Part 14

'An' the cur'ous part of it,' he continued, now in the full swing of narrative, 'war that the hounds wouldn't gin it up. They jes' kep' a-nosin' an' yappin' roun' that thar little hole. Thar sot the rabbit--she 'minded me o' myself, got in an' couldn't git out. Thar war nowhar else fur her ter sneak through. She sot thar ez upright an' trembly ez me; jes' ez skeered, an' jes' about ez little chance. The only diff'ence 'twixt us war I hed a soul, an' that didn't do me enny good, an' the lack o' it didn't do her enny harm; both o' we-uns war more pertic'lar 'bout keepin' a skin full o' whole bones 'n ennything else. An' then them nosin' hounds began ter scratch an' claw up dirt. Bless yer soul, D'rindy, they hed a hole ez big ez that thar piggin, afore I thunk ennything 'bout'n it. It makes me feel the cold shakes when I 'members ez I mought not hev thunk 'bout'n it till 'twar too late. Lord! how slow them hounds seemed! though the rabbit she fund 'em fast enough, I reckon. Ev'y now an' then she'd hop along this way an' that, an' the hounds would git her scent agin--an' the way they'd yap! The critter would hop along an' look up at me--I never will furgit the look in the critter's eyes ez she sot thar an' waited fur the dogs. They war in a hurry an' toler'ble lively, I reckon, but they 'peared ter me ez slow ez ef ev'y one war weighted with a block an' chain. Waal, the hole got bigger an' they yapped louder, an' I got so weak waitin', an' fearin' somebody would hear 'em, an' kem ter see 'bout what they hed got up fur game, an' find that hole, I didn't know how I could bide it. The hole got big enough fur the hounds ter squeeze through, an' hyar they kem bouncin' in. They lept round the shop, an' flopped up agin the door, so that ef thar hedn't been all that fuss outside 'bout takin' the gaynder down, somebody would hev been boun' ter notice it. I hed ter wait fur the dogs ter ketch the rabbit an' shake the life out'n her 'fore I darst move a paig, they kep' up sech a commotion. An' when they hed dragged the critter's little carcass outside an' begun fightin' over it, I got up. I jes' could sheffle along a leetle bit; that eternally cussed scoundrel, Gid Fletcher----'

He paused.

It was beyond the power of language to express the deep damnation he desired for the blacksmith. His face grew scarlet, the tears started to his angry eyes. How he pitied himself, remembering his hard straits, and his cruel indignities! And how she pitied him!

He caught his breath, and went on:

'That black-hearted devil hed tied my feet so close I could sca'cely hobble, an' my hands an' wrists hed all puffed an' swelled up, whar the cords had been--'twar the sher'ff ez gin me the handcuffs. Waal, I tuk steps 'bout two inches long till I got 'crost the shop ter the hole. Then I jes' flopped down an' croped through. I didn't stan' up outside, though 'twar at the back o' the shop an' nobody could see me. Ye know the aidge o' the bluff ain't five feet from the shop; the cliff's ez sheer ez a wall, but thar's a ledge 'bout twenty feet down. It looked mighty narrer, an' thar warn't no vines ter swing by; but I jes' hed ter think o' them devils on t'other side the shop ter make me willin' ter resk it. Waal, thar war a clump o' sass'fras--ye know the bark's tough--near the aidge. I jes' bruk one o' the shoots ter the root an' turned it down over the aidge o' the bluff an' swung on ter the e-end o' it. Waal, it tore off in my hands, but I didn't fall more'n a few feet, an' lighted on the ledge. An' I tossed the saplin' away, an' then I walked--steps 'bout'n two inches long, ef that--ez fur ez the ledge went, cornsider'ble way from the Settlemint, an' 'twar two or three hundred feet ter the bottom, whar I stopped. An' thar war a niche thar whar I could sit an' lay down, sorter. Thar I bided all night. I hearn 'em huntin', an' it made me laff. I knowed they warn't a-goin' ter find me, but I didn't know how I war a-going' ter git away from thar with them handcuffs on, an' ropes 'roun' my legs; they war knotted so ez I couldn't reach 'em fur the irons. I waited all nex' day, though I never hed nuthin' ter eat but some jew-berries ez growed 'mongst the rocks thar. An' the nex' morn'n','--his eye dilated with triumph--'the swellin' o' my wrists hed gone down, an' I could draw my hands out'n the handcuffs ez easy ez lyin'.'

He held up his hands; they were small for his size, and bore little token of hard work; the wrists were supple.

'An' then,' he said, with brisk conclusiveness, 'I jes' ontied the ropes 'roun' my feet an' clumb up ter the top o' the mounting by vines an' sech, an' struck inter the laurel, an' never stopped a-travellin' till I got ter Cayce's still.'

He drew a long sigh not unmixed with pleasure. He had a sense of achievement. It gave, perhaps, a certain value to his harsh experience to recount his triumph to so fair an audience. He was looking at her with a dawning smile in his eyes, and she was silently looking at him. Suddenly she burst into sobs.

'Shucks, D'rindy, it's all over an' done now,' he said, appropriating the soft sympathy of her tears.

'An' I'm so glad, Rick; so glad fur that. I'd hev bartered my hope o' heaven fur it,' she sobbed. 'But I war thinkin' that minit o' the pa'son. They 'rested him in his pulpit, an' they wouldn't gin him bail, an' they kerried him 'way from the mountings, an' jailed him, an' he'll go ter the pen'tiary, ten year mebbe, fur a crime ez he never done. Ye wouldn't let him do that ef ye could holp it, would ye, Rick?'

She looked up tearfully at him. His eyes gleamed; his nostrils were quivering; every fibre in him responded to his anger.

'Ef I could, D'rindy Cayce, I'd hev that man chained in the lowest pits o' hell fur all time, so ye mought never see his face agin. An' ef I could, I'd wipe his mem'ry off'n the face o' the yearth, so ye mought never speak his name.'

'Law, Rick Tyler, don't!' protested the girl, aghast. 'I've seen ye ez jealous o' Amos Jeemes----'

'I don't keer _that_ fur Amos Jeemes!' he exclaimed, snapping his fingers. 'I hevn't seen ye sit an' cry over Amos Jeemes, an' sech cattle, an' say he war like a prophet. I thought ye war thinkin' 'bout _me_, an'--an'----'

He paused in mortification.

'D'rindy,' he said, suddenly calm, though his eye was excited and quickly glancing, 'did ye ax him ef he would do ennything fur me when I war in cust'dy?'

'Naw,' said Dorinda, 'nobody could do nuthin' fur you-uns, 'kase they'd hev ter resk tharselfs an' run agin the law. But what I want ye ter do fur pa'son air fur jestice. He never done what he war accused of. An' ye _war_ along o' Abednego Tynes, though innercent. Law, Rick, ef the murderer would say the word ter set ye free, can't ye do ez much fur the pa'son, ez hev seen so much trouble a'ready?'

'In the name o' Gawd, D'rindy, what air you-uns a-wantin' me ter do?' he asked, in sheer amazement.

She mistook the question for relenting. She caressed his coat sleeve as she stood beside him. All her beauty was overcast; her face was stained with weeping; tears dimmed her eyes, and her pathetic gesture of insistence seemed forlorn. He looked down dubiously at her.

'What I want ye ter do, Rick, fur him, air right, an' law, an' jestice. Nobody could hev done that fur ye, 'cept Abednego Tynes. I want yer ter go ter pa'son's trial fur the rescue, an' gin yer testimony, an' tell the jedge an' jury the tale ye hev tole me--the truth--an' they'll be obleeged ter acquit.'

He flung away in a tumult of rage. It was exhausting to witness how his frequent gusts of passion shook him.

'D'rindy,' he thundered, 'ye want me ter gin myself up fur the pa'son; ye don't keer nuthin' fur me, so he gits back ter the Big Smoky an' you-uns. I mought be arrested yit on the same indictment; the nolle prosequi don't hender--it jes' don't set no day fur me ter be tried. An' mebbe Steve Byers hev been foolin' me some. Ye jes' want ter trade me off ter the State fur the pa'son.'

'Ye shan't go!' cried the girl. 'I didn't know that about the nolle prosequi. Ye shan't go!'

He was mollified for a moment. He noticed again how pale she was.

'Law, D'rindy,' he said, 'ye fairly wear yerself out with yer tantrums. Whyn't ye do like other folks; the pa'son never holped me none, an' I ain't got no call ter holp him.'

'Ef ye war ter go afore the Squair an' swear 'bout'n the rescue an' sech, an' git him ter write it ter the Court fur the pa'son----'

'The constable o' the deestric' ez hangs 'roun' thar at the jestice's house mought be thar an' arrest me,' he said speciously. 'The gov'nor hain't withdrawn that reward yit, ez I knows on.'

'Naw,' she said quickly, 'I'll make the boys toll the constable down ter the still till ye git through. The jestice air lame, an' ain't able ter arrest ye, an' I'd be thar an' gin ye the wink, ef thar war ennything oncommon ennywhar, or enny men aroun'.'

He could hardly refuse. He could not affect fear. He hesitated.

'Ez long ez I thunk he hed rescued ye, I didn't hev no call ter move. But now I know how 'twar, I'd fairly die ef he war lef' ter suffer in jail, knowin' he hev done nuthin' agin the law.'

Her lip quivered. The tears started to her eyes. The sight of them, shed for another man's sake, excited again the vigilant jealousy in his breast.

'I'll do nuthin' fur Hi Kelsey,' he declared. 'Ef ye ain't in love with him, ye would be ef he war ter git back ter the Big Smoky. He done nuthin' fur me, an' I hev no call ter do nuthin' fur him.'

He looked furiously at her, holding her at arm's length.

'Ye hev tole me ye love _me_, an' I expec' ye ter live up ter it. Ye hev promised ter marry me, an' I claim ye fur my wife. Say that man's name another time, an' I'll kill him, ef ever he gits in rifle range agin. I'll kill him! I'll kill him!' his right hand was once more mechanically toying with the pistol, while he held her arm with the other, 'an' I'll kill ye, too!'

He had gone too far; he had touched the dominant impulse of her nature. Her cheeks were flaring. Her courage blazed in her eyes.

'An' I tell ye, Rick Tyler, that I am not afeard o' ye! An' if ye let a man suffer fur a word ez ye can say in safety, an' an act ez ye kin do in ease, ye ain't the Rick Tyler I knowed--ye air suthin' else. I 'lowed ye war good, but mebbe I hev been cheated in ye, an' ef I hev, I'll gin ye up. I ain't a-goin' ter marry no man ez I can't look up ter, an' say "he air _good_!" An' ef ye'll meet me a hour 'fore sundown, at the Squair's house, ter-morrow evenin', I'll b'lieve in ye, an' I'll marry ye. An' ef ye don't, I won't.'

She caught up his hat and gave it to him. Then she opened the door. The white mists stood shivering in the little porch.

He turned and looked in angry dismay at her resolute face. But he did not say a word, though he knew her heart yearned for it beneath her inflexible mask.

He walked slowly out, and the door closed upon him, and upon the shivering white mists. He paused for a moment, hesitating.

He heard nothing within--not even her retreating step. He knew as well as if he had seen her that she was leaning against the door, silently sobbing her heart out.

'D'rindy needs a lesson,' he said sternly. And so he went out into the night.

XIV.

The rain ceased the next day, but the clouds did not vanish. Their folds, dense, opaque, impalpable, filled the vastness. The landscape was lost in their midst. The horizon had vanished. Distance was annihilated.

Only a yard or so of the path was seen by Dorinda, as she plodded along through the white vagueness that had absorbed the familiar world. And yet for all essentials she saw quite enough; in her ignorant fashion she deduced the moral, that if the few immediate steps before the eye are taken aright, the long lengths of the future will bring you at last where you would wish to be.

The reflection sustained her in some sort as she went. She was reluctant to acknowledge it even to herself; but she had a terrible fear that she had imposed a test that Rick would not endure.

'Ef he air so powerful jealous ez that, ter not holp another man a leetle bit, when he knows it can't hurt him none, he air jes' selfish, an' nuthin' shorter.'

She paused, looking about her mechanically. The few blackberry bushes, almost leafless, stretching out on either hand, were indistinct in the mist, and against the dense vapour they had the meagre effect of a hasty sketch on a white paper. The trees overhung her, she knew, in the invisible heights above; she heard the moisture dripping monotonously from their leaves. It was a dreary sound as it invaded the solemn stillness of the air.

'An' _I'm_ boun' ter try ter holp him, ef I kin. I know too much, sence Rick spoke las' night, ter let me set an' fold my hands in peace. 'Pears like ter me ez that thar air all the diff'ence 'twixt humans an' the beastis, ter holp one another some. An' ef a human won't, 'pears like ter me ez the Lord hev wasted a soul on that critter.'

Despite her logic she stood still; her blue eyes were surcharged with shadows as they wistfully turned upward to the sad and sheeted day; her lips were grave and pathetic; her blue dress had gleams of moisture here and there, and a plaid woollen shawl, faded to the faintest hues, was drawn over her dense black hair. She stood and hesitated. She thought of the man she loved, and she thought of the word she denied the man in prison. Poor Dorinda! to hold the scales of justice unblinded.

'I dunno what ails me ter be 'feared he won't kem!' she said, striving to reassure herself; 'an' ennyhow'--she remembered the few immediate steps before her taken aright, and went along down the clouded, curtained path that was itself an allegory of the future.

The justice's gate loomed up like fate--the poor little palings to be the journey's end of hope or despair! A pig, without any appreciation of its subtler significance, had in his frequent wallowings at its base impaired in a measure its stability. He grunted at the sound of a footfall, as if to warn the new-comer that she might step on him. Dorinda took heed of the imperative caution, opened the gate gingerly, and it only grazed his back. He grunted again, whether in meagre, surly approval, or reproof that she had come at all, was hardly to be discriminated in his gruff, disaffected tone.

She noticed that the locust leaves, first of all to show the changing season, were yellow on the ground; a half-denuded limb was visible in the haze. There were late red roses, widely a-bloom, by the doorstep of the justice's house--a large double cabin of hewn logs, with a frame-inclosed passage between the two rooms. There was glass in the windows, for the justice was a man of some means for these parts; and she saw behind one of the tiny panes his bald polished head and his silver-rimmed spectacles gleaming in animated curiosity. He came limping, with the assistance of a heavy cane, to the door.

'Howdy, D'rindy,' he exclaimed cheerfully; 'come in, child. What sort o' weather is this?'

In abrupt digression, he looked over her head into the blank vagueness of the world. But for the dim light, it might have suggested the empty inexpressiveness of the periods before the creation, when 'the earth was without form and void.'

'It air toler'ble airish in the fog,' said Dorinda, finding her voice with difficulty.

The room into which she was ushered seemed to her limited experience a handsome apartment. But somehow the passion of covetousness is an untouched spring in the nature of these mountaineers. The idea of ownership did not enter into Dorinda's mind as she gazed at the green plaster parrot that perched in state on the high mantelpiece. She was sensible of its merits as a feature of the domestic landscape at the 'jestice's house,' precisely as the sight of the distant Chilhowee was company in her lonely errands about the mountain. To be deprived of either would be like a revulsion of nature. She did not grudge the justice his possession, nor did she desire it for herself. She entertained a simple admiration for the image, and always looked to see it on its lofty perch when she first entered the room.

There were several books piled beside it, which the justice valued more. There was, too, a little square looking-glass, in which one might behold a distortion of physiognomy. Above all hung a framed picture of General Washington crossing the Delaware. The mantelpiece was to the girl a museum of curiosities. A rag-carpet covered the floor; there was a spinning-wheel in the corner; a bed, too, draped with a gay quilt--a mad disportment of red and yellow patchwork, which was supposed to represent the rising sun, and was considered a triumph of handicraft. The justice's seat was a splint-bottomed chair, which stood near a pine table where ink was always displayed--of a pale green variety--writing-paper, and a pile of books. The table had a drawer which it was difficult to open or shut, and now and then 'the Squair' engaged in muscular wrestling with it.

He sat down, with a sigh, and drew forth his red bandana handkerchief from the pocket of his brown jeans coat, and polished the top of his head, and stared at Dorinda, much marvelling as to her mission. She had not, in her primitive experience, attained to the duplicity of a subterfuge; she declined the invitation to go into the opposite room, where his wife was busy cooking supper, by saying she was waiting for a man whom she expected to meet here to explain something to the justice.

'Is it a weddin', D'rindy?' exclaimed the old fellow waggishly.

''Tain't a weddin',' said Dorinda curtly.

'Ye air foolin' me!' he declared, with a jocose affectation of inspecting his attire. 'I hev got another coat I always wears ter marry a couple, an' ye don't want ter gimme a chance to spruce up, fur fear I'll take the shine off'n the groom. It's a weddin'! Who is the happy man, D'rindy?'

This jesting, as appropriate, according to rural etiquette, to a young and pretty woman as the compliments of the season, seemed a dreary sort of fun to Dorinda, so heavy had her presaging heart become. There was a trifle of sensibility in the old Squire, perhaps induced by much meditation in his inactive indoor life, and he recognised something appealing in the girl's face and attitude, as she sat in a low chair before the dull fire that served rather to annul the chilliness of the day than to diffuse a perceptible warmth. The shawl had dropped from her head and loosely encircled her throat; her hand twisted its coarse fringes; she was always turning her face toward the window where only the pallid mists might be seen--the pallid mists and a great glowing crimson rose, that, motionless, touched the pane with its velvet petals. The old justice forbore his jokes, his dignities might serve him better. He entertained Dorinda by telling her how many times he had been elected to office. And he said he wouldn't count how many times he expected to be, for it was his firm persuasion that, 'when Gabriel blew that thar old horn o' his'n, he'd find the Squair still a-settin' in jedgment on the Big Smoky.' He showed her his books, and told her how the folks at Nashville were constrained by the law of the State to send him one every time they made new laws. And she understood this as a special and personal compliment, and was duly impressed.

Outdoors the still day was dying silently, like the gradual sinking from a comatose state, that is hardly life, to the death it simulates. How did the gathering darkness express itself in that void whiteness of the mists, still visibly white as ever! Night was sifting through them; the room was shadowy; yet still in the glow of the fire she beheld their pallid presence close against the window. And the red rose was shedding its petals!--down dropping, with the richness of summer spent in their fleeting beauty, their fragrance a memory, the place they had embellished, bereft. She did not reflect; she only felt. She saw the rose fade, the sad night steal on apace; the hour had passed, and she knew he would not come. She burst into sudden tears.

The old man, whether it was in curiosity or sympathy, had his questions justified by her self-betrayal, and his craft easily drew the story from her simplicity. He got up suddenly with an expression of keen interest. She followed his emotions dubiously, as he took from the mantelpiece a tallow dip in an old pewter candlestick, and with slow circumspection lighted the sputtering wick.

'I want ter look up a p'int o' law, D'rindy,' he said impressively. 'Ye jes' set thar an' I'll let ye know d'rec'ly how the law stands.'

It seemed to Dorinda a long time that he sat with his book before him on the table, his spectacles gleaming in the light of the tallow dip, close at hand, his lips moving as he slowly read beneath his breath, now and then clutching his big red handkerchief, and polishing off the top of his round head and his wrinkled brow. Twice he was about to close the book. Twice he renewed his search.

And now at last it was small comfort to Dorinda to know that the affidavit would not, in the justice's opinion, have been competent testimony. He called it an _ex parte_ statement, and said that unless Rick Tyler's deposition were taken in the regular way, giving due notice to the attorney-general, it could not be admitted, and that in almost all criminal cases witnesses were compelled to testify _viva voce_. Small comfort to Dorinda to know that the effort was worthless from the beginning, and that on it she had staked and lost the dearest values of her life. As he read aloud the prosy, prolix sentences, they were annotated by her sobs.

'Dell-law! D'rindy, 'twarn't no good, nohow!' he exclaimed, presently, breaking off with an effort from his reading, for he relished the rotund verbiage--the large freedom of legal diction impressed him as a privilege, accustomed as he was only to the simple phrasings of his simple neighbours. He could not understand her disappointment. Surely Rick Tyler's defection could not matter, he argued, since the affidavit would have been worthless.

She did not tell him more. All the world was changed to her. Nothing--not her lover himself--could ever make her see it as once it was. She declined the invitation to stay and eat supper, and soon was once more out in the pallid mist and the contending dusk. The scene that she had left was still vivid in her mind, and she looked back once at the lucent yellow square of the lighted window gleaming through the white vapours. The rose-bush showed across the lower panes, and she remembered the melancholy fall of the flower.

Alas, the roses all were dead!

XV.

It was not so dreary in the dark depths of the cavern as in the still white world without; and the constable of the district, one Ephraim Todd, found the flare of the open furnace and the far-reaching lights, red among the glooms, and a perch on an empty barrel, and the warm generosities of the jug, a genial transition. Nevertheless he protested.

'You-uns oughter be plumb 'shamed, Pete,' he said, 'ter toll me hyar, an' me a off'cer o' the law.'

'Ye hev been hyar often afore, the Lord above knows,' asseverated Pete, 'an' ye needed mighty little tollin'.'

'But I warn't a off'cer o' the law then,' said the constable, wrestling with his official conscience. 'An' I hev tuk a oath an' am under bonds. An' hyar I be a-consortin' with law-breakers, an' 'tain't becomin' in a off'cer o' the law.'

'Ye ain't tuk no oath, nor entered into no bonds ter keep yer throat ez dry ez a limekiln,' retorted Pete. 'Jes' take a swig at that thar jug an' hand it over hyar, will ye, an' hold yer jaw.'

Thus readily the official conscience, never rampant, was pacified. The constable had formerly been, as Pete said, an _habitue_ of the place, but since his elevation to office he had made himself scarce, in deference to the promptings of that newly acquired sense of dignity and propriety.