Part 16

The bare and humble furnishing of the room was very distinct in the rich glow--the few chairs, the shelves with the cooking utensils, the churn, a chest, the warping-bars, the spinning-wheel; and their simple domestic significance seemed at variance with the stern and silent armed men grouped about the fire.

A vibrant sound--one of the timbers had sprung in the cold. Soloman rose precipitately.

'Nuthin', Sol, nuthin',' said the old man testily. 'Tain't nigh time yit.'

Nevertheless Sol opened the door. The chill air rushed in. The yellow flames bowed and bent fantastically before it. Outside the gibbous moon hung in the sky, and the light, solemn, ghostly, pervaded with pallid mysteries the snowy vistas of the dense, still woods. The shadow of the black boughs lay in distinct tracery upon the white surface; there was a vague multiplication of effect, and the casual glance could ill distinguish the tree from its semblance. Vacant of illusions was the winding road--silent, and empty, and white, its curve visible from the fireplace through the black rails of the zigzag fence. Hiram Kelsey caught a glimpse, too, of the frosty dilations of a splendid star; then the door closed and Sol came back with jingling spurs to his seat by the fireside.

'Be you-uns satisfied?' demanded Pete with a sneer.

Sol, abashed, said nothing, and once more the ominous silence descended, all moodily watching the broad and leaping flames and the pulsating coals beneath.

Somehow the geniality of the fire suggested another bright and dominant presence that was wont in some sort to illumine the room.

'Whar be D'rindy?' asked Kelsey suddenly.

'Waal--D'rindy,' said Ab, the eldest of the sons, evidently withdrawing his mind with an effort, 'she hev gone ter Tuckaleechee Cove, ter holp nuss Aunt Jerushy's baby. It's ailin', an' bein' ez it air named arter D'rindy, she sets store by it, an' war powerful tormented ter hear how the critter war tuk in its stummick. She kerried Jacob along, too, 'kase she 'lows she hankers arter him when she's away, an' she makes out ez we-uns cross him in his temper, 'thout she air by ter pertect him. I war willin' 'kase it air peacefuller hyar without Jacob 'n with him--though he air my own son, sech ez he be. An' D'rindy hev pompered him till he air ez prideful ez a tur-r-key gobbler, an' jes' about ez cornsiderate.'

'She lef' Mirandy Jane an' me,' said Pete, facetiously showing his great teeth.

'Waal,' said the old man, speaking with his grave excited eyes still on the fire. 'I be toler'ble glad ez D'rindy tuk this time ter leave home fur a few days, 'kase she hev been toler'ble ailin' an' droopy. An' t'other day some o' the boys got ter talkin' 'bout'n how sure they be ez 'twar 'Cajah Green--dad-burn the critter!--ez gin the revenue hounds the word whar our still war hid. An' D'rindy, she jes' tuk a screamin' fit, an' performed an' kerried on like she war bereft o' reason. An' she got down old Betsy thar'--pointing to a rifle on the rack--'ez Pete hed made her draw a mark on it ter remember 'Cajah Green by, an' his word ez he'd jail her some day, an' she wanted me and the boys ter swear on it ez we-uns would never shoot him.'

'An' did you-uns swear sech?' asked Hiram Kelsey, in fierce reprobation.

Beneath the broad brim of his hat his eyes were blazing; their large dilated pupils cancelled the iris and the idea of colour; they were coals of fire. His shadowed face was set and hard; it bore a presage of disappointment--and yet he was doubtful.

Pete turned and looked keenly at him.

'Waal,' said the old man, embarrassed, and in some sort mortified, 'D'rindy, ye see, war ailin', an', an'--I never hed but that one darter an' sech a pack o' sons, an' it 'pears like she _oughter_ be humoured--an'----'

'Ye w-wants him shot, hey, pa'son?' Pete interrupted his critical study of the unconscious subject.

Kelsey's eyes flashed.

'I pray that the Lord may cut him off,' he said.

'Waal, the Lord ain't obleeged ter use a rifle,' said Pete pertinently. 'Even we-uns kin find more ways than that.'

'The pa'son mought ez well go along an' holp,' said Groundhog Cayce.

Kelsey turned his eyes in blank inquiry from the old man to Pete by his side.

'We air a-layin' fur him now,' Pete explained.

'He hain't been so delivered over by the Lord ez ter kem agin, arter informin' the raiders, inter the Big Smoky?' Kelsey asked, forgetting himself for the moment, and aghast at the doomed man's peril.

Pete tapped his head triumphantly.

'Tain't stuffed with cotton wool,' he declared. 'We let on ter the mounting ez we never knowed who done it. An' we jes' laid low, an' held our tongues betwixt our teeth, when we hearn 'bout'n his 'quirin' round 'bout'n the still, from this'n an' that'n, d'rectly arter the 'lection. We got him beat fur that, jes' 'count o' what he said ter D'rindy, 'kase she wouldn't g-g-gin her cornsent ter shootin' him, an' got dad set so catawampus, he obeyed her like Jacob wouldn't fur nuthin'. An''--with rising emphasis--'th-th-the blamed critter 'lows he lef' no tracks an' ain't been found out yit! An' hyar he be on the Big Smoky agin, a-finishin' up some onsettled business with his old office. I seen him yander ter the Settlemint, an' talked with him frien'ly an' familiar, along o' Gid Fletcher, an' fund out when he war ter start down ter Eskaqua Cove, ter bide all night at Tobe Grimes's house.'

'But--but--ef they never tole him--surely none o' 'em told him'--argued Kelsey breathlessly.

Pete showed his long teeth.

'Somebody tole him,' he said, with a fierce smile. 'H-h-he couldn't git the mounting ter t-t-turn agin we-uns; they war _afeard_!' cynically discriminating the motive. 'So he kem nosin' roun' 'mongst our c-c-chillen--the little chillen, ez didn't know what they war a-tellin' an' Jacob tole him whar the cave war, an' 'bout haulin' the apples fur pomace. Jacob war the man, fur Mirandy Jane hearn him say it. She hed seen 'Cajah Green afore, when he war sher'ff.'

It was a palpable instance of bad faith and imposition, and it tallied well with Hiram Kelsey's own wrongs. He sat brooding upon them, and looking at the fire with dulled meditative eyes. One of the logs, burnt in twain, broke with a crash under the burden of the others, and the fire, quickening about them, sent up myriads of sparks attendant upon the freshening flames; among the pulsating red coals there were dazzling straw-tinted gleams, and a vista of white heat that repelled the eye.

Outside the wind was rising--its voice hollow, keen, and shrill as it swept over the icy chasms; the trees were crashing their bare boughs together. It was a dreary sound. From far away came the piercing howl of some prowling hungry wolf, familiar enough to the ears that heard it, but its ravening intimations curdled the blood. A cock's crow presently smote the air, clear and resonant as a bugle, and with a curse on tardiness the impatient Sol once more rose and opened the door to look out.

A change was impending. Clouds had come with the wind, from the west to meet the moon. Though tipped with the glint of silver, the black portent was not disguised. Rain or snow, it mattered not which. The young mountaineer held the door open to show the darkening sky and the glittering earth, and looked over his shoulder with a triumphant glance.

'That will settle the footprints,' he said.

There was something so cruel in his face, so deadly in his eyes, a ferocious satisfaction in the promised security so like the savage joy of a skulking beast, that it roused a normal impulse in the breast of the man who read the thoughts of his fellow-men like an open book. Kelsey was himself again.

He raised his hand suddenly, with an imperative gesture.

'Listen ter me!' he said, with that enthusiasm kindling in his eyes which they honoured sometimes as the light of religion, and sometimes reviled as frenzy. 'Ye'll repent o' yer deeds this night! An' the jedgmint o' the Lord will foller ye! Yer father's grey hairs will go down in sorrow ter the grave, but his mind will die before his body. An' some of you-uns will languish in jail, an' know the despair o' the bars. An' he that is bravest 'mongst ye will mark how his shadder dogs him. An' ye will strike yer hands tergether, an' say, "That the day hed never dawned, that the night hed never kem fur we-uns!" An' ye'll wisht ye hed died afore! An' but for the coward in the blood, ye would take yer own life then! An' ye'll look at the grave before ye, an' hope ez it all ends thar!'

His eyes blazed. He had risen to his feet in the intensity of his fervour. And whether it was religion or whether it was lunacy it transfigured him.

They had all quailed before him, half overborne by the strength of his emotion, and half in deprecation, because of their faith in his mysterious foreknowledge. But as he turned, pushed back his chair, and hastily started toward the door, they lost the impression. Pete first recovered himself.

'Wh-wh-whar be you-uns a-goin'?' he demanded roughly.

The parson turned fiercely. He thrust out his hand with a gesture of repudiation, and once more he lifted the latch.

'Naw, ye ain't g-g-goin',' said Pete, with cool decision, throwing himself against the door. 'Ye hev sot 'mongst we-uns an' h-hearn our plans. Ye 'peared ter gin yer cornsent w-when dad said ye could go 'long. Dad thought ye'd like ter hev a s-sheer in payin' yer own grudge. We hev tole ye what we hev tole no other livin' man. An' now ye hev got ter hev our reason ter h-h-hold yer yaw. I don't like ter s-shoot a man down under our own roof ez kem hyar frien'ly, but ef ye fools with that thar latch agin, I reckon I'll be obleeged ter do it.'

If Pete Cayce had possessed an acute discrimination in the reading of faces, he might have interpreted Kelsey's look as a pondering dismay; the choice offered him was to do murder or to die! As it was, Pete only noted the relinquishment of the parson's design when he sat down silent and abstracted before the fire.

But for his deep grudge, it might have seemed that Kelsey had intended to forewarn Micajah Green of the danger in the path, and to turn him back. Pete did not feel entirely reassured until after he had said:

'I 'lowed ez ye s-s-swore ye fairly _de_-spise 'Cajah G-G-Green, an' r-raged ter git even with him.'

'I furgits it sometimes,' rejoined Kelsey.

And Pete did not apprehend the full meaning of the words.

'An' don't do no more o' yer prophesyin' ter-night, Hiram,' said the old man irritably. 'It fairly gins me the ager to hear sech talk.'

The night wore on. The fire roared; the men, intently listening, sat around the hearth.

Now and then a furtive glance was cast at Hiram Kelsey. He seemed lost in thought, but his eye glittered with that uninterpreted, inscrutable light, and they were vaguely sorry that he had come among them.

They took scant heed of his reproach. It has been so long the unwritten law of moonshiners that the informer shall perish as the consequence of his malice and his rashness, that whatever normal moral sense they possess is in subjection to their arbitrary code of justice and the savage custom of the region.

The mysterious disappearance of a horse-thief or a revenue spy, dramatically chronicled, with a wink and a significant grin, as 'never hearn on no more,' or 'fund dead in the road one mornin',' affects the mountaineers much as the hangman's summary in the Friday evening papers impresses more law-abiding communities--shocking, but necessary.

The great fire was burnt to a mass of coals. The wind filled the ravines with a tumult of sound. The bare woods were in wild commotion. The gusts dashed upon the roof snow, perhaps, or sleet, or vague drizzling rain; now discontinued, now coming again with redoubled force.

Suddenly, a growl from the dogs under the house; then the sound of a crunching hoof in the snow.

The men sallied forth, swift and silent as shadows. There was a frantic struggle in the road; a wild cry for help; a pistol fired wide of the mark, the report echoing in the silence from crag to crag, from chasm to chasm, with clamorous iteration, as if it would alarm the world. The horses were ready. The men hastily threw themselves into the saddle.

It had been arranged that Kelsey, who had no horse, should ride before the prisoner.

He mounted, drew about his own waist the girth which bound the doomed man, buckling it securely, and the great grey horse was in the centre of the squad.

Micajah Green begged as they went--begged as only a man can for his life. He denied, he explained, he promised.

'Ye cotton ter puttin' folks in jail, 'Cajah! Yer turn now! We'll put ye whar the dogs won't bite ye,' said the old man savagely.

And the rest said never a word.

The skies were dark, the mountain wilds awful in their immensity, in their deep obscurities, in the multitudinous sounds of creaking boughs and shrilling winds.

They were in the dense laurel at last. The branches, barbed with ice, and the evergreen leaves, burdened with snow, struck sharply in their faces as they forced their way through.

The swift motion had chilled them; icicles clung to their hair and beard; each could hardly see the dark figures of the others in the dense umbrageous undergrowth as they recognised the spot they sought and called a halt.

It was the mouth of the cave; they could hear the sound of the dark cold water as it rippled in the vaulted place where the dammed current rose now half way to the roof.

Their wretched prisoner, understanding this fact and the savage substitute for the rifle, made a despairing struggle.

'Lemme git a holt of him, Hi,' said Pete, his teeth chattering, his numbed arms stretched up in the darkness to lay hold on his victim.

'Hyar he be,' gasped the parson.

There was another frantic struggle as they tore the doomed man from the horse; a splash, a muffled cry--he was cast headlong into the black water. A push upon a great boulder hard by--it fell upon the cavity with a crash, and all hope of egress was barred.

Then, terrorized themselves, the men mounted their horses; each, fleeing as if from pursuit, found his way as best he might out of the dark wilderness.

One might not know what they felt that night when the rain came down on the roof. One might not dare to think what they dreamed.

The morning broke, drear and clouded, and full of rain, and hardly less gloomy than the night. The snow, tarnished and honeycombed with dark cellular perforations, was melting and slipping down the ravines. The gigantic icicles encircling the crags fell now and then with a resounding crash. The drops from the eaves dripped monotonously into the puddles below. The roof leaked. Sol's bridle-hand had been frozen the night before in the long swift ride.

But the sun came out again; the far mountains smiled in a blue vagueness that was almost a summer garb. The relics of the snow exhaled a silvery haze that hung airily about the landscape. Only the immaculate whiteness of those lofty regions of the balds withstood the thaw, and coldly glittered in wintry guise.

A strange sensation thrilled through the fireside group one of these mornings when Amos James came up from the mill, and as he smoked with them asked suddenly, all unaware of the tragedy, 'What ailed 'Cajah Green ter leave the Big Smoky in sech a hurry?'

'Wh-wh-at d'ye mean?' growled Pete in startled amaze.

And then Amos James, still unconscious of the significance of the recital, proceeded to tell that shortly after daybreak on last Wednesday morning he heard a 'powerful jouncin' of huffs,' and looking out of the window he saw Micajah Green on his big grey horse, flying along the valley road at a tremendous rate of speed. Before he could open the window to hail him, man and horse were out of sight.

It was a silent group that Amos left, all meditating upon that swift equestrian figure, pictured against the dreariness of the rainy dawn, and the grey mist, and the shadowing mountains.

'Amos seen a ghost,' said Pete presently. He looked dubiously over his shoulder, though the morning sunshine came flickering through the door, widely ajar.

'That ain't nuthin' oncommon,' said the old man sturdily. Then he told a ghastly story of a legal execution--that the criminal was seen afterward sitting in the moonlight under the gallows on his coffin-lid; and other fearful fantasies of the rural mind, which, morbidly excited, will not accept the end of the rope as a finality.

It was only when Obediah Scruggs came to their house searching for his nephew, saying that Hiram had not been seen nor heard of since he had set out one evening to visit them, that a terrible premonition fell upon Groundhog Cayce. His iron will guarded it for a time, till some one journeying from Shaftesville reported having seen there Micajah Green, who was full of a terrible story of a midnight attack upon him by the Cayce tribe, from whom he had miraculously escaped in the midst of the struggle and darkness, he declared, and more dead than alive. Then mysteriously and with heavy presage Pete and his father made a pilgrimage to the cave. They pried up the boulder over the cavity. They heard the deep water held in the subterranean reservoir still sighing and echoing with the bubbling of the mountain spring. On the surface there floated a hat--Hi Kelsey's limp and worn old hat.

They never told their secret. They replaced the boulder, and sealed their lips.

The old man began to age rapidly. His conscience was heavier than his years. But it was a backwoods conscience, and had the distortions of his primitive philosophy. One day he said piteously:

'It air a dreadful thing, Pete, ter kill a man by accident.'

And Pete replied meditatively, 'I dunno but what it air.'

By degrees, as they reflected upon the incredible idea that a mistake could have been made between the two men, the truth percolated through their minds. It was a voluntary sacrifice.

'He war always preachin' agin killin',' said the old man, 'an' callin' folks,' his voice fell to a whisper--'Cain!'

It was well for him, perhaps, when he presently fell into mental decrepitude, and in vacancy was spared the anguish of remorse.

And Pete fearfully noted the fulfilment of the prophecy.

No one could account for the change in Pete Cayce. He patched up old feuds, and forgave old debts, and forgot his contentious moods, and was meek and very melancholy. And although the parson preached no more, who shall say his sermons were ended? As to him, surely his doubts were solved in knowing all, and perhaps in the exaltations of that sacrificial moment he found Christ.

The mystery of his fate remained unexplained. The search for him flagged after a time, and failed. There were many conjectures, all wide of the truth.

Dorinda believed that, like the prophet of old, he had not been suffered to taste death, but was caught up into the clouds. And with a chastened solemnity she cherishes the last of her illusions.

THE END.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

HIS VANISHED STAR

'"His Vanished Star," in all its well-defined, well-described human interests, and its graphic account of grand and lovely scenery, is an excellent novel.... The story is both charming and original.'--_Glasgow Herald._

'A thrilling and pathetic tale, and one full of quiet humour and intimate observation of human nature.'--_Morning Leader._

'There is not a page in it which will not cause a reader to respect the writer for her good work.'--_Bookman._

'C. E. Craddock has given in "His Vanished Star" fresh evidence of strong imaginative power and a faculty of vivid description, bold, definite, and picturesque.... Its excellencies are undeniable, and not of a common sort.'--_Scotsman._

'A remarkable study of nature as well as of character.... Rich in the rather grim humour of a peculiar class, picturesque and in its way powerful, "His Vanished Star" will recommend itself to the lover of American fiction.'--_Morning Post._

'There is a good deal of interesting character-drawing, and the spiritual impressions are strong and high. There is humour too.'--_Athenaeum._

'As a vivid sketch of American life in its most primitive aspect, "His Vanished Star" is undoubtedly a noteworthy book.'--_Speaker._

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON THE PROPHET OF THE GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS

'The name of George Eliot rises to our lips once again as we read "The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains." ... The author is honoured in her own country as Miss Mary N. Murfree. She is indeed worthy of honour. This book gives her an indisputable place in the first rank of American novelists. Yet it is scarcely accurate to say that she stands in the rank; her station is abreast, yet apart. Amid all the charms of the American school of fiction, we look for one in vain--to wit, robustness. This quality Miss Murfree possesses. Her work may be called the most virile of recent American writing. The heroine is a really exquisite creation, full of health, grace, and womanly loyalty.'--_Pall Mall Gazette._

'The tale is really good, and gives graphic pictures of ways and manners far removed from any that are within our ken.... A story which shows appreciation of the beauties of nature, and much knowledge of the human heart. The heroine is earnest and charming--a gem.'--_Morning Post._

'A remarkable story.... We have seldom, if ever, read a book with greater delight, or one more rich in the quaint and grim humour, the rare pathos, the touching simplicity, and the picturesque descriptions which are only to be found in stories of this kind.'--_Society._

'Unquestionably the most remarkable story that has been received from America for a very long time indeed.... The whole picture, as a study both of nature and of human nature, is wonderfully impressive.'--_Graphic._