to lightly let go. She walked over to him and took hold of his right arm, although his hand was toying nervously with his pistol.

'Ye don't b'lieve no sech word, Rick,' she said, 'deep down in yer heart, ye don't b'lieve it. An' how kin ye grudge me from thinkin' well o' the man, an' feelin' frien'ly--oh, mighty frien'ly--when he will hev ter take ten year in the pen'tiary fur givin' ye yer freedom? He rescued ye! An' I'll thank him an' praise him fur it ev'y day I live. My love, ef ye call it love, will foller him fur that all through the prison, an' the bolts an' bars, an' gyards. An' yer pistols can't holp it.'

He put her from him with a mechanical gesture and a perplexed brow. He sat down in the chair he had occupied at first; his hat was still under it, one leg was stretched out to the fire, on the other knee his hand rested; he looked exactly as when he first came into the room, but she had a vague idea, as she stood opposite on the hearth, that it was long ago, so much had happened since.

'D'rindy,' he said, 'he never done it. The pa'son never rescued me.'

She stood staring at him in wide-eyed amaze.

He was silent for a moment, and then he broke into a bitter laugh.

'I do declar,' he said, 'it fairy tickles me ter hear o' one man bein' arrested fur rescuin' me, an' another set bein' s'pected fur rescuin' me, an another set bein' s'pected o' the same thing, when not one of 'em in all the Big Smoky, not one, lifted a hand ter holp me. Whether the gallus or a life sentence 'twar all the same ter them. Accusing' yer dad an' the boys at the still--shucks! Old Groundhog loant me a rifle, an' ter hear him talk saaft sawder 'bout'n it ter Amos Jeemes ye'd hev thunk he war the author o' my salvation! An' arrest the pa'son! he war a likely one ter rescue a body!--too 'feared o' Satan! An' ef all they say air true 'bout'n the word he spoke yander at the meetin' 'fore they tuk him off, he hev got cornsider'ble call ter be afeard o' Satan. Naw, sir! he never rescued nuthin' but the gaynder! Nobody holped me! Nobody on the Big Smoky held out a hand! I ain't goin' ter furgit it, nuther!'

She stood looking intently at his face, with its caustic laugh upon it and his eyes full of bitterness. She knew that he secretly upbraided her as well as her people that they had made no move to save him from the clutches of the sheriff. She involuntarily turned her eyes to the gun-rack where the barrel of 'Old Betsy' gleamed, and she remembered the mark it bore to commemorate the foregone conclusion of Micajah Green's death. For this she had held her hand. She felt humble and guilty, since she had acted in the interests of peace. And yet that shrewd sense, that true conscience, which coexisted with the idealistic tendencies of her nature, demanded how could she justify herself in asking the sacrifice of ten years of other men's liberty that her lover might escape the consequences of his own act; how could she dare to precipitate a collision with the sheriff, while their grievance was still fresh in their minds? Fortunately she did not lay this train of thought bare before Rick Tyler. Natures like his foster craft in the most pellucid candour.

'How'd ye git away, Rick?' she said instead.

'I won't tell ye,' he replied rudely; 'it don't consarn ye ter know.' Then suddenly softening, 'I take that back, D'rindy. I ain't goin' ter furgit ez ye owned up ye war willin' ter marry me an' live all yer life along with a hunted man in a house that mought be fired over yer head enny time, or a rifle-ball whiz in at the winder. I ain't goin' ter furgit that.'

Alas! he could not divine how he should remember it!

He fixed his eyes on the fire, as if moodily recalling the scene. She noted that desperate, hunted look in his face which it had not worn to-night.

'I war a-settin' thar,' he began abruptly, 'my feet tied with ropes, and with handcuffs on'--he held his hands together as if manacled; she shuddered a little--'an' I hearn the hurrahin' an' fuss outside whilst they was all a-rowin' over the gaynder. An' then I hearn a powerful commotion 'mongst the dogs, ez ef they hed started some sorter game or suthin'. An' the fust I knowed thar war a powerful scuttlin' 'round the back o' the blacksmith's shop, an' a rabbit squez in a hole 'twixt the lowes' log an' the groun'--'twarn't bigger 'n a gopher's hole. An' I never thunk nuthin' 'ceptin' them boys outside would be mighty mad ef they knowed thar hounds hed run a rabbit same ez a deer.'

Dorinda had sunk into her chair; her hands trembled, her face was pale.