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11 Apr '42

Lib. lOM-Fe '38

THE MOUNTAIN GIRL

)^v-iC^v>C'\ %i'-'^A

" We will go home -to my home- Jus f like tliis^ iogrfher^
Frontispiece. See Page 311.

THE MOUNTAIN GIRL

BY

PAYNE ERSKINE

AUTHOE OF "when THE GATES LIFT UP THEIK PllEADS "

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
J. DUNCAN GLEASON

BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY

1912

Copyright, 1911, 1912,
By little, brown, AND COMPANY.

All rights reserved.

Published, March, 1912
Reprinted, March, 1912 (five times)

S. J. Pabkhill & Co., BOSTOK, U.S.A.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PASB

I. In which David Thryng arrives at Carew's Cross-
ing 1

n. In which David Thryng experiences the Hospi-

tahty of the Mountain People .... 10

ni. In which Aunt Sally takes her Departure and

meets Frale .25

IV. David spends his First Day at his Cabin, and Frale

makes his Confession ..... 35

V. In which Cassandra goes to David with her Trouble,

and gives Frale her Promise .... 47

VI. In which David aids Frale to make his Escape . 59
Vn. In which Frale goes down to Farington in his own

Way 68

Vlll. In which David Thryng makes a Discovery . . 76

IX. In which David accompanies Cassandra on an

Errand of Mercy 86

X. In which Cassandra and David visit the Home of

Decatur Irwin 94

XI. In which Spring comes to the Mountains, and

Cassandra tells David of her Father . . .103

Xn. In which Cassandra hears the Voices, and David

leases a Farm Ill

XIII. In which David discovers Cassandra's Trouble . 120

XIV. In which David visits the Bishop, and Frale sees

his Enemy ....... 131

XV. In which Jerry Carew gives David his Views on
Future Punishment, and Little Hoyle pays him
a Visit and is made Happy .... 144

V

VI

Contents

CHAPTER

XVI.

XVII.

XVIII.

XIX.

XX.

XXI.

XXII.
XXIII.
XXIV.

XXV.
XXVI.

XXVII.

XXVIII.
XXIX.

XXX.

XXXI.
XXXII.

PAGE

In which Frale returns and listens to the Com-
plaints of Decatur Irwin's Wife . . . 152

In which David Thryng meets an Enemy . 164

In which David Thryng Awakes . . .172

In which David sends Hoke Belew on a Com-
mission, and Cassandra makes a Confession 180

In which the Bishop and his Wife pass an
Eventful Day at the Fall Place . . .189

In which the Summer Passes . . . .198

In which David takes little Hoyle to Canada . 207

In which Doctor Hoyle speaks his Mind . . 212

In which David Thrjug has News from Eng-
land 218

In which David Thryng visits his Mother . 224

In which David Thryng adjusts his Life to
New Conditions 234

In which the Old Doctor and Little Hoyle come
back to the Mountains .... 244

In which Frale returns to the Mountains . 253

In which Cassandra visits David Thryng's
Ancestors ....... 265

In which Cassandra goes to Queensderry and
takes a Drive in a Pony Carriage . . 276

In which David and his Mother do not Agree . 288

In which Cassandra brings the Heir of Danes-
head Castle back to her Hilltop, and the
Shadow Lifts . . . . . .300

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"We will go home — to my home — just like

THIS, together " Frontispiece

*' Casabianca, was it?" said Thryng, smiling Page 17

Skulking and hiding by day, and strug-
gling ON again by night . . . . " 70

It seemed to him that music must come

FROM the flow OF HER ACTION . . " 106

" i take it back back from god the

promise i gave you there by the fall '* " 171

Cassandra stood silent, quivering like

ONE of her own mountain CREATURES

BROUGHT TO BAY " 286

THE MOUNTAIN GIEL

CHAPTER I

IN WHICH DAVID THRYNG ARRIVES AT CAREW's CROSSING

The snow had ceased falling. No wind stirred among
the trees that covered the hillsides, and every shrub, every
leaf and twig, still bore its feathery, white load. Slowly
the train labored upward, with two engines to take it the
steepest part of the climb from the valley below. David
Thrjmg gazed out into the quiet, white wilderness and
was glad. He hoped Carew's Crossing was not beyond all
this, where the ragged edge of civilization, out of which the
toiling train had so lately lifted them, would begin again.

He glanced from time to time at the young woman near
the door who sat as the bishop had left her, one slight hand
grasping the handle of her basket, and with an expression
on her face as placid and fraught with mystery as the scene
without. The train began to crawl more heavily, and,
looking down, Thryng saw that they were crossing a trestle
over a deep gorge before skirting the mountain on the
other side. Suddenly it occurred to him that he might be
carried beyond his station. He stopped the smiling young
brakeman who was passing with his flag.

'*Let me know when we come to Carew's Crossing, will

you?"

"Next stop, suh. Are you foh there, suh.^^"

"Yes. How soon?"

"Half an houh mo', suh. I'll be back d'rectly and help
you off, suh. It's a flag station. We don't stop there
in winter 'thout we're called to, suh. Hotel's closed
now."

"Hotel ? Is there a hotel ? " Thryng's voice betokened
dismay.

"Yes, suh. It's a right gay little place in summah,
suh." He passed on, and Thryng gathered his scattered

2 The Mountain Girl

effects. Ill and weary, he was glad to find his long jour-
ney so nearly at an end.

On either side of the track, as far as eye could see, was
a snow-whitened wilderness, seemingly untouched by the
hand of man, and he felt as if he had been carried back two
hundred years. The only hint that these fastnesses had
been invaded by human beings was an occasional rough,
deeply red wagon road, winding off among the hills.

The long trestle crossed, the engines labored slowly
upward for a time, then, turning a sharp curve, began to
descend, tearing along the narrow track with a speed that
caused the coaches to rock and sway; and thus they
reached Carew's Crossing, dropping down to it like a rush-
ing torrent.

Immediately Thryng found himself deposited in the
melting snow some distance from the station platform, and
at the same instant, above the noise of the retreating train,
he heard a cry : *'0h, suh, help him, help him ! It's poor
little Hoyle ! " The girl whom he had watched, and
about whom he had been wondering, flashed by him and
caught at the bridle of a fractious colt, that was rearing
and plunging near the corner of the station.

"Poor little Hoyle! Help him, suh, help him!" she
cried, clinging desperately, while the frantic animal swung
her off her feet, close to the flying heels of the kicking mule
at his side.

Under the heavy vehicle to which the ill-assorted ani-
mals were attached, a child lay unconscious, and David
sprang forward, his weakness forgotten in the demand for
action. In an instant he had drawn the little chap from
his perilous position and, seizing the mule, succeeded in
backing him to his place. The cause of its fright having
by this time disappeared, the colt became tractable and
stood quivering and snorting, as David took the bridle
from the girl's hand.

"I'll quiet them now," he said, and she ran to the boy,
who had recovered sufficiently to sit up and gaze in a dazed
way about him. As she bent over him, murmuring sooth-
ing words, he threw his arms around her neck and burst
into wild sobbing.

"There, honey, there ! No one is hurt. You are not,
are you, honey son?"

David Thryng Arrives 3

"I couldn't keep a holt of 'em,'* he sobbed.

"You shouldn't have done it, honey. You should have
let me get home as best I could." Her face was one
which could express much, passive as it had been before.
"Where was Frale.?"

"He took the othah ho'se and lit out. They was aftah
him. They — "

"S-sh. There, hush ! You can stand now; try, Hoyle.
You are a man now."

The little fellow rose, and, perceiving Thryng for the
first time, stepped shyly behind his sister. David noticed
that he had a deformity which caused him to carry his
head twisted stiffly to one side, and also that he had great,
beautiful brown eyes, so like those of a hunted fawn as
he turned them upon the stranger with wide appeal, that
he seemed a veritable creature of the wilderness by which
they were surrounded.

Then the girl stepped forward and thanked him with
voice and eyes; but he scarcely understood the words she
said, as her tones trailed lingeringly over the vowels, and
almost eliminated the "r," so lightly was it touched,
while her accent fell utterly strange upon his English ear.
She looked to the harness with practised eye, and then
laid her hand beside Thryng's, on the bridle. It was a
strong, shapely hand and wrist.

"I can manage now," she said. "Hoyle, get my basket
foh me."

But Thryng suggested that she climb in and take the
reins first, although the animals stood quietly enough now ;
the mule looked even dejected, with hanging head and
forward-drooping ears.

The girl spoke gently to the colt, stroking him along the
side and murmuring to him in a cooing voice as she
mounted to the high seat and gathered up the reins. Then
the two beasts settled themselves to their places with a
wontedness that assured Thryng they would be perfectly
manageable under her hand.

David turned to the child, relieved him of the basket,
which was heavy with unusual weight, and would have
lifted him up, but Hoyle eluded his grasp, and, scrambling
over the wheel with catlike agility, slipped shyly into his
place close to the girl's side. Then, with more than child-

V

4 The Mountain Girl

like thoughtfulness, the boy looked up into her face and
said in a low voice : —

*'The gen'l'man's things is ovah yandah by the track,
Cass. He cyant tote 'em alone, I reckon. Whar is he
goin'?"

Then Thryng remembered himself and his needs. He
looked at the line of track curving away up the mountain
side in one direction, and in the other lost in a deep cut
in the hills ; at the steep red banks rising high on each
side, arched over by leafy forest growth, with all the in-
terlacing branches and smallest twigs bearing their deli-
cate burden of white, feathery snow. He caught his
breath as a sense of the strange, untamed beauty, mar-
vellous and utterly lonely, struck upon him. Beyond the
tracks, high up on the mountain slope, he thought he
spied, well-nigh hid from sight by the pines, the gambrel
roof of a large building — or was it a snow-covered rock ?

*'Is that a house up there .f^" he asked, turning to the
girl, who sat leaning forward and looking steadily down at
him.

"That is the hotel.'*

"A road must lead to it, then. If I could get up there,
I could send down for my things."

*'They is no one thar," piped the boy; and Thryng
remembered the brakeman's words, and how he had re-
belled at the thought of a hotel incongruously set amid this
primeval beauty; but now he longed for the comfort of a
warm room and tea at a hospitable table. He wished he
had accepted the bishop's invitation. It was a predica-
ment to be dropped in this wild spot, without a store, a
cabin, or even a thread of blue smoke to be seen as in-
dicating a human habitation, and no soul near save these
two children.

The sun was sinking toward the western hilltops, and
a chillness began creeping about him as the shadows
lengthened across the base of the mountain, leaving only
the heights in the glowing light.

" Really, you know, I can't say what I am to do. I'm
a stranger here — "

It seemed odd to him at the moment, but her face,
framed in the huge sunbonnet, — a delicate flower set
in a rough calyx, — suddenly lost all expression. She

David Thryng Arrives 5

did not move nor open her lips. Thryng thought he
detected a look of fear in the boy's eyes, as he crept closer
to her.

In a flash came to him the realization of the difficulty.
His friend had told him of these people, — their occupa-
tions, their fear of the world outside and below their fast-
nesses, and how zealously they guarded their homes and
their rights from outside intrusion, yet how hospitable
and generous they were to all who could not be considered
their hereditary enemies.

He hastened to speak reassuring words, and, bethinking
himself that she had called the boy Hoyle, he explained
how one Adam Hoyle had sent him.

"The doctor is my friend, you know. He built a cabin
somewhere within a day's walk, he told me, of Carew's
Crossing, on a mountain top. Maybe you knew him .^"

A slight smile crept about the girl's lips, and her eyes
brightened. "Yes, suh, we-all know Doctah Hoyle."

"I am to have the cabin — if I can find it — live there
as he did, and see what your hills will do for me." He
laughed a little as he spoke, deprecating his evident weak-
ness, and, lifting his cap, wiped the cold moisture from
his forehead.

She noted his fatigue and hesitated. The boy's question-
ing eyes were fixed on her face, and she glanced down into
them ^ an answering look. Her lips parted, and her eyes
glowed as she turned them again on David, but she spoke
still in the same passive monotone.

"Oh, yes. My little brothah was named foh him, —
Adam Hoyle, — but we only call him Hoyle. It's a right
long spell since the Doctah was heah. His cabin is right
nigh us, a little highah up. Theah is no place wheah you
could stop nighah than ouahs. Hoyle, jump out and help
fetch his things ovah. You can put them in the back of
the wagon, suh, and ride up with us. I have a sight of
room foh them."

The child was out and across the tracks in an instant,
seizing a valise much too hea\'y for him, and Thryng cut
his thanks short to go to his relief.

"I kin tote it," said the boy shrilly.

"No, no. I am the biggest, so I'll take the big ones.
You bring the bundle with the strap around it — so.

6 The Mountain Girl

Now we shall get on, shan't we ? But you are pretty
strong for a little chap;" and the child's face radiated
smiles at the praise.

Then David tossed in valise and rug, without which last
no Englishman ever goes on a journey, and with much
effort they managed to pull the box along and hoist it
also into the wagon, the body of which was filled with corn
fodder, covered with an old patchwork quilt.

The wagon was of the rudest, clumsiest construction,
the heavy box set on axles without springs, but the young
physician was thankful for any kind of a conveyance.
He had been used to life in the wild, taking things as
he found them — bunking in a tent, a board shanty, or
out under the open sky; with men brought heterogene-
ously together, some merely rough woodsmen in their
natural environment, others the scum of the cities to whom
crime was become first nature, decency second, and others,
fleeing from justice and civilized law, hiding ofttimes a
fine nature delicately reared. During this time he had
seldom seen a woman other than an occasional camp fol-
lower of the most degraded sort.

Inured thus, he did not find his ride, embedded with
good corn fodder, much of a hardship, even in a springless
wagon over mountain roads. Wrapped in his rug, he
braced himself against his box, with his face toward the
rear of the wagon, and gazed out from under its arching
canvas hood at the wild way, as it slowly unrolled behind
them, and was pleased that he did not have to spend the
night under the lee of the station.

The lingering sunlight made fiaming banners of the snow
clouds now slowly drifting across the sky above the white
world, and touched the highest peaks with rose and gold.
The shadows, ever changing, deepened from faintest pink-
mauve through heliotrope tints, to the richest violet in
the heart of the gorges. Over and through all was the
witching mystery of fairy-like, snow-wreathed branches
and twigs, interwoven and arching up and up in faint per-
spective to the heights above, and down, far down, to
the depths of the regions below them; and all the time,
mingled with the murmur of the voices behind him,
and the creaking of the vehicle in which they rode, and the
tramp of the animals when they came to a hard roadbed

David Thryng Arrives TJ

with rock foundation, — noises which were not loud, but
which seemed to be covered and subdued by the soft snow
even as it covered everything, — could be heard a Hght
dropping and pattering, as the overladen last year's leaves
and twigs dropped their white burden to the ground.
Sometimes the great hood of the wagon struck an over-
hanging bough and sent the snow down in showers as
they passed.

Heavily they climbed up, and warily made their descent
of rocky steeps, passing through boggy places or splashing
in clear streams which issued from springs in the mountain
side or fell from some distant height, then climbing again
only to wind about and again descend. Often the way was
rough with boulders that had never been blasted out, — ■
sometimes steeply shelving where the gorge was deepest
and the precipice sheerest. Past all dangers the girl drove
with skilful hand, now encouraging her team with her
low voice, now restraining them, where their load crowded
upon them over slippery, shelving rocks, with strong pulls
and sharp command. David marvelled at her serenity
under the strain, and at her courage and deftness. With
the calmness of the boy nestling at her side, he resigned him-
self to the sweet witchery of the time and place. Glanc-
ing up at the high seat behind him, he saw the child's feet
dangling, and knew they must be cold.

"Why can't your little brother sit back here with me V
he said; "I'll cover him mth my rug, and we'll keep each
other warm."

He saw the small hunched back stiffen, and try to appear
big and manly, but she checked the team at a level dip in
the road.

"Yes, sonny, get ovah theah with the gentleman.
It'll be some coldah now the sun's gone." But the little
man was shyly reluctant to move. "Come, honey.
Sistah'd a heap rathah you would."

Then David, reached up and gently lifted the atom of
manhood, of pride, sensitiveness, and affection, over where
he caused him to snuggle down in the fodder close to his
side.

For a while the child sat stiffly aloof, but gradually his
little form relaxed, and his head drooped sideways in the
hollow of the stranger's shoulder, held comfortably by

8 The Mountain Girl

Thryng's kindly encircling arm. Soon, with his small feet
wrapped in the w^arm, soft rug, he slept soundly and sweetly,
rocked, albeit rather roughly, in the jolting wagon.

Thryng also dreamed, but not in sleep. His mind was
stirred to unusual depths by his strange surroundings —
the silence, the mystery, the beauty of the night, and the
suggestions of grandeur and power dimly revealed by the
moonlight which bathed the world in a flood of glory.

He was uplifted and drawn out of himself, and at the
same time he was thrown back to review his life and to
see his most inward self, and to marvel and question the
wherefore of it all. Why was he here, away from the ac-
tive, practical affairs which interest other men ? Was he
a creature of ideals only, or was he also a practical man,
taking the wisest means of reaching and achieving results
most worth while ? He saw himself in his childhood —
in his youth — in his young manhood — even to the
present moment, jogging slowly along in a far country,
rough and wild, utterly dependent on the courtesy of a
slight girl, who held, for the moment, his life in her hands;
for often, as he gazed into the void of darkness over nar-
row ledges, he knew that only the skill of those two small
hands kept them from sliding into eternity : yet there was
about her such an air of wontedness to the situation that
he was stirred by no sense of anxiety for himself or for her.

He took out his pipe and smoked, still dreaming, com-
paring, and questioning. Of ancient family, yet the
younger son of three generations of younger sons, all prob-
ability of great inheritance or title so far removed from
him, it behooved that he build for himself — what.f^
Fortune, name, everything. Character ? Ah, that was
his heritage, all the heritage the laws of England allowed
him, and that not by right of English law, but because,
fixed in the immutable, eternal Will, some laws there are
beyond the power of man to supersede. With an invol-
untary stiffening of his body, he disturbed for an instant
the slumbering child, and quite as involuntarily he drew
him closer and soothed him back to forgetfulness; and
they both dreamed on, the child in his sleep, and the man
in his wide wakefulness and intense searching.

His uncle, it is true, would have boosted him far toward
creating both name and fame for himself, in either army

David Thryng Arrives 9

or navy, but lie would none of it. There was his older
brother to be advanced, and the younger son of this same
uncle to be placed in life, or married to wealth. This also
he might have done ; well married he might have been
ere now, and could be still, for she was waiting — only —
an ideal stood in his way. Whom he would, marry he
would love. Not merely respect or like, — not even both, —
but love he must ; and in order to hold to this ideal he
must fly the country, or remain to be unduly urged to his
own discomfiture and possibly to their mutual undoing.

As for the alternatives, the army or the navy, again his
ideals had formed for him impassable bars. He would
found his career on the sa\'ing rather than the taking of
life. Perhaps he might yet follow in the wake of armies
to mend bodies they have torn and cut and maimed, and
heal diseases they have engendered — yes — perhaps —
the ideals loomed big. But what had he done ? Fled
his country and deftly avoided the most heart-satisfying
of human delights — children to call him father, and wife
to make him a home ; peace and wealth ; thrust aside the
helping hand to power and a career considered most worthy
of a strong and resourceful man, and thrown personal
ambition to the winds. Why ? Because of his ideals —
preferring to mend rather than to mar his neighbor.

Surely he was right — and yet — and yet. What had
he accomplished ? Taken the making of his life into his
own hands and lost — all — if health were really gone.
One thing remained to him — the last rag and remnant
of his cherished ideals — to live long enough to triumph
over his own disease and take up work again. Why
should he succumb ? Was it fate ? Was there the guid-
ance of a higher will ? Might he reach out and partake
of the Divine power ? But one thing he knew ; but one
thing could he do. As the glory of white light around him
served to reveal a few feet only of the way, even as the
density beyond seemed impenetrable, still it was but
seeming. There was a beyond — vast — mysterious —
which he must search out, slowly, painfully, if need be,
seeing a little way only, but seeing that little clearly,
revealed by the white light of spirit. His own or God's ?
Into the infinite he must search — search — and at last
surely find.

CHAPTER II

IN WHICH DAVID THRYNG EXPERIENCES THE HOSPITALITY

OF THE MOUNTAIN PEOPLE

Suddenly the jolting ceased. The deep stillness of the
night seemed only intensified by the low panting of the
animals and the soft dropping of the wet snow from
the trees.

"What is it ?" said Thryng, peering from under the can-
vas cover. "Anything the matter ?"

The beasts stood with low-swung heads, the vapor
rising white from their warm bodies, wet with the melting
snow. His question fell unheard, and the girl who was
climbing down over the front wheel began to unhitch the
team in silence. He rolled the sleeping child in his rug and
leaped out.

"Let me help you. What is the trouble ? Oh, are you
at home ? '*

" I can do this, suh. I have done it a heap of times.
Don't go nigh Pete, suh. He's mighty quick, and he's
mean." The beast laid back his ears viciously as David
approached.

"You ought not go near him yourself," he said, taking
a firm grip of the bridle.

^ "Oh, he's safe enough with me — or Frale. Hold him
tight, suh, now you have him, till I get round there.
Keep his head towa'ds you. He certainly is mean."

The colt walked off to a low stack of corn fodder, as
she turned him loose with a light slap on the flank; and
the mule, impatient, stamping and sidling about, stretched
forth his nose and let out his raucous and hideous cry.
While he was thus occupied, the girl slipped off his har-
ness and, taking the bridle, led the beast away to a small
railed enclosure on the far side of the stack ; and David
stood alone in the snow and looked about him.

He saw a low, rambling house, which, although one struc-
ture, appeared to be a series of houses, built of logs plas-
tered with clay in the chinks. It stood in a tangle of wild

10

The Mountain People 1 1

growth, on what seemed to be a wide ledge jutting out from
the side of the mountain, which loomed dark and high
behind it. An incessant, rushing sound pervaded the
place, as it were a part of the silence or a breathing of
the mountain itself. Was it wind among the trees, or
the rushing of water ? No wind stirred now, and yet
the sound never ceased. It must be a torrent swollen
by the melting snow.

He saw the girl moving in and out among the shadows,
about the open log stable, like a wraith. The braying of
the mule had disturbed the occupants of the house, for
a candle was placed in a window, and its little ray streamed
forth and was swallowed up in the moonlight and black
shades. The child, awakened by the horrible noise of
the beast, rustled in the corn fodder where Thryng had
left him. Dazed and wondering, he peered out at the
young man for some moments, too shy to descend until
his sister should return. Now she came, and he scrambled
down and stood close to her side, looking up weirdly, his
twisted little form shivering and quaking.

*'Run in, Hoyle," she said, looking kindly down upon
him. "Tell mothah we're all right, son."

A woman came to the door holding a candle, which
she shaded w^th a gnarled and bony hand.

*'That you, Cass "? " she quavered. "Who aire ye
talkin' to.^"

"Yes, Aunt Sally, we'll be there directly. Don't let
mothah get cold." She turned again to David. "I
reckon you'll have to stop with us to-night. It's a right
smart way to the cabin, and it'll be cold, and nothing
to eat. We'll bring in your things now, and in the morn-
ing we can tote them up to your place with the mule,
and Hoyle can go with you to show you the way."

She turned toward the wagon as if all were settled,
and Thryng could not be effusive in the face of her direct
and conclusive manner ; but he took the basket from her
hand.

" Let me — no, no — I will bring in everything. Thank
you very much. I can do it quite easily, taking one
at a time." Then she left him, but at the door she met
him and helped to Kft his heavy belongings into the
house.

12 The Mountain Girl

The room he entered was warm and brightly lighted
by a pile of blazing logs in the great chimneyplace. He
walked toward it and stretched his hands to the fire —
a generous fire — the mountain home's luxury.

Something was cooking in the ashes on the hearth
which sent up a savory odor most pleasant and appealing
to the hungry man. The meagre boy stood near, also
warming his little body, on which his coarse garments
hung limply. He kept his great eyes fixed on David's
face in a manner disconcerting, even in a child, had Thryng
given his attention to it, but at the moment he was in-
terested in other things. Dropped thus suddenly into
this utterly alien environment, he was observing the
girl and the old woman as intently, though less openly, as
the boy was watching him.

Presently he felt himself uncannily the object of a
scrutiny far different from the child's wide-eyed gaze,
and glancing over his shoulder toward the corner from
which the sensation seemed to emanate, he saw in the
depths of an old four-posted bed, set in their hollow sockets
and roofed over by projecting light eyebrows, a pair of
keen, glittering eyes.

" Yas, you see me now, do ye ? " said a high, thin voice
in toothless speech. "Who be ye .^^ "

His physician's feeling instantly alert, he stepped to the
bedside and bent over the wasted form, which seemed
hardly to raise the clothing from its level smoothness, as
if she had lain motionless since some careful hand had
arranged it.

"No, ye don't know me, I reckon. 'Tain't likely. Wlio
be ye ? " she iterated, still looking unflinchingly in his eyes.

"Hit's a gentleman who knows Doctah Hoyle, mothah.
He sent him. Don't fret you'se'f," said the girl soothingly.

"I'm not one of the frettin' kind," retorted the mother,
never taking her eyes from his face, and again speaking
in a weak monotone. "Who be ye ?'*

"My name is David Thryng, and I am a doctor," he said
quietly.

"Where be ye from .?"

"I came from Canada, the country where Doctor
Hoyle lives."

"I reckon so. He used to tell 'at his home was thar."

The Mountain People 13

A pallid hand was reached slowly out to him. "I'm
right glad to see ye. Take a cheer and set. Bring a
cheer, Sally."

But the girl had already placed him a chair, which he
drew close to the bedside. He took the feeble old hand
and slipped his fingers along to rest lightly on the wrist.

"You -needn't stan' watchin' me, Cass. You 'n' Sally
set suthin' fer th' doctah to eat. I reckon ye're all about
gone fer hunger."

• *'Yes, mothah, right soon. Fry a little pork to go with
the pone, Aunt Sally. Is any coffee left in the pot ? "

"I done put in a lee tie mo' when I heered the mule
hollah. I knowed ye'd want it. Might throw in a mite
mo' now th' gentleman's come."

The two women resumed their preparations for supper,
the boy continued to stand and gaze, and the high voice
of the frail occupant of the bed began again to talk and
question.

"When did you come down f'om that thar country whar
Doctah Hoyle lives at ? " she said, in her monotonous
wail.

"Four days ago. I travelled slowly, for I have been
ill myself.''

"Hit's right quare now; 'pears like ef I was a doctah I
wouldn't 'low myself fer to get sick. An' you seed Doctah
Hoyle fo' days back ! "

"No, he has gone to England on a visit. I saw his wife,
though, and his daughter. She is a young lady — is to
be married soon."

"They do grow up — the leetle ones. Hit don't seem
mo'n yestahday 'at Cass was like leetle Hoyle yandah,
an' hit don't seem that since Doctah Hoyle was here
an' leetle Hoyle came. We named him fer th' doctah.
Waal, I reckon ef th' doctah was here now 'at he could
he'p me some. Maybe ef he'd 'a' stayed here I nevah
would 'a' got down whar I be now. He was a right good
doctah, bettah'n a yarb doctah — most — I reckon so."

David smiled. "I think so myself," he said. "Are
there many herb doctors here about ? "

"Not rightly doctahs, so to speak, but they is some 'at
knows a heap about yarbs."

Good. Perhaps they can teach me something."

((

14 The Mountain Girl

The old face was feebly lifted a bit from the pillow, and
the dark eyes grew suddenly sharp in their scrutiny.

"Who be ye, anyhow? What aire ye here fer? Sech
as you knows a heap a'ready 'thout makin' out to larn
o' we-uns."

David saw his mistake and hastened to allay the sus-
picion which gleamed out at him almost malignantly.

"I am just what I said, a doctor like Adam Hoyle,
only that I don't know as much as he — not yet. The
wisest man in the world can learn more if he watches out
to do so. Your herb doctors might be able to teach me a
good many things."

"I 'spect ye're right thar, on'y a heap o* folks thinks
they knows it all fust."

There w^as a pause, and Thryng leaned back in his stiff,
splint-bottomed chair and glanced around him. He saw
that the girl, although moving about setting to rights
and brushing here and there with an unique, home-made
broom, was at the same time intently listening.

Presently the old w^oman spoke again, her threadlike
voice penetrating far.

"What do you 'low to do here in ouah mountains?
They hain't no settlement nighabouts here, an* them what's
sick hain't no money to pay doctahs with. I reckon they'll
hev to stay sick fer all o' you-uns."

David looked into her eyes a moment quietly ; then he
smiled. The way to her heart he saw was through the
magic of one name.

"What did Doctor Hoyle do when he was down here ? "

"Him ? They hain't no one livin' like he was."

Then David laughed outright, a gay, contagious laugh,
and after an instant she laughed also.

"I agree with you," he said. "But you see, I am a
countryman of his, and he sent me here — he knows me
well — and I mean to do as he did, if — I can."

He drew in a deep breath of utter weariness, and leaned
forward, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands, and
gazed into the blazing fire. The memories which had
taken possession of his soul during the long ride seemed
to envelop him so that in a moment the present was
swept away into oblivion and his spirit was, as it were,
suddenly withdrawn from the body and projected into

The Mountain People 15

the past. He had been unable to touch any of the greasy
cold stuff which had been offered him during the latter
part of his journey, and the heat brought a drowsiness
on him and a faintness from lack of food.

"Cass — Cassandry ! Look to him," called the mother
shrilly, but the girl had already noticed his strange ab-
straction, and the small Adam Hoyle had drawn back,
in awe, to his mother.

" Get some whiskey, Sally," said the girl, and David
roused himself to see her bending over him.

"I must have gone off in a doze," he said weakly.
"The long ride and then this warmth — " Seeing the
anxious faces around him, he laughed again. "It's noth-
ing, I assure you, only the comfort and the smell of some-
thing good to eat;" he sniffed a little. "What is it?"
he asked.

Old Sally was tossing and shaking the frying salt pork
in the skillet at the fireplace, and the odor aggravated
his already too keen appetite.

"Ye was more'n sleepy, I reckon," shrilled the woman
from the bed. " Hain't that pone done, Sally .? No, 'tain't
liquor he needs ; hit's suthin' to eat."

Then the girl hastened her slow, gliding movements,
drew splint chairs to a table of rough pine that stood
against the side of the room, and, stooping between him
and the fire, pulled something from among the hot ashes.
The fire made the only light in the room, and David
never forgot the supple grace of her as she bent thus
silhouetted — the perfect line of chin and throat black
against the blaze, contrasted with the weird, witchlike old
woman with roughly knotted hair, who still squatted in
the heat, and shook the skillet of frying pork.

"Thar, now hit's done, I reckon," said old Sally, slowly
rising and straightening her bent back; and the woman
from the bed called her orders.

"Not that cup," she cried, as Sally began pouring black
coffee into a cracked white cup. " Git th' chany one. I hid
hit yandah in th' cornder 'hind that tin can, to keep 'em
f'om usin' hit every day. I had a hull set o' that when I
married Farwell. Give hit here." She took the precious
relic in her work-worn hands and peered into it, then wiped
it out with the corner of the sheet which covered her.

16 The Mountain Girl

This ThrjTig did not see. He was watching the girl, as
she broke open the hot, fragrant corn-bread and placed it
beside his plate.

'* Come," she said. "You sure must be right hungry. Sit
here and eat." David felt like one drunken with weari-
ness when he rose, and caught at the edge of the table to
steady himself.

"Aren't you hungry, too ?" he asked, "and Hoyle, here }
Sit beside me ; we're going to have a feast, little chap."

The girl placed an earthen crock on the table and took
from it honey in the broken comb, rich and dark.

" Have a little of this with your pone. It's right good,"
she said.

"Frale, he found a bee tree," piped the child suddenly,
gaining confidence as he saw the stranger engaged in the
very normal act of eating with the relish of an ordinary
man. He edged forward and sat himself gingerly on the
outer corner of the next chair, and accepted a huge piece
of the pone from David's hand. His sister gave him honey,
and Sally dropped pieces of the sizzling hot pork on their
plates, from the skillet.

David sipped his coffee from the flowered "chany cup"
contentedly. Served without milk or sugar, it was strong,
hot, and reviving. The girl shyly offered more of the corn-
bread as she saw it rapidly disappearing, pleased to see
him eat so eagerly, yet abashed at having nothing else to
offer.

"I'm sorry we can give you only such as this. We
don't live like you do in the no'th. Have a little more of
the honey."

"Ah, but this is fine. Good, hey, little chap? You
are doing a very beneficent thing, do you know, saving a
man's life V He glanced up at her flushed face, and she
smiled deprecatingly. He fancied her smiles were rare.

"But it is quite true. Where would I be now but for
you and Hoyle here ^ Lying under the lee side of the
station coughing my life away, — and all my own fault,
too. I should have accepted the bishop's invitation."

"You helped me when the colt was bad." Her soft
voice, low and monotonous, fell musically on his ear when
she spoke.

"Naturally — but how about that, anyway? It's a

The Mountain People 17

wonder you weren't killed. How came a youngster like
you there alone with those beasts ? " Thryng had an abrupt
manner of springing a question which startled the child,
and he edged away, furtively watching his sister.

"Did you hitch that kicking brute alone and drive all
that distance V

"Aunt Sally, she he'ped me to tie up; she give him co'n
whilst I th'owed on the strops, an' when he's oncet tied up,
he goes all right." The atom grinned. "Hit's his way.
He's mean, but he nevah works both ends to oncet."

"Good thing to know; but you're a hero, do you under-
stand that.^" The child continued to edge away, and
David reached out and drew him to his side. Holding
him by his two sharp little elbows, he gave him a playful
shake. "I say, do you know what a hero is.'^"

The startled boy stopped grinning and looked wildly to
his sister, but receiving only a smile of reassurance from
her, he lifted his great eyes to Thryng's face, then slowly
the little form relaxed, and he was drawn within the doc-
tor's encircling arm.

"I don't reckon," was all his reply, which ambiguous
remark caused David, in his turn, to look to the sister for
elucidation. She held a long, lighted candle in her hand,
and paused to look back as she was leaving the room.

"Yes, you do, honey son. You remembah the boy with
the quare long name sistah told you about, who stood there
when the ship was all afiah and wouldn't leave because
his fathah had told him to bide ? He was a hero."
But Hoyle was too shy to respond, and David could feel
his little heart thumping against his arm as he held him.

"Tell the gentleman, Hoyle. He don't bite, I reckon,"
called the mother from her corner.

"His name begun like yourn, Cass, but I cyan't re-
membah the hull of it."

"Casablanca, was it ?" said Thryng, smiling.

"I reckon. Did you-uns know him ? "

"\Mien I was a small chap like you, I used to read about
him." Then the atom yielded entirely, and leaned com-
fortably against David, and his sister left them, carrying
the candle with her.

Old Sally threw another log on the fire, and the flames
leaped up the cavernous chimney, lighting the room with

18 The Mountain Girl

dramatic splendor. Thr3mg took note of its unique fur-
nishing. In the corner opposite the one where the mother
lay was another immense four-poster bed, and before it
hung a coarse homespun curtain, half concealing it. At
its foot was a huge box of dark wood, well-made and strong,
with a padlock. This and the beds seemed to belong to
another time and place, in contrast to the other articles,
which were evidently mountain made, rude in construction
and hewn out by hand, the chairs unstained and unpol-
ished, and seated with splints.

The walls were the roughly dressed logs of which the
house was built, the chinks plastered with deep red-brown
clay. Depending from nails driven in the logs were fes-
toons of dried apple and strips of dried pumpkin, and
hanging by their braided husks were bunches of Indian
corn, not yellow like that of the north, but white or purple.

There were bags also, containing Thryng knew not
what, although he was to learn later, when his own larder
came to be eked out by sundry gifts of dried fruit and sweet
corn, together with the staple of beans and peas from the
widow's store.

Beside the window of small panes was a shelf, on which
were a few worn books, and beneath hung an almanac;
at the foot of the mother's bed stood a small spinning-
wheel, with the wool still hanging to the spindle. David
wondered how long since it had been used. The scru-
pulous cleanliness of the place satisfied his fastidious
nature, and gave him a sense of comfort in the homely
interior. He liked the look of the bed in the corner, made
up high and round, and covered with marvellous patchwork.

As he sat thus, noting all his surroundings, Hoyle still
nestled at his side, leaning his elbows on the doctor's knees,
his chin in his hands, and his soft eyes fixed steadily
on the doctor's face. Thus they advanced rapidly toward
an amicable acquaintance, each questioning and being
questioned.

"What is a *bee tree' ?" said David. "You said some-
body found one."

"Hit's a big holler tree, an' hit's plumb full o' bees an*
honey. Frale, he found this'n."

"Tell me about it. Where was it?"

"Hit war up yandah, highah up th' mountain. They is

The Mountain People 19

*

a hole thar what wiF cats live in, Wil' Cat Hole. Frale, he
war a hunt'n' fer a cat. Some men thar at th' hotel, they
war plumb mad to hunt a wil' cat with th' dogs, an' Frale,
he 'lowed to git th' cat fer 'em."

"And when was that ?"

"Las' summah, v»^hen th' hotel war open. They war
a heap o' men at th' hotel."

"And now about the bee tree.^"

"Frale, he nevah let on like he know'd thar war a bee
tree, an' then this fall he took me with him, an' we made a
big fire, an' then w^e cut down th' tree, an' we stayed thar
th' hull day, too, an' eat thar an' had ros'n ears by th' fire,
too."

"I say, you know. There seem to be a lot of things you
will have to enlighten me about. After you get through
with the bee tree you must tell me what * ros'n ears' are.
And then what did you do .^ "

"Thar war a heap o' honey. That tree, hit war nigh-
about plumb full o' honey, and th' bees war that mad you
couldn't let 'em come nigh ye 'thout they'd sting you.
They stung me, an' I nevah hollered. Frale, he 'lowed ef
you hollered, you wa'n't good fer nothin', goin' bee hunt'n'.'*

"Is Frale j^our brother.^"

"Yas. He c'n do a heap o' things, Frale can. They
war a heap o' honey in that thar tree, 'bout a bar'l full, er
more'n that. We hev a hull tub o' honey out thar in
th' loom shed yet, an' maw done sont all th' rest to th'
neighbors, 'cause maw said they wa'n't no use in humans
bein' fool hogs like th' bees war, a-keepin' more'n they could
eat jes' fer therselves."

"Yas," called the mother from her corner, where she
had been admiringly listening; "they is a heap like that-
a-way, but hit ain't our way here in th' mountains. Let
th' doctah tell you suthin' now, Hoyle, — ye mount larn a
heap if ye'd hark to him right smart, 'thout talkin' th' hull
time youse'f."

"I has to tell him 'bouts th' ros'n ears — he said so.
Thar they be." He pointed to a bunch of Indian corn.
"You wrop 'em up in ther shucks, whilst ther green an'
sof, and kiver 'em up in th' ashes whar hit's right hot,
and then when ther rosted, eat 'em so. Now, what do
you know ? "

20 The Mountain Girl

"Why, he knows a heap, son. Don't ax that-a-way."

"In my country, away across the ocean — " began
David.

"Tell 'bout th' ocean, how hit look."

"In my country we don't have Indian corn nor bee trees,
nor wild cat holes, but we have the ocean all around us, and
we see the ships and — "

"Like that thar one whar th' boy stood whilst hit war
on fire ? "

"Something like, yes." Then he told about the sea
and the ships and the great fishes, and was interrupted
with the query : —

"Reckon you done seed that thar fish what swallered
the man in th' Bible an' then th'ow'd him up agin.'^"

"^Vhy no, son, you know that thar fish war dade long
'fore we-uns war born. You mustn't ax fool questions,
honey."

Old Sally sat crouched by the hearth intently listening
and asking as naive questions as the child, whose pallid
face grew pink and animated, and whose eyes grew larger
as he strove to see with inward vision the things Thryng
described. It was a happy evening for little Hoyle.
Leaning confidingly against David, he sighed with reple-
tion of joy. He was not eager for his sister to return —
not he. He could lean forever against this wonderful
man and listen to his tales. But the doctor's weariness
was growing heavier, and he bethought himself that the
girl had not eaten with them, and feared she was taking
trouble to prepare quarters for him, when if she only knew
how gladly he would bunk down anywhere, — only to
sleep while this blessed and delicious drowsiness was over-
powering him.

"Where is your sister, Hoyle .^^ Don't you reckon it's
time you and I were abed ? " he asked, adopting the child's
vernacular.

"She's makin' yer bed ready in th' loom shed, likely,"
said the mother, ever alert. With her pale, prematurely
wrinkled face and uncannily bright and watchful eyes, she
seemed the controlling, all-pervading spirit of the place.
"Run, child, an' see what's keepin' her so long."

"Hit's dark out thar," said the boy, stirring himself
slowly.

The Mountain People 21

"Run, honey, you hain't af eared, kin drive a team all
by you'se'f. Dark hain't nothin' ; I ben all ovah these
heah mountains when thar wa'n't one star o' light. Maybe
you kin he'p her."

At that moment she entered, holding the candle high
to light her way through what seemed to be a dark passage,
her still, sweet face a bit flushed and stray taches of
white cotton down clinging to her blue homespun dress.
"The doctah's mos' dade fer sleep, Cass."

"I am right sorry to keep you so long, but we are
obleeged — "

She lifted troubled eyes to his face, as Thryng inter-
rupted her.

"Ah, no, no! I really beg your pardon — for coming
in on you this way — it was not right, you know. It was
a — a — predicament, wasn't it ? It certainly wasn't
right to put you about so ; if — you will just let me go
anywhere, only to sleep, I shall be greatly obliged. I'm
making you a lot of trouble, and I'm so sorry."

His profusion of manner, of which he was entirely un-
aware, embarrassed her ; although not shy like her brother,
she had never encountered any one who spoke with such
rapid abruptness, and his swift, penetrating glance and
pleasant ease of the world abashed her. For an instant
she stood perfectly still before him, slowly comprehend-
ing his thought, then hastened with her inherited, inborn
ladyhood to relieve him from any sense that his sudden
descent upon their privacy was an intrusion.

Her mind moved along direct lines from thought to
expression — from impulse to action. She knew no con-
ventional tricks of words or phrases for covering an awk-
ward situation, and her only way of avoiding a self-betrayal
was by silence and a masklike impassivity. During this
moment of stillness while she waited to regain her poise,
he, quick and intuitive as a woman, took in the situation,
yet he failed to comprehend the character before him.

To one accustomed to the conventional, perfect sim-
plicity seems to conceal something held back. It is hard
to believe that all is being revealed, hence her slower
thought, in reality, comprehended him the more truly.
What he supposed to be pride and shame over their meagre
accommodations was, in reality, genuine concern for his

22 The Mountain Girl

comfort, and embarrassment before his ease and ready
phrases. As in a swift breeze her thoughts were caught
up and borne away upon them, but after a moment they
would sweep back to her — a flock of innocent, startled
doves.

Still holding her candle aloft, she raised her eyes to his
and smiled. *'We-uns are right glad you came. If you
can be comfortable where we are obliged to put you to
sleep, you must bide awhile." She did not say " obleeged "
this time. He had not pronounced it so, and he must
know.

"That is so good of you. And now you are very tired
yourself and have eaten nothing. You must have your
own supper. Hoyle can look after me." He took the
candle from her and gave it to the boy, then turned his
own chair back to the table and looked inquiringly at Sally
squatted before the fire. "Not another thing shall you
do for me until you are waited on. Take my place here."

•David's manner seemed like a command to her, and she
slid into the chair with a weary, drooping movement.
Hoyle stood holding the candle, his wry neck twisting his
head to one side, a smile on his face, eying them sharply.
He turned a questioning look to his sister, as he stiffened
himself to his newly acquired importance as host.

Thryng walked over to the bedside. "In the morning,
when we are all rested, I'll see what can be done for you,"
he said, taking the proffered old hand in his. "I am not
Dr. Hoyle, but he has taught me a little. I studied and
practised with him, you know."

"Hev ye? Then ye must know a heap. Hit's right
like th' Lord sont ye. You see suthin' 'peared like to give
Yv^ay whilst I war a-cuttin' light 'ud th' othah day, an' I
went all er a heap 'crost a log, an' I reckon hit hurt me
some. I hain't ben able to move a foot sence, an' I lay
out thar nigh on to a hull day, whilst Hoyle here run clar
down to Sally's place to git her. He couldn't lif me
hisse'f , he's that weak ; he tried to haul me in, but when
I hollered, — sufferin' so I war jes' 'bleeged to holler, — he
kivered me up whar I lay and lit out fer Sally, an' she an'
her man they got me up here, an' here I ben ever since. I
reckon I never will leave this bed ontwell I'm cyarried out
in a box."

The Mountain People £S

"Oh, no, not that ! You're too much ahve for that.
We'll see about it to-morrow. Good night."

"Hoyle may show you the way," said the girl, rising.
" Your bed is in the loom shed. I'm right sorry it's so cold.
I put blankets there, and you can use all you like of them.
I would have given you Frale's place up garret — only —
he might come in any time, and — "

"Naw, he won't. He's too skeered 'at — " Hoyle's
interruption stopped abruptly, checked by a glance of his
sister's eye.

"I hope you'll sleep well — "

" Sleep .^ I shall sleep like a log. I feel as if I could
sleep for a week. It's awfully good of you. I hope we
haven't eaten all the supper, Hoyle and I. Come, little
chap. Good night." He took up his valise and followed
the boy, leaving her standing by the uncleared table, gaz-
ing after him."

'*Now you eat, Cassandry. You are nigh about per-
ished you are that tired," said her mother.

Then old Sally brought more pork and hot pone from
the ashes, and they sat down together, eating and sipping
their black coffee in silence. Presently Hoyle returned
and began removing his clumsy shoes, by the fire.

"Did he ax ye a heap o' questions, Hoyle .f^" queried
the old woman sharply.

*'Naw. Did'n' ax noth'n'."

"Waal, look out 'at you don't let on nothin' ef he does.
Talkin' may hurt, an' hit may not."
• "He hain't no government man, maw."

"Hit's all right, I reckon, but them 'at larns young to
hold ther tongues saves a heap o' trouble fer therselves."

After they had eaten, old Sally gathered the few dishes
together and placed all the splint-bottomed chairs back
against the sides of the room, and, only half disrobing,
crawled into the far side of the bed opposite to the mother's,
behind the homespun curtain.

"To-morrow I reckon I kin go home to my old man,
now you've come, Cass."

^ "Yes," said the girl in a low voice, "you have been right
kind to we-all. Aunt Sallv."

Then she bent over her mother, ministering to her few
wants ; lifting her forward, she shook up the pillow, and

24 The Mountain Girl

gently laid her back upon it, and lightly kissed her cheek.
The child had quickly dropped to sleep, curled up like a
ball in the farther side of his mother's bed, undisturbed
by the low murmur of conversation. Cassandra drew
her chair close to the fire and sat long gazing into the
burning logs that were fast crumbling to a heap of glowing
embers. She uncoiled her heavy bronze hair and combed
it slowly out, until it fell a rippling mass to the floor, as
she sat. It shone in the firelight as if it had drawn its
tint from the fire itself, and the cold night had so filled it
with electricity that it flew out and followed the comb, as if
each hair were alive, and made a moving aureola of warm
red amber about her drooping figure in the midst of the
sombre shadows of the room. Her face grew sad and her
hands moved listlessly, and at last she slipped from her
chair to her knees and wept softly and prayed, her lips
forming the words soundlessly. Once her mother awoke,
lifted her head slightly from her pillow and gazed an in-
stant at her, then slowly subsided, and again slept.

CHAPTER III

IN WHICH AUNT SALLY TAKES HER DEPARTURE AND MEETS

FRALE

The loom shed was one of the log cabins connected with
the main building by a roofed passage, which Thryng had
noticed the evening before as being an odd fashion of house
architecture, giving the appearance of a small flock of
cabins all nestling under the wings of the old building in
the centre.

The shed was dark, having but one small window with
glass panes near the loom, the other and larger opening
being tightly closed by a wooden shutter. David slept
late, and awoke at last to find himself thousands of miles
away from his dreams in this unique room, all in the deep-
est shadow, except for the one warm bar of sunlight which
fell across his face. He drowsed off again, and his mind
began piecing together fragments and scenes from the
previous day and evening, and immediately he was sur-
rounded by mystery, moonlit, fairylike, and white, a little
crooked being at his side looking up at him like some
gnome creature of the hills, revealed as a part of the en-
chantment. Then slowly resolving and melting away after
the manner of dreams, the wide spaces of the mystery
drew closer and warmer, and a great centre of blazing logs
threw grotesque, dancing lights among them, and an old,';^
face peered out with bright, keen eyes, now seen, now lost
in the fitful shadows, now pale and appealing or cautiously
withdrawn, but always watching — watching while the
little crooked being came and watched also. Then be-
tween him and the blazing light came a dark figure sil-
houetted blackly against it, moving, stooping, rising,
going and coming — a sweet girl's head with heavily
coiled hair through which the firelight played with flashes
of its own color, and a delicate profile cut in pure, clean lines
melting into throat and gently rounded breast; like a
spirit, now here, now gone, again near and bending over
him, — a ministering spirit bringing him food, — until

25

26 The Mountain Girl

gradually this half wake, dreaming reminiscence concen-
trated upon her, and again he saw her standing holding the
candle high and looking up at him, — a wondering, ques-
tioning spirit, — then drooping wearily into the chair by the
uncleared table, and again waiting with almost a smile on
her parted lips as he said "good night." Good night?
Ah, yes. It was morning.

Again he heard the continuous rushing noise to which
he had listened in the white mystery, that had soothed
him to slumber the night before, rising and falling —
never ceasing. He roused himself with sudden energy and
bounded from his couch. He would go out and inves-
tigate. His sleep had been sound, and he felt a rejuve-
nation he had not experienced in many months. When
he threw open the shutter of the large unglazed window
space and looked out on his strange surroundings, he
found himself in a new world, sparkling, fresh, clear,
shining with sunlight and glistening with wetness, as though
the whole earth had been newly washed and varnished.
The sunshine streamed in and warmed him, and the air,
filled with winelike fragrance, stirred his blood and set
his pulses leaping.

He had been too exhausted the previous evening to do
more than fall into the bed which had been provided him
and sleep his long, uninterrupted sleep. Now he saw
why they had called this part of the home the loom shed,
for between the two windows stood a cloth loom left just
as it had been used, the warp like a tightly stretched
veil of white threads, and the web of cloth begun.

In one corner were a few bundles of cotton, one of
which had been torn open and the contents placed in a
thick layer over the long bench on which he had slept,
and covered with a blue and white homespun counter-
pane. The head had been built high with it, and sheets
spread over all. He noticed the blankets which had
covered him, and saw that they were evidently of home
manufacture, and that the white spread which covered
them was also of coarse, clean homespun, ornamented
in squares with rude, primitive needlework. He mar-
velled at the industry here represented.

As for his toilet, the preparation had been most simple.
A shelf placed on pegs driven between the logs supported

Aunt Sally meets Frale 27

a piece of looking-glass ; a splint chair set against the wall
served as wash-stand and towel-rack — the homespun
cotton towels neatly folded and hung over the back ;
a wooden pail at one side was filled with clear water, over
which hung a dipper of gourd; a white porcelain basin
was placed on the chair, over which a clean towel had
been spread, and to complete all, a square cut from the
end of a bar of yellow soap lay beside the basin.

David smiled as he bent himself to the refreshing task
of bathing in water so cold as to be really icy. Indeed,
ice had formed over still pools without during the night,
although now fast disappearing under the glowing morn-
ing sun. Above his head, laid upon cross-beams, were
bundles of wool uncarded, and carding-boards hung from
nails in the logs. In one corner was a rudely constructed
reel, and from the loom dangled the idle shuttle filled
with fine blue yarn of wool. Thryng thought of the worn
old hands which had so often thrown it, and thinking
of them he hastened his toilet that he might go in and
do what he could to help the patient. It was small enough
return for the kindness shown him. He feared to offer
money for his lodgment, at least until he could find a
way.

At last, full of new vigor and very hungry, he issued
from his sleeping-room, sadly in need of a shave, but
biding his time, satisfied if only breakfast might be forth-
coming. He had no need to knock, for the house door
stood open, flooding the place with sunlight and frosty
air. The huge pile of logs was blazing on the hearth
as if it had never ceased since the night before, and the
flames leaped hot and red up the great chimney.

Old Sally no longer presided at the cookery. With
a large cup of black coffee before her, she now sat at the
table eating corn-bread and bacon. A drooping black
sunbonnet on her head covered her unkempt, grizzly hair,
and a cob pipe and bag of tobacco lay at her hand. She
was ready for departure. Cassandra had returned, and
her gratuitous neighborly offices were at an end. The
girl was stooping before the fire, arranging a cake of corn-
bread to cook in the ashes. A crane swung over the
flames on which a fat iron kettle was hung, and the large
coffee-pot stood on the hearth. The odor of breakfast was

28 ' The Mountain Girl

savory and appetizing. As David's tall form cast a shadow
across the sunlit space on the floor, the old mother's voice
called to him from the corner.

"Come right in, Doctah; take a cheer and set. Your
breakfast's ready, I reckon. How have you slept, suh V

The girl at the fire rose and greeted him, but he missed
the boy. "Where's the httle chap .^ " he asked.

" Cassandry sont him out to wash up. F'ust thing
she do when she gets home is to begin on Hoyle and wash
him up."

"He do get that dirty, poor little son," said the girl.
"It's like I have to torment him some. Will you have
breakfast now, suh .^ Just take your chair to the table,
and I'll fetch it directly."

"Won't I, though! What air you have up here! It
makes me hungry merely to breathe. Is it this way all
the time ^ "

"Hit's this-a-way a good deal," said Sally, from under
her sunbonnet. "Oh, the' is days hit's some colder,
like to make water freeze right hard, but most days hit's
a heap warmer than this."

"That's so," said the invalid. "I hev seen it so warm
a heap o' winters 'at the trees gits fooled into thinkin' hit's
spring an' blossoms all out, an' then come along a late
freez'n' spell an' gits ther fruit all killed. Hit's quare
how they does do that-a-way. We-all hates it when the
days come warm in Feb'uary."

"Then you must have been glad to have snow yester-
day. I was disappointed. I was running away from
that sort of thing, you know."

Thryng's breakfast was served to him as had been
his supper of the evening before, directly from the fire.
As he ate he looked out upon the usual litter of corn fodder
scattered about near the house, and a few implements of
the simplest character for cultivating the small pocket of
rich soil below, but beyond this and surrounding it was
a scene of the wildest beauty. Giant forest trees, inter-
twined and almost overgrown by a tangle of wild grape-
vines, hid the fall from sight, and behind them the moun-
tain rose abruptly. A continuous stream of clearest
water, icy cold, fell from high above into a long trough
made of a hollow log. There at the running water stood

Aunt Sally meets Frale 29

little Hoyle, his coarse cotton towel hung on an azalia
shrub, giving himself a thorough scrubbing. In a moment
he came in panting, shivering, and shining, and still wet
about the hair and ears.

"Why, you are not half dry, son," said his sister. She
took the towel from him and gave his head a vigorous
rubbing. " Go and get warm, honey, and sister'U give
you breakfast by the fire." She turned to David : " Likely
you take milk in your coffee. I never thought to ask
you." She left the room and returned with a cup of
new milk, warm and sweet. He was glad to get it,
finding his black coffee sweetened only with molasses
unpalatable.

"Don't you take milk in your coffee.'^ How came you
to think of it for me ? "

"I knew a lady at the hotel last summer. She said
that up no*th 'most everybody does take milk or cream,
one, in their coffee."

" I never seed sech. Hit's clar waste to my thinkin'."

Cassandra smiled. "That's because you never could
abide milk. Mothah thinks it's only fit to make buttah
and raise pigs on."

Old Sally's horse, a thin, wiry beast, gray and speckled,
stood ready saddled near the door, his bridle hanging
from his neck, the bit dangling while he also made his
repast. When he had finished his corn and she had
finished her elaborate farewells at the bedside, and little
Hoyle had with much effort succeeded in bridling her
steed, she stepped quickly out and gained her seat on the
high, narrow saddle with the ease of a young girl. Meagre
as a willow withe in her scant black cotton gown, perched
on her bony gray beast, and only the bowl of her cob
pipe projecting beyond the rim of her sunbonnet as indi-
cation that a face might be hidden in its depths, with a
meal sack containing in either end sundry gifts — salt pork,
chicken, corn-bread, and meal — slung over the horse's back
behind her, and with contentment in her heart. Aunt
Sally rode slowly over the hills to rejoin her old man.

Soon she left the main road and struck out into a steep,
narrow trail, merely a mule track arched with hornbeam
and dogwood and mulberry trees, and towered over by

30 The Mountain Girl

giant chestnuts and oaks and great white pines and deep
green hemlocks. Through myriad leafless branches the
wind soughed pleasantly overhead, unfelt by her, so com-
pletely was she protected by the thickly growing laurel
and rhododendron on either side of her path. The snow
of the day before was gone, leaving only the glistening
wetness of it on stones and fallen leaves and twigs under-
foot, while in open spaces the sun beat warmly down
upon her.

The trail led by many steep scrambles and sharp de-
scents more directly to her home than the road, which
wound and turned so frequently as to more than double
the distance. At intervals it cut across the road or fol-
lowed it a little w^ay, only to diverge again. Here and
there other trails crossed it or branched from it, leading
higher up the mountain, or off into some gorge following
the course of a stream, so that, except to one accustomed
to its intricacies, the path might easily be lost.

Old Sally paid no heed to her course, apparently leav-
ing the choice of trails to her horse. She sat easily on the
beast and smoked her pipe until it was quite out, when she
stowed it away in the black cloth bag, which dangled from
her elbow by its strings. Spying a small sassafras shrub
leaning toward her from the bank above her head, she gave
it a vigorous pull as she passed and drew it, root and all,
from its hold in the soil, beat it against the mossy bank,
and swished it upon her skirt to remove the earth cling-
ing to it. Then, breaking off a bit of the root, she chewed
it, while she thrust the rest in her bag and used the top
for a switch with which to hasten the pace of her nag.

The small stones, loosened when she tore the shrub
from the bank, rattled down where the soil had been
washed away, leaving the steep shelving rock side of the
mountain bare, and she heard them leap the smooth space
and fall softly on the moss among the ferns and lodged
leaves below. There, crouched in the sun, lay a man
with a black felt hat covering his face. The stones falling
about him caused him to raise himself stealthily and peer
upward. Descrying only the lone woman and the gray
horse, he gave a low peculiar cry, almost like that of an
animal in distress. She drew rein sharply and listened.
The cry was repeated a little louder.

Aunt Sally meets Frale 31

"Come on up hyar, Frale. Hit's on'y me. Hu' come

you thar ?**

He climbed rapidly up through the dense undergrowth,
and stood at her side, breathing quickly. For a moment
they waited thus, regarding each other, neither speaking.
The boy — he seemed little more than a youth — looked
up at her with a singularly innocent and appealing ex-
pression, but gradually as he saw her impassive and un-
relenting face, his own resumed a hard and sullen look,
which made him appear years older. His forehead was
damp and cold, and a lock of silken black hair, slightly
curling over it, increased its whiteness. Dark, heavy rings
were under his eyes, which gleamed blue as the sky be-
tween long dark lashes. His arms dropped listlessly at
his side, and he stood before her, as before a dread judge,
bareheaded and silent. He bore her look only for a minute,
then dropped his eyes, and his hand clinched more tightly
the rim of his old felt hat. When he ceased looking at
her, her eyes softened.

"I 'low ye mus' hev suthin' to say fer yourse'f," she
said.

"I reckon." The corners of his mouth drooped, and
he did not look up. He made as if to speak further, but
only swallowed and was silent.

*'Ye reckon.'' Waal, why 'n't ye say .^^ "

**They hain't nothin' to say. He war mean an' — an' —
he's dade. I reckon he's dade."

"Yas, he's dade — an' they done had the buryin'."
Her voice was monotonous and plaintive. A pallor swept
over his face, and he drew the back of his hand across
his mouth.

**He knowed he hadn't ought to rile me like he done.
I be'n tryin' to make his hoss go home, but I cyan't.
Hit jes' hangs round thar. I done brung him down an'
lef him in your shed, an' I 'lowed p'rhaps Uncle Jerry'd
take him ovah to his paw." Again he swallowed and
turned his face away. "The critter 'd starve up yander.
Anyhow, I ain't hoss stealin'. Hit war mo'n a hoss 'twixt
him an' me." From the low, quiet tones of the two no
one would have dreamed that a tragedy lay beneath their
words.

"Look a-hyar, Frale. Thar wa'n't nothin' 'twixt him

32 The Mountain Girl

an' you. Ye war both on ye full o' mean corn whiskey,
an' ye war quarrellin' 'bouts Cass." A faint red stole into
the boy's cheeks, and the blue gleam of his eyes between
the dark lashes narrowed to a mere line, as he looked an
instant in her face and then off up the trail.

*' Hain't ye seed nobody .^^ " he asked.

"You knows I hain't seed nobody to hurt you-uns
*thout I'd tell ye. Look a-hyar, son, you are hungerin'.
Come home with me, an' I'll get ye suthin' to eat. Ef you
don't, ye'll go back an' fill up on whiskey agin, an' thar'll
be the end of ye." He walked on a few steps at her side,
then stopped suddenly.

"I 'low I better bide whar I be. You-uns hain't been
yandah to the fall, have ye .'^ "

*'I have. You done a heap mo'n you reckoned on.
When Marthy heered o' the killin', she jes' drapped whar
she stood. She war out doin' work 'at you'd ought to 'a'
been doin' fer her, an' she hain't moved sence. She like
to 'a' perished lyin' out thar. Pore little Hoyle, he run all
the way to our place he war that skeered, an' 'lowed she
war dade, an' me an' the ol' man went ovah, an' thar we
found her lyin' in the yard, an' the cow war lowin' to be
milked, an' the pig squeelin' like hit war stuck, fer hunger.
Hit do make me clar plumb mad when I think how you hev
acted, — jes' like you' paw. Ef he'd nevah 'a' started
that thar still, you'd nevah 'a' been what ye be now,
a-drinkin' yer own whiskey at that. Come on home with

me."

"I reckon I'm bettah hyar. They mount be thar
huntin' me."

"I know you're hungerin*. I got suthin' ye can eat,
but I 'lowed if you'd come, I'd get you an' the ol' man
a good chick'n fry." She took from her stores, slung over
the nag, a piece of corn-bread and a large chunk of salt
pork, and gave them into his hand. "Thar ! Eat. Hit's
heart 'nin'."

He was suffering, as she thought, and reached eagerly
for the food, but before tasting it he looked up again into
her face, and the infantile appeal had returned to his eyes.

"Tell me more 'bouts maw," he said.

"You eat, an' I'll talk," she replied. He broke a large
piece from the corn-cake and crowded the rest into his

Aunt Sally meets Frale 33

pocket. Then he drew forth a huge clasp-knife and cut
a thick sHce from the raw salt pork, and pulhng a red cotton
handkerchief from his belt, he wrapped it around the re-
mamder and held it under his arm as he ate.

"She hain't able to move 'thout hollerin', she's that
bad hurted. Paw an* I, we got her to bed, an' I been
thar ever since with all to do ontwell Cass come. Likely
she done broke her hip."

"Is Cass thar now ? Hu' come she thar ?" Again the
blood sought his cheeks.

"Paw rode down to the settlement and telegrafted fer
her. Pore thing! You don't reckon what-all you have
done. I wisht you'd 'a' took aftah your maw. She war
my own sister, 'nd she war that good she must 'a' went
straight to glory when she died. Your paw, he like
to 'a' died too that time, an' when he married Marthy
Merlin, I reckoned he war cured o' his ways ; but hit
did'n' last long. Marthy, she done well by him, an' she
done well by 3^ou, too. They hain't nothin' agin Marthy.
She be'n a good stepmaw to ye, she hev, an' now see how
you done her, an' Cass givin' up her school an' comin'
home thar to ten' beastes an' do your work like she war
a man. Her family wa'n't brought up that-a-way, nor
mine wa'n't neither. Big fool Marthy war to marry with
your paw. Hit's that-a-way with all the Farwells; they
been that quarellin' an' bad, makin' mean whiskey an'
drinkin' hit raw, killin' hyar an' thar, an' now you go
doin' the same, an' my own nephew, too." Her face re-
mained impassive, and her voice droned on monotonously,
but two tears stole down her wrinkled cheeks. His face
settled into its harder lines as she talked, but he made no
reply, and she continued querulously : "Why'n't you pay
heed to me long ago, when I tol' ye not to open that thar
still again ? You are a heap too young to go that-a-way,
— my own kin, like to be hung fer man-killin'."

"WTien did Cass come?" he interrupted sullenly.
Las evenm .

"I'll drap 'round thar this evenin' er late night, I reckon.
I have to get feed fer my own hoss an' tote hit up er take
him back — one. All I fetched up last week he done et."
He turned to walk away, but stood with averted head as
she began speaking again.

34 ' The Mountain Girl

"Don't you do no such fool thing. You keep clar o*
thar. Bring the hoss to me, an* I'll ride him home. What
you want o' the beast on the mountain, anyhow ? Hit's
only like to give away whar ye'r' at. All you want is to git
to see Cass, but hit won't do you no good, leastways not
now. You done so bad she won't look at ye no more,
I reckon. They is a man thar, too, now." He started
back, his hands clinched, his head lifted, in his whole air
an animal-like ferocity. "Thar now, look at ye. 'Tain't
you he's after."

" 'Tain't me I'm feared he's after. How come he thar ^ "

"He come with her las' evenin' — " A sound of horses'
hoofs on the road far below arrested her. They both
waited, listening intently. "Thar they be. Git," she
whispered. "Cass tol' me ef I met up with ye, to say 'at
she'd leave suthin' fer ye to eat on the big rock 'hind the
holly tree at the head o' the fall." She leaned down to
him and held him by the coat an instant, "Son, leave
whiskey alone. Hit's the only way you kin do to get her."

"Yas, Aunt Sally," he murmured. His eyes thanked
her with one look for the tone or the hope her words held
out.

Again the laugh, nearer this time, and again the wild
look of haunting fear in his face. He dropped where he
stood and slipped stealthily as a cat back to the place
where he had lain, and crawling on his belly toward a
heap of dead leaves caught by the brush of an old fallen
pine, he crept beneath them and lay still. His aunt did
not stir. Patting her horse's neck, she sat and waited
until the voices drew nearer, came close beneath her as the
road wound, and passed on. Then she once more moved
along toward her cabin.

CHAPTER IV

DAVID SPENDS HIS FIRST DAY AT HIS CABIN, AND FRALE

]VIAKES HIS CONFESSION

Doctor Hoyle had built his cabin on one of the pinna-
cles of the earth, and David, looking down on blue bil-
lowing mountain tops with only the spaces of the air
between him and heaven — between him and the ocean —
between him and his fair English home — felt that he
knew why the old doctor had chosen it.

Seated on a splint-bottomed chair in the doorway,
pondering, he thought first of his mother, with a little
secret sorrow that he could not have taken to his heart the
bride she had selected for him, and settled in his own home
to the comfortable ease the wife's wealth would have se-
cured for him. It was not that the money had been made
in commerce ; he was neither a snob nor a cad. Although
his own connections entitled him to honor, what more
could he expect than to marry wealth and be happy, if
— if happiness could come to either of them in that way.
No, his heart did not lean toward her ; it was better that
he should bend to his profession in a strange land. But
not this, to live a hermit's life in a cabin on a wild hilltop.
How long must it be — how long ?

Brooding thus, he gazed at the distance of ever paling
blue, and mechanically counted the ranges and peaks
below him. An inaccessible tangle of laurel and rhodo-
dendron clothed the rough and precipitous w^ali of the
mountain side, which fell sheer down until lost in purple
shadow, with a mantle of green, deep and rich, varied by
the gray of the lichen-covered rocks, the browns and reds
of the bare branches of deciduous trees, and the paler
tints of feathery pines. Here and there, from damp,
spring^^ places, dark hemlocks rose out of the mass, tall
and majestic, waving their plumy tops, giant sentinels
of the wilderness.

Gradually his mood of brooding retrospect changed,
and he knew himself to be glad to his heart's core. He

35

36 The Mountain Girl

could understand why, out of the turmoil of the Middle
Ages, men chose to go to sequestered places and become
hermits. No tragedies could be in this primeval spot,
and here he would rest and build again for the future.
He was pleased to sit thus musing, for the climb had taken
more strength than he could well spare. His cabin was
not yet habitable, for the simple things Doctor Hoyle had
accumulated to serve his needs were still locked in well-
built cupboards, as he had left them.

Thryng meant soon to go to work, to take out the bed
covers and air them, and to find the canvas and nail it
over the framework beside the cabin which was to serve
as a sleeping apartment. All should be done in time.
That was a good framework, strongly built, with the corner
posts set deep in the ground to keep it firm on this wind-
swept height, and with a door in the side of the cabin
opening into the canvas room. Ah, yes, all that the old
doctor did was well and thoroughly done.

His appetite sharpened by the climb and the bracing air,
David investigated the contents of one of those melon-
shaped baskets which Cassandra had given him when
he started for his new home that morning, with little Hoyle
as his guide.

Ah, what hospitable kindness they had shown to him,
a stranger ! Here were delicate bits of fried chicken, sweet
and white, corn-bread, a glass of honey, and a bottle of
milk. Nothing better need a man ask ; and what animals
men are, after all, he thought, taking delight in the mere
acts of eating and breathing and sleeping.

Utterly weary, he would not trouble to open the cot
which lay in the cabin, but rolled himself in his blanket
on the wide, flat rock at the verge of the mountain. Here,
warmed by the sun, he lay with his face toward the blue
distance and slept dreamlessly and soundly, — very
soundly, for he was not awakened by a crackling of the
brush and scrambling of feet struggling up the mountain
wall below his hard resting-place. Yet the sound kept
on, and soon a head appeared above the rock, and two
hands were placed upon it ; then a strong, catlike spring
landed the lithe young owner of the head only a few feet
away from the sleeper.

It was Frale, his soft felt hat on the back of his head

Frale's Confession 37

and the curl of dark hair falHng upon his forehead. For
an instant, as he gazed on the sleeping figure, the wild look
of fear was in his eyes ; then, as he bethought himself of
the words of Aunt Sally, "They is a man thar," the ex-
pression changed to one more malevolent and repulsive,
transforming and aging the boyish face. Cautiously
he crept nearer, and peered into the face of the uncon-
scious Englishman. His hands clinched and his lips
tightened, and he made a movement with his foot as if
he would spurn him over the cliff.

As suddenly the moment passed ; he drew back in shame
and looked down at his hands, blood-guilty hands as he
knew them to be, and, with lowered head, he moved swiftly
away.

He was a youth again, hungry and sad, stumbling along
the untrodden way, avoiding the beaten path, yet un-
erringly taking his course toward the cleft rock at the head
of the fall behind the great holly tree. It was not the food
Cassandra had promised him that he wanted now, but
to look into the eyes of one who would pity and love him.
Heartsick and weary as he never had been in all his young
life, lonely beyond bearing, he hurried along.

As he forced a path through the undergrowth, he heard
the sound of a mountain stream, and, seeking it, he followed
along its rocky bed, leaping from one huge block of stone
to another, and swinging himself across by great over-
hanging sycamore boughs, drawing, by its many windings,
nearer and nearer to the spot where it precipitated itself
over the mountain wall. Ever the noise of the water
grew louder, until at last, making a slight detour, he came
upon the very edge of the descent, where he could look
down and see his home nestled in the cove at the foot of
the fall, the blue smoke curling upward from its great
chimney.

He seated himself upon a jutting rock well screened by
laurel shrubs on all sides but the one toward the fall.
There, his knees clasped about with his arms, and his
chin resting upon them, he sat and watched.

Behind the leafage and tangle of bare stems and twigs,
he was so far above and so directly over the spot on which
his gaze was fixed as to be out of the usual range of sight
from below, thus enabling him to see plainly what was

38 The Mountain Girl

transpiring about the house and sheds, without himself
being seen.

Long and patiently he waited. Once a dog barked, —
his own dog Nig. Some one must be approaching. What
if the little creature should seek him out and betray him !
He quivered with the thought. The day before he had
driven him down the mountain, beating him off whenever
he returned. Should the animal persist in tracking him,
he would kill him.

He peered more eagerly down, and saw little Hoyle run
out of the cow shed and twist himself this way and thai
to see up and down the road. Both the child and the dog
seemed excited. Yes, there they were, three horsemen
coming along the highway. Now they were dismounting
and questioning the boy. Now they disappeared in the
house. He did not move. Why were they so long within ?
Hours, it seemed to Frale, but in reality it was only a short
search they were making there. They were longer looking
about the sheds and yard. Hoyle accompanied them
everywhere, his hands in his pockets, standing about,
shivering with excitement.

All around they went peering and searching, thrusting
their arms as far as they could reach into the stacks of
fodder, looking into troughs and corn sacks, setting the
fowls to cackling wildly, even hauling out the long corn
stalks from the wagon which had served to make Thryng's
ride the night before comfortable. No spot was over-
looked.

Frequently they stood and parleyed. Then Frale's
heart would sink within him. What if they should set
Nig to track him ! Ah, he would strangle the beast and
pitch him over the fall. He would spring over after him
before he would let himself be taken and hanged. Oh,
he could feel the strangling rope around his neck already !
He could not bear it — he could not !

Thus cowering, he waited, starting at every sound from
below as if to run, then sinking back in fear, breathless
with the pounding of his heart in his breast. Now the
voices came up to him painfully clear. They were talking
to little Hoyle angrily. What they were saying he could
not make out, but he again cautiously lifted his head and
looked below. Suddenly the child drew back and lifted

Frale's Confession 39

his arm as if to ward off a blow, but the blow came. Frale
saw one of the men turn as he mounted his horse to ride
away, and cut the boy cruelly across his face and arm
with his rawhide whip. The little one's shriek of fright
and pain pierced his big brother to the heart and caused
him to forget for the moment his own abject fear.

He made as if he would leap the intervening space to
punish the brute, but a cry of anger died in his throat
as he realized his situation. The selfishness of his fear,
however, was dispelled, and he no longer cringed as be-
fore, but had the courage again to watch, awake and alert
to all that passed beneath him.

Hoyle's cry brought Cassandra out of the house flying.
She walked up to the man like an angry tigress. Frale
rose to his knees and strained eagerly forward.

"If you are such a coward you must hit something
small and weak, you can strike a woman. Hit me," she
panted, putting the child behind her.

Muttering, the man rode sullenly away. "He no busi-
ness hangin' roun' we-uns, list'nin' to all we say."

Frale could not make out the words, but his face burned
red with rage. Had he been in hiding down below, he
would have wreaked vengeance on the man ; as it was, he
stood up and boldly watched them ride away in the oppo-
site direction from which they had come.

He sank back and waited, and again the hours passed.
All was still but the rushing water and the gentle soughing
of the wind in the tops of the towering pines. At last he
heard a rustling and sniffing here and there. His heart
stood still, then pounded again in terror. They had —
they had set Nig to track him. Of course the dog would
seek for his old friend and comrade, and they — they
would wait until they heard his bark of joy, and then they
would seize him.

He crept close to the rock where the water rushed, not
a foot away, and clinging to the tough laurel behind him,
leaned far over. To drop down there would mean instant
death on the rocks below. It would be terrible — almost
as horrible as the strangling rope. He would wait until
they were on him, and then — nearer and nearer came the
erratic trotting and scratching of the dog among the
leaves — and then, if only he could grapple with the man

40 The Mountain Girl

who had struck his little brother, he would drag him over
with him. A look of fierce joy leaped in his eyes, which
were drawn to a narrow blue gleam as he waited.

Suddenly Nig burst through the undergrowth and sprang
to his side, but before the dog could give his first bark of
delight the yelp was crushed in his throat, and he was
hurled with the mighty force of frenzy, a black, writhing
streak of animate nature into the rushing water, and there
swept down, tossed on the rocks, taken up and swirled
about and thrown again upon the rocks, no longer animate,
but a part of nature's own, to return to 'his primal ele-
ments.

It was done, and Frale looked at his hands helplessly,
feeling himself a second time a murderer. Yet he was in
no way more to blame for the first than for this. As yet
a boy untaught by life, he had not learned what to do with
the forces within him. They rose up madly and mastered
him. With a man's power to love and hate, a man's
instincts, his untamed nature ready to assert itself for
tenderness or cruelty, without a man's knowledge of the
necessity for self-control, where some of his kind would
have been inert and listless, his inheritance had made him
intense and fierce. Loving and gentle and kind he could
be, yet when stirred by liquor, or anger, or fear, — most
terrible.

His deed had been accomplished with such savage
deftness that none pursuing could have guessed the trag-
edy. They might have waited long in the open spaces
for the dog's return or the sound of his joyous yelp of recog-
nition, but the sacrifice was needless. The affectionate
creature had been searching on his own behalf, careless
of the blows with which his master had driven him from
his side the day before.

Trembling, Frale crouched again. The silence was filled
with pain for him. The moments swept on, even as the
water rushed on, and the sun began to drop behind the
hills, leaving the hollows in deepening purple gloom. At
last, deeming that the search for the time must have been
given up, he crept cautiously toward the great holly tree,
not for food, but for hope. There, back in the shadow,
he sat on a huge log, his head bowed between his hands,
and listened.
'4t

Frale's Confession 41

Presently the silence was broken by a gentle stirring of
the fallen leaves, not erratically this time, only a steady
moving forward of human feet. Again Frale's heart
bounded and the red sought his cheek, but now with a new
emotion. He knew of but one footstep which would ad-
vance toward his ambush in that way. Peering out from
among the deepest shadows, he watched the spot where
Cassandra had promised food should be placed for him,
his eyes no longer a narrow slit of blue, but wide and glad,
his face transformed from the strain of fear with eager

joy.

Soon she emerged, walking wearily. She carried a
bundle of food tied in a cloth, and an old overcoat of rough
material trailed over one arm. These she deposited on the
flat stone, then stood a moment leaning against the smooth
gray bole of the holly tree, breathing quickly from the
exertion of the steep climb.

Her eyes followed the undulating line of the mountain
above them, rising tree-fringed against the sky, to where the
highest peak cut across the setting sun, haloed by its long
rays of gold. No cloud was there, but sweeping down
the mountain side were the earth mists, glowing with
iridescent tints, draping the crags and floating over the
purple hollows, the verdure of the pines showing through
it all, gilded and glorified.

Cassandra waiting there might have been the dryad of
the tree come out to worship in the evening light and grow
beautiful. So Thryng would have thought, could he have
seen her with the glow on her face, and in her eyes, and
lighting up the fires in her hair ; but no such classic dream
came to the youth lingering among the shadows, ashamed
to appear before her, bestowing on her a dumb adoration,
unformed and wordless.

Because his friend had maudlinly boasted that he was
the better man in her eyes, and could any day win her for
himself, he had killed him. Despite all the anguish the
deed had wrought in his soul, he felt unrepentant now,
as his eyes rested on her. He would do it again, and yet
it was that very boast that had first awakened in his heart
such thought of her.

For years Cassandra had been as his sister, although no
tie of blood existed between them, but suddenly the idea of

42 The Mountain Girl

possession had sprung to life in him, when another had
assumed the right as his. Frale had not looked on her
since that moment of revelation, of which she was so igno-
rant and so innocent. Now, filled with the shame of his
deed and his desires, he stood in a torment of longing,
not daring to move. His knees shook and his arms ached
at his sides, and his eyes filled with hot tears.

Quickly the sun dropped below the edge of the moun-
tain. Cassandra drew a long sigh, and the glow left her
face. She looked an instant lingeringly at the articles
she had brought, and turned sadly away. Then he took
a step toward her with hands outstretched, forgetful of
his shame, and all, except that she was slipping away from
him. Arrested by the sound of his feet among the leaves,
she spoke.

"Frale, are you there?" Her voice was low as if she
feared other ears than his might hear.

He did not move again, and speak he could not, for
remembrance rushed back stiflingly and overwhelmed
him. Descrying his white face in the shadow, a pity as
deep as his shame filled her heart and drew her nearer.

"Why, Frale, come out here. No one can see you,
only me.'*

Still tongue-tied by his emotion, he came into the light
and stood near her. In dismay she looked up in his
face. The big boy brother who had taken her to the
little Carew Crossing station only two months before,
rough and prankish as the colt he drove, but gentle withal,
was gone. He who stood at her side was older. Anger
had left its mark about his mouth, and fear had put a
strange wildness in his eyes — but — there was something
else in his reckless, set lips that hurt her. She shrank
from him, and he took a step closer. Then she placed a
soothing hand on his arm and perceived he was quivering.
She thought she understood, and the soft pity moistened
her eyes and deepened in her heart.

"Don't be afraid, Frale; they're gone long ago, and
won't come back — not for a while, I reckon."

He smiled faintly, never taking his eyes from her face.
"I hain't afeared o' them. I hev been, but — " He
shook her hand from his arm and made as if he would push
her away, then suddenly he leaned toward her and caught

Frale*s Confession 43

her in his arms, clasping her so closely that she could
feel his wildly beating heart.

"Frale, Frale ! Don't, Frale. You never used to do
me this way."

"No, I never done you this-a-way. I wisht I had. I
be'n a big fool." He kissed her, the first kisses of his
young manhood, on brow and cheeks and lips, in spite of
her useless wri things. He continued muttering as he held
her: *'I sinned fer you. I killed a man. He said he'd
hev you. He 'lowed he'd go down yander to the school
whar you war at an' marry you an' fetch you back. I
war a fool to 'low you to go thar fer him to foUer an' get
you. I killed him. He's dade."

The short, interrupted sentences fell on her ears like
blows. She ceased struggling and, drooping upon his
bosom, wept, sobbing heart-brokenly.

"Oh, Frale!" she moaned, "if you had only told me,
I could have given you my promise and you would have
known he was lying and spared him and saved your own
soul." He little knew the strength of his arms as he held
her. "Frale! I am like to perish, you are hurting me so."

He loosed her and she sank, a weary, frightened heap,
at his feet. Then very tenderly he gathered her in his
arms and carried her to the great flat rock and placed her
on the old coat she had brought him.

"You know I wouldn't hurt you fer the hull world,
Cass." He knelt beside her, and throwing his arms across
her lap buried his face in her dress, still trembling with his
unmastered emotion. She thought him sobbing.

"Can you give me your promise now, Cass ?'*

"Now ? Now, Frale, your hands are blood-guilty," she
said, slowly and hopelessly.

He grew cold and still, waiting in the silence. His
hands clutched her clothing, but he did not lift his head.
He had shed blood and had lost her. They might take
him and hang him. At last he told her so, brokenly, and
she knew not what to do.

Gently she placed her hand on his head and drew the
thick silken hair through her fingers, and the touch, to
his stricken soul, was a benediction. The pity of her
cooled the fever in his blood and swept over his spirit
the breath of healing. For the first time, after the sin

44 The Mountain Girl

and the horror of it, after the passion and its anguish,
came tears. He wept and wiped his tears with her dress.

Then she told him how her mother had been hurt.
How Hoyle had driven the half-broken colt and the mule
all the way to Carew's alone, to bring her home, and how
he had come nigh being killed. How a gentleman had
helped her when the colt tried to run and the mule was
mean, and how she had brought him home with her.

Then he lifted his head and looked at her, his haggard
face drawn with suffering, and the calmness of her eyes
still further soothed and comforted him. They were
filled with big tears, and he knew the tears were for him,
for the change which had come upon him, lonely and
wretched, doomed to hide out on the mountain, his clothes
torn by the brambles and soiled by the red clay of the
holes into which he had crawled to hide himself. He rose
and sat at her side and held her head on his shoulder
with gentle hand.

"Pore little sister — pore little Cass! I been awful
mean an' bad," he murmured. "Hit's a badness I cyan't
'count fer no ways. When I seed that thar doc t ah man

— I reckon hit war him I seed lyin' asleep up yander on
Hangin' Rock — a big tall man, right thin an' white in the
face — " he paused and swallowed as if loath to continue.

"Frale ! " she cried, and would have drawn away but that
he held her.

"L didn't hurt him, Cass. I mount hev. I lef him lie
thar an' never woke him nor teched him, but — I felt hit
here — the badness." He struck his chest with his fist.
"I lef thar fast an' come here. Ever sence I killed Ferd,
hit's be'n follerin' me that-a-way. I reckon I'm cursed
to hell-fire fer hit now, ef they take me er ef they don't

— hit's all one ; hit's thar whar I'm goin' at the las'."
"Frale, there is a way — "

"Yes, they is one way — only one. Ef you'll give me
your promise, Cass, I'll get away down these mountains,
an' I'll work ; I'll work hard an' get you a house like one
I seed to the settlement, Cass, I will. Hit's you, Cass.
Ever sence Ferd said that word, I be'n plumb out'n my
hade. Las' night I slep' in Wild Cat Hole, an' I war that
hungered an' lone, I tried to pray like your maw done
teached me, an' I couldn' think of nothin' to say, on'y

Frale's Confession 45

just, ' Oh, Lord, Cass ! ' That-a-way — on*y your name,
Cass, Cass, all night long."

'*I reckon Satan put my name in your heart, Frale;
'pears to me like it is sin."

"Naw ! Satan nevah put your name thar. He don't
meddle with sech as you. He war a-tryin' to get your
name out'n my heart, that's what he war tryin', fer he
knowed I'd go bad right quick ef he could. Hit war your
name kep' my hands off'n that doctah man thar on the
rock. Give me your promise now, Cass. Hit'll save
me."

"Then why didn't it save you from killing Ferd.^" she
asked.

"O Gawd !" he moaned, and was silent.

"Listen, Frale," she said at last. "Can't you see it's sin
for you and me to sit here like this — like we dared to be
sweethearts, when j^ou have shed blood for this .^ Take
your hands off me, and let me go down to mothah."

Slowly his hold relaxed and his head drooped, but he
did not move his arms. She pushed them gently from
her and stood a moment looking down at him. His arms
dropped upon the stone at his side, listless and empty,
and again her pitying soul reached out to him and envel-
oped him.

"Frale, there is just one way that I can give you my
promise," she said. He held out his arms to her. "No,
I can't sit that way; you can see that. The good book
says, 'Ye must repent and be born again.'" He groaned
and covered his face with his hands. "Then you would be
a new man, without sin. I reckon you have suffered a
heap, and repented a heap — since you did that, Frale ?"

"I'm 'feared — I'm 'feared ef he war here an' riled me
agin like he done that time — I'm 'feared I'd do hit agin
— like he war talkin' 'bouts you, Cass." He rose and
stood close to her.

The soft dusk was wrapping them about, and she began
to fear lest she lose her control over him. She took up
the bundle of food and placed it in his hand.

"Here, take this, and the coat, too, Frale. Come down
and have suppah with mothah and me to-night, and sleep
in your own bed. They won't search here for one while,
I reckon, and you'll be safah than hiding in Wild Cat Hole.

46 The Mountain Girl

Hoyle heard them say they reckoned you'd lit off down
the mountain, and were hiding in some near-by town.
They'll hunt you there first ; come."

She walked on, and he obediently followed. **When
we get nigh the house, I'll go first and see if the way is
clear. You wait back. If I want you to run, I'll call
twice, quick and sharp, but if I want you to come right in,
I'll call once, low and long."

After that no word was spoken. They clambered down
the steep, winding path, and not far from the house she
left him. She wondered Nig did not bound out to greet
her, but supposed he must be curled up near the hearth in
comfort. Frale also thought of the dog as he sat cowering
under the laurel shrubs, and set his teeth in anguish and
sorrow.

*'Cass'll hate hit when she finds out," he muttered.

After a moment, waiting and listening, he heard her
long, low call float out to him. Falling on his hurt spirit,
it sounded heavenly sweet.

CHAPTER V

IN WHICH CASSANDRA GOES TO DAVID WITH HER TROUBLE,
AND GIVES FRALE HER PROMISE

After his sleep on Hanging Rock, David, allured by the
sunset, remained long in his doorway idly smoking his
pipe, and ruminating, until a normal and delightful hunger
sent him striding down the winding path toward the
blazing hearth where he had found such kindly welcome
the evening before. There, seated tilted back against the
chimney side, he found a huge youth, innocent of face and
gentle of mien, who rose as he entered and offered him his
chair, and smiled and tossed back a falling lock from his
forehead as he gave him greeting.

"This hyar is Doctah Thryng, Frale, who done me up
this-a-way. He 'lows he's goin' to git me well so's I can
walk again. How air you, suh ? You certainly do look a
heap better 'n when you come las' evenin'."

"So I am, indeed. x\ndyou.'^" David's voice rang
out gladly. He went to the bed and bent above the old
woman, looking her over carefully. "Are you comfort-
able ? Do the weights hurt you ? " he asked.

"I cyan't say as they air right comfortable, but ef
they'll help me to git 'round agin, I reckon I can bar hit."

Early that morning, with but the simplest means, David
had arranged bandages and weights of wood to hold her
in position.

She was so slight he hoped the broken hip might right
itself wdth patience and care, more especially as he learned
that her age was not so advanced as her appearance had
led him to suppose.

Now all suspicion of him seemed to have vanished from
the household. Hoyle, happy when the fascinating doctor
noticed him, leaned against his chair, drinking in his words
eagerly. But when Thryng drew him to his knee and
discovered the cruel mark across his face and asked how
it had happened, a curious change crept over them all.
Every face became as expressionless as a mask ; only the

47

48 The Mountain Girl

boy's eyes sought his brother's, then turned with a fright-
ened look toward Cassandra as if seeking help.

Thryng persisted in his examination, and lifted the boy's
face toward the light. If the big brother had done this
deed, he should be made to feel shame for it. The welt
barely escaped the eye, which was swollen and discolored ;
and altogether the face presented a pitiable appearance.

As David talked, the hard look which had been exor-
cised for a time by the gentle influence of that home, and
more than all by the sight of Cassandra performing the
gracious services of the household, settled again upon the
youth's face. His lips were drawn, and his eyes ceased
following Cassandra, and became fixed and narrowed on
one spot.

"You have come near losing that splendid eye of yours,
do you know that, little chap V Hoyle grinned. "It's a
shame, you know. I have something up at the cabin would
help to heal this, but — " he glanced about the room —
" What are those dried herbs up there V^

" Thar is witch hazel yandah in the cupboard. Cass, ye
mount bile some up fer th' doctah," said the mother.
"Tell th' doctah hu-come hit happened, son; you
hain't af eared of him, be ye?" x\ trampling of horse's
hoofs was heard outside. "Go up garret to your own
place, Frale. What ye bid'n here f er ? " she added, in a
hushed voice, but the youth sat doggedly still.

Cassandra went out and quickly returned. " It's your
own horse, Frale. Poor beast ! He's limping like he's
been hurt. He's loose out there. You better look to
him."

" Uncle Carew rode him down an' lef him, I reckon."
Frale rose and went out, and David continued his care of
the child.

"How was it } Did your brother hurt you } "

"Naw. He nevah hurted me all his life. Hit — war
my own se'f — "

Cassandra patted the child on his shoulder. " He can't
beah to tell hu-come he is hurted this w^ay, he is that
proud. It was a mean, bad, coward man fetched him such
a blow across the face. He asked little son something,
and when Hoyle nevah said a word, he just lifted his arm
and hit him, and then rode off like he had pleased him-

Cassandra's Promise 49

self." A flush of anger kindled in her cheeks. "Nevah
mind, son. Doctah can fix you up all right."

A sigh of relief trembled through the boy's lips, and
David asked no more questions.

"You hain't goin' to tie me up that-a-way, be you.^^"
He pointed to the bed whereon his mother lay, and they
all laughed, relieving the tension.

"Naw," shrilled the mother's voice, "but I reckon
doctah mount take off your hade an' set hit on straight
agin."

"I wisht he could," cried the child, no whit troubled by
the suggestion. " I'd bar a heap fer to git my hade straight
like Frale's." Just then his brother entered the room.
"You reckon doctah kin take off my hade an' set hit
straight like you carry yours, Frale ? " Again they all
laughed, and the big youth smiled such a sweet, infantile
smile, as he looked down on his little brother, that David's
heart warmed toward him.

He tousled the boy's hair as he passed and drew him
along to' the chimney side, away from the doctor. "Hit's
a right good hade I'm thinkin' ef hit be set too fer round.
They is a heap in hit, too, more'n they is in mine, I reckon."

" He's gettin' too big to set that-a-way on your knee,
Frale. Ye make a baby of him," said the mother. The
child made an effort to slip down, but Frale's arm closed
more tightly about him, and he nestled back contentedly.

So the evening passed, and Thryng retired early to the
bed in the loom shed. He knew something serious was
amiss, but of what nature he could not conjecture, unless
it were that Frale had been making illicit whiskey. What-
ever it was, he chose to manifest no curiosity.

In the morning he saw nothing of the young man, and as
a warm rain was steadily falling, he was glad to get the
use of the horse, and rode away happily in the rain, mth
food provided for both himself and the beast sufficient
for the day slung in a sack behind him.

"Reckon ye'U come back hyar this evenin'.'*" queried
the old mother, as he adjusted her bandages before leaving.

"I'll see how the cabin feels after I have had a fire in
the chimney all day."

As he left, he paused by Cassandra's side. She was
standing by the spout of running water waiting for her

50 The Mountain Girl

pail to fill. "If it happens that you need me for — any-
thing at all, send Hoyle, and I'll come immediately. Will

you.p"

She lifted her eyes to his gratefully. "Thank you,"
was all she said, but his look impelled more. "You are
right kind," she added.

Hardly satisfied, he departed, but turned in his saddle to
glance back at her. She was swaying sidewise with the
weight of the full pail, straining one slender arm as she
bore it into the house. Who did all the work there, he
wondered. That great youth ought to relieve her of such
tasks. Where was he ? Little did he dream that the
eyes of the great youth were at that moment fixed darkly
upon him from the small pane of glass set in under the
cabin roof, which lighted Frale's garret room.

David stabled the horse in the log shed built by Doctor
Hoyle for his own beast, — for what is life in the mountains
without a horse, — then lingered awhile in his doorway
looking out over the billows of ranges seen dimly through
the fine veil of the falling rain. Ah, wonderful, perfect
world it seemed to him, seen through the veil of the rain.

The fireplace in the cabin was built of rough stone, wide
and high, and there he made him a brisk fire with fat pine
and brushwood. He drew in great logs which he heaped
on the broad stone hearth to dry. He piled them on the
fire until the flames leaped and roared up the chimney, so
long unused. He sat before it, delighting in it like a boy
with a bonfire, and blessed his friend for sending him
there, smoking a pipe in his honor. Among the doctor's
few cooking utensils he found a stout iron tea-kettle and
sallied out again in the wet to rinse it and fill it with fresh
water from the spring. He had had only coffee since leaving
Canada ; now he would have a good cup of decent tea, so
he hung the kettle on the crane and swung it over the fire.

In his search for his tea, most of his belongings were
unpacked and tossed about the room in wild disorder,
and a copy of Marius the Epicurean was brought to
light. His kettle boiled over into the fire, and immediately
the small articles on his pine table were shoved back in
confusion to make room for his tea things, his bottle of
milk, his corn pone, and his book.

Being by this time weary, he threw himself on his couch,

Cassandra's Promise 51

and contentment began — his hot tea within reach, his
door wide open to the sweetness of the day, his fire danc-
ing and crackhng with good cheer, and his book in his
hand. Ah ! The dehcious idleness and rest ! No dis-
orders to heal — no bones to mend — no problems to
solve ; a little sipping of his tea — a little reading of his
book — a little luxuriating in the warmth and the pleasant
odor of pine boughs burning — a little dreamy revery,
watching through the open door the changing lights on
the hills, and listening to an occasional bird note, liquid
and sweet.

The hour drew near to noon and the sky lightened and a
rift of deep blue stretched across the open space before
him. Lazily he speculated as to how he was to get his
provisions brought up to him, and when and how he might
get his mail, but laughed to think how little he cared for
a hundred and one things which had filled his life and
dogged his days ere this. Had he reached Nirvana ?
Nay, he could still hunger and thirst.

A footstep was heard without, and a figure appeared in
his doorway, quietly standing, making no move to enter.
It was Cassandra, and he was pleased.

*'My first visitor !" he exclaimed. "Come in, come in.
I'll make a place for you to sit in a minute." He shoved
the couch away from before the fire, and removing a
pair of trousers and a heap of hose from one of his splint-
bottomed chairs, he threw them in a corner and placed it
before the hearth. "You walked, didn't you ? And your
feet are wet, of course. Sit here and dry them."

She pushed back her sunbonnet and held out to him a
quaint little basket made of willow withes, which she
carried, but she took no step forward. Although her lips
smiled a fleeting wraith of a smile that came and went
in an instant, he thought her eyes looked troubled as she
lifted them to his face.

He took the basket and lifted the cover. " I brought you
some pa'triges," she said simply.

There lay three quail, and a large sweet potato, roasted
in the ashes on their hearth as he had seen the corn pone
baked the evening before, and a few round white cakes
which he afterwards learned were beaten biscuit, all warm
from the fire.

52 The Mountain Girl

*'How am I ever to repay you people for your kindness
to me?" he said. "Come in and dry your feet. Never
mind the mud ; see how I've tracked it in all the morning.
Come."

He led her to the fire, and replenished it, while she sat
passively looking down on the hearth as if she scarcely
heeded him. Not knowing how to talk to her, or what to
do with her, he busied himself trying to bring a semblance
of order to the cabin, occasionally dropping a remark to
which she made no response. Then he also relapsed into
silence, and the minutes dragged — age-long minutes, they
seemed to him.

In his efforts at order, he spread his rug over the couch,
tossed a crimson cushion on it and sundry articles beneath
it to get them out of his way, then occupied himself with
his book, while vainly trying to solve the riddle which his
enigmatical caller presented to his imagination.

All at once she rose, sought out a few dishes from the
cupboard, and, taking a neatly smoothed, coarse cloth
from the basket, spread it over one end of the table and
arranged thereon his dinner. Quietly David watched her,
following her example of silence until forced to speak.
Finally he decided to question her, if only he could think of
questions which would not trespass on her private affairs,
when at last she broke the stillness.

" I can't find any coffee. I ought to have brought some ;
I'll go fetch some if you'll eat now. Your dinner '11 get
cold."

He showed her how he had made tea and was in no need
of coffee. "We'll throw this out and make fresh," he said
gayly. "Then you must have a cup with me. Why, you
have enough to eat here for three people ! " She seemed
weary and sad, and he determined to probe far enough to
elicit some confidence, but the more fluent he became, the
more effectively she withdrew from him.

"See here," he said at last, "sit by the table with me,
and I will eat to your heart's content. I'll prepare you a
cup of tea as I do my own, and then I want you to drink it.
Come."

She yielded. His way of saying "Come" seemed like
a command to be obeyed.

"Nov/, that is more like." He began his dinner with a

Cassandra's Promise 53

relish. ** Won't you share this game with me? It is
fine, you know."

He could not think her silent from embarrassment, for
her poise seemed undisturbed except for the anxious look
in her eyes. He determined to fathom the cause, and
since no finesse availed, there remained but one wav, —
the direct question.

"What is it .^ " he said kindly. "Tell me the trouble, and
let me help you."

She looked full into his eyes then, and her lips quivered.
Something rose in her throat, and she swallowed helplessly.
It was so hard for her to speak. The trouble had struck
deeper than he dreamed.

"It is a trouble, isn't it ? Can't you tell it to me '^. "
■ "Yes. I reckon there isn't any trouble worse than ours
— no, I reckon there is nothing worse."

"Why, ]\Iiss Cassandra !"

"Because it's sin, and — and *the wages of sin is death.' "
Her tone was hopeless, and the sadness of it went to his
heart.

"Is it whiskey ?" he asked.

"Yes — it's whiskey 'stilling and — worse; it's — "
She turned deathly w^hite. Too sad to weep, she still held
control of her voice. "It's a heap worse — "

"Don't try to tell me what it is," he cried. "Only tell
me how I may help you. It's not your sin, surely, so you
don't have to bear it."

"It's not mine, but I do have to bear it. I wish my
bearing it was all. Tell me, if — if a man has done —
such a sin, is it right to help him get aw^ay .^ "

" If it is that big brother of yours, whom I saw last night,
I can't believe he has done anything so very wicked. You
say it is not the whiskey .^ "

"Maybe it was the whiskey first — then — I don't
know exactly how came it — I reckon he doesn't himself.
I — he's not my brothah — not rightly, but he has been
the same as such. They telegraphed me to come home
quick. Bishop Towahs told me a little — all he knew, —
but he didn't know what all was it, only some wrong to
call the officahs and set them aftah Frale — poor Frale.
He — he told me himself — last evening." She paused
again, and the pallor slowly left her face and the red surged

54 The Mountain Girl

into her cheeks and mounted to the waves of her heavy
hair.

"It is Frale, then, who is in trouble ! And you wish me
to help him get away ? " She looked down and was silent.
"But I am a stranger, and know nothing about the coun-
try."

He pushed his chair away from the table and leaned
back, regarding her intently.

"Oh, I am afraid for him." She put her hand to her
throat and turned away her face from his searching eyes,
in shame.

"I prefer not to know what he has done. Just explain
to me your plan, and how I can help. You know better
than I."

"I can't understand how comes it I can tell you; you
are a strangah to all of us — and yet it seems like it is
right. If I could get some clothes nobody has evah seen
Frale weah — if — I could make him look different from
a mountain boy, maybe he could get to some town down
the mountain, and find work ; but now they would meet up
with him before he was halfway there."

Thryng rose and began pacing the room. "Is there any
hurry .?" he demanded, stopping suddenly before her.

"Yes."

"Then why have you waited all this time to tell me ? "

She lifted her eyes to his in silence, and he knew well
that she had not spoken because she could not, and that
had he not ventured with his direct questions, she would
have left him, carrying her burden with her, as hopelessly
silent as when she came.

He sat beside her again and gently urged her to tell him
without further delay all she had in her mind. "You feel
quite sure that if he could get down the mountain side
without being seen, he would be safe ; where do you mean to
send him ? You don't think he would try to return ? "

" Why — no, I reckon not — if — I — " Her face flamed,
and she drew on her bonnet, hiding the crimson flush in
its deep shadow. She knew that without the promise he
had asked, the boy would as surely return as that the sun
would continue to rise and set.

"He must stay," she spoke desperately and hurriedly.
"If he can just make out to stay long enough to learn a

Cassandra^s Promise 55

little — how to live, and will keep away from bad men —
if I — he only knows enough to make mean corn liquor
now — but he nevah was bad. He has always been differ-
ent — and he is awful smart. I can't think how came he
to change so."

Taking the empty basket with her, she walked toward the
door, and David followed her. "Thank you for that good
dinner," he said.

"xA-unt Sally fetched the pa'triges. Her old man got
them for mothah, and she said you sure ought to have half.
Sally said the sheriff had gone back up the mountain, and
I'm afraid he'll come to our place again this evening. Likely
they're breaking up Frale's 'still' now."

"Well, that will be a good deed, won't it ? "

The huge bonnet had hid her face from him, but now she
lifted her eyes frankly to his, with a flash of radiance
through her tears. "I reckon," was all she said.

"Are they likely to come up here, do you think, those

men

P"

Not hardly. They would have to search on foot here.
It's out of their way; only no place on the mountain is
safe for Frale now."

"Send him to me quickly, then. I have cast my lot
with you mountain people for some time to come, and your
cause shall be mine."

She paused at the door with grateful words on her lips
unuttered.

"Don't stop for thanks. Miss Cassandra; they are
wasted between us. You have opened your doors to me,
a stranger, and that is enough. Hurry, don't grieve —
and see here : I may not be able to do anything, but I'll
try; and if I can't get down to-night, won't you come
again in the morning and tell me all about it .? "

Instantly he thought better of his request, yet who was
here to criticise ? He laughed as he thought how firmly
the world and its conventions held him. Sweet, simple-
hearted child that she was, why, indeed, should she not
come .^ Still he called after her. "If you are too busy,
send Hoyle. I may be down to see your mother, anyway.'*

She paused an instant in her hurried walk. "I'll be right
glad to come, if I can help you any way."

He stood watching her until she passed below his view.

56 The Mountain Girl

as her long easy steps took her rapidly on, although she
seemed to move slowly. Then he went back to his fire,
and her words repeated themselves insistently in his mind

— "I'll be right glad to come, if I can help you anyway."
Aunt Sally was seated in the chimney-corner smoking,

when Cassandra returned. "Where is he.^^" she cried.

"He couldn't set a minute, he was that restless. He
'lowed he'd go up to the rock whar you found him las'
evenm .

Without a word, Cassandra turned and fled up the steep
toward the head of the fall. Every moment, she knew,
was precious. Frale met her halfway down and took her
hand, leading her as he had been used to do when she was
his "little sister," and listened to her plans docilely enough.

"I mean you to go down to Farington, to Bishop
Towahs'. He will give you work." She had not men-
tioned Thryng.

Frale laughed.

"Don't, Frale. How can you laugh .f^"

"I ra'ly hain't laughin', Cass. Seems like you fo'get
how can I get down the mountain; but I reckon I'll try

— if you say so."

Then she explained how the doctor had sent for him
to come up there quickly, and how he would help him.
"You must go now, Frale, you hear .^^ Now!"

Again he laughed, bitterly this time. " Yas — I reckon
he'll be right glad to help me get away from you. I'll go
myse'f in my own way."

Under the holly tree they had paused, and suddenly she
feared lest the boy at her side return to his mood of the
evening before. She seized his hand again and hurried
him farther up the steep.

"Come, come!" she cried. "I'll go with you, Frale."

"Naw, you won't go with me neithah," he said stub-
bornly, drawing back.

"Frale !" she pleaded. "Hear to me."

"I'm a-hstenin'."

"Frale, I'm afraid. They may be on their way now.
For all we know they may be right nigh."

"I've done got used to fearin' now. Hit don't hurt
none. On'y one thing hurts now."

"I've been up to see Doctor Thryng, and he's promised

Cassandra's Promise 57

he'll fix you up some way so that if anybody does see you,
they — they'll think you belong somewhere else, and
nevah guess who you be. Frale, go."

He held her, with his arm about her waist, half carrying
her with him, instead of allowing her to move her own free
gait, and she tried vainly with her fingers to pull his hands
away; but his muscles were like iron under her touch.
He felt her helplessness and liked it. Her voice shook as
she pleaded with him.

*'0h, Frale ! Hear to me !" she wailed.

"I'll hear to you, ef you'll hear to me. Seems like I've
lost my fear now. I hain't carin* no more. Ef I should
see the sheriff this minute, an' he war a-puttin' his rope
round my neck right now, I wouldn't care 'thout one thing

— jes' one thing. I'd walk straight down to hell fer hit,

— I reckon I hev done that, — but I'd walk till I drapped,
an* work till I died for hit." He stood still a moment,
and again she essayed to move his hands, but he only held
her closer.

"Oh, hurry, Frale ! I'm afraid. Oh, Frale, don't !"

"Be ye 'feared fer me, Cass ?"

"You know that, Frale. Leave go, and hear to me."

"Be ye 'feared 'nough to give me your promise, Cass ?*'

"Take your hand off me, Frale."

"We'll go back. I 'low they mount es well take me first
as last. I hain't no heart lef in me. I don't care fer that
thar doctah man he'pin' me, nohow," he choked.

"Leave me go, and I'll give you promise for promise,
Frale. I can't make out is it sin or not ; but if God can
forgive and love — when you turn and seek Him — the
Bible do say so, Frale, but — but seem like you don't
repent your deed whilst you look at me like that way."
She paused, trembling. "If you could be sorry like you
ought to be, Frale, and turn your heart — I could die for
that."

He still held her, but lifted one shaking hand above his
head.

"Before God, I promise — "

"What, Frale? Say what you promise."

He still held his hand high. "All you ask of me, Cass.
Tell me word by word, an' I'll promise fair."

"You will repent, Frale ?"

58 The Mountain Girl

"Yas."

"You will not drink?"

"I will not drink."

*'You will heed when your own heart tells you the
right way ?"

'*I will heed when my heart tells me the way : hit will
be the way to you, Cass."

"Oh, don't say it that way, Frale. Now say, *So help
me God,' and don't think of me whilst you say it."

"Put your hand on mine, Cass. Lift hit up an' say with
me that word." She placed her palm on his uplifted palm.
"So help me, God," they said together. Then, with
streaming tears, she put her arms about his neck and
gently drew his face down to her own.

"I'll go back now, Frale, and you do all I've said. Go
quick. I'll write Bishop Towahs, and he'll watch out for
you, and find you work. Let Doctah Thryng help you.
He sure is a good man. Oh, if you only could write !"

"I'll larn."

"You'll have a heap more to learn than you guess. I've
been there, and I know. Don't give up, Frale, and — and
stay—"

"I hain't going to give up with your promise here, Cass ;
kiss me."

She did so, and he slowly released her, looking back as
he walked away.

"Oh, hurry, Frale ! Don't look back. It's a bad
omen." She turned, and without one backward glance
descended the mountain.

CHAPTER VI

IN WHICH DAVID AIDS FRALE TO MAKE HIS ESCAPE

Elated by his talk with Cassandra, Frale walked
eagerly forward, but as he neared Thryng's cabin he
moved more slowly. Why should he let that doctor help
him ? He could reach Farington some way — travelling
by night and hiding in the daytime. But David was
watching for him and strolled down to meet him.

"Good morning. Your sister says there is no time to
lose. Come in here, and we'll see if we can find a way out
of this trouble."

Having learned not to expect any response to remarks
not absolutely demanding one, and not wishing the silence
to dominate, David talked on, as he led Frale into the
cabin and carefully closed the door behind them.

Thryng's intuition was subtle and his nature intense
and strong. He had been used to dealing with men, and
knew that when he wished to, he usually gained his point.
Feeling the antagonism in Frale's heart toward himself,
he determined to overcome it. Be it pride, jealousy, or
what not, it must give way.

He had learned only that morning that circumlocution
or pretence of any sort would only drive the youth further
into his fortress of silence, and close his nature, a sealed
well of turbid feeling, against him ; therefore he chose a
manner pleasantly frank, taking much for granted, and
giving the boy no chance to refuse his help, by assuming
it to have been already accepted.

"We are about the same size, I think .^^ Yes. Here
are some things I laid out for you. You must look as
much like me as possible, and as unlike yourself, you know.
Sit here and we'll see what can be done for your head.'*

"You're right fair, an' I'm dark."

"Oh, that makes very little difference. It's the general
appearance we must get at. Suppose I try to trim your
hair a little so that lock on your forehead won't give you
away.'*

59

60 The Mountain Girl

"I reckon I can do it. Hit's makin' you a heap o'
trouble."

David was pleased to note the boy's mood softening,
and helped him on.

"I'm no hand as a barber, but I'll try it a little; it's
easier for me to get at than for you." He quickly and
deftly cut away the falling curl, and even shaved the
corners of the forehead a bit, and clipped the eyebrows to
give them a different angle. "All this will grow again,
you know. You only want it to last until the storm blows
over."

The youth surveyed himself in the mirror and smiled,
but grimly. *'I do look a heap different."

"That's right; we want you to look like quite another
man. And now for your chin. You can use a razor;
here is warm water and soap. This suit of clothes is such
as we tramp about in at home, different from anything
you see up here, you know. I'll take my pipe and book
and sit there on the rock and keep an eye out, lest any one
climb up here to look around, and you can have the cabin
all to yourself. You see what to do ; make yourself look
as if you came from my part of the world." Thryng
glanced at his watch. "Work fast, but take time enough
to do it well. Say half an hour, — will that do .^"
[ "Yas, I reckon."

Then David left him, and the moments passed until an
hour had slipped away, but still the youth did not appear,
and he was on the point of calling out to him, when he
saw the twisted form of little Hoyle scrambling up through
the underbrush.

"They're comin'," he panted, with wild and frightened
eyes fixed on David's face. "I see 'em up the road, an'
I heered 'em say they was goin' to hunt 'round the house
good, an' then s'arch the cabin ovah Hanging Rock."
The poor child burst into tears. "Do you 'low they'll
shoot Frale, suh?"

"They'd not reached the house when you saw them.'*"

"They'll be thar by now, suh," sobbed the boy.

"Then run and hide yourself. Crawl under the rock
— into the smallest hole you can. They mustn't see that
you have been here, and don't be frightened, little man.
We'll look after Frale."

David aids Frale to Escape 61

The child disappeared like a squirrel in a hole, and
Thryng went to the cabin door and knocked imperatively.
It was opened instantly, and Frale stood transformed,
his old, soiled garments lying in a heap at his side as if he
had crept out of his chrysalis. A full half hour he had
been lingering, abashed at himself and dreading to appear.
The slight growth of adolescence was gone from lip and
chin, and Thryng was amazed and satisfied.

"Good," he cried. "You've done well."

The youth smiled shamefacedly, yet held his head high.
With the heavy golf stockings, knee breeches, and belted
jacket, even to himself he seemed another man, and an
older man he looked by five years.

"Now keep your nerve, and square your shoulders and
face the world with a straight look in the eye. You've
thrown off the old man with these." David touched the
heap of clothing on the floor with his foot. "Hoyle is
here. He says the men are on their way here and have
stopped at the house."

Instead of turning pale as Thryng had expected, a dark
flush came into Frale's face, and his hand clinched. It was
the ferocity of fear, and not the deadliness of it, which
seized him with a sort of terrible anger, that David felt
through his silence.

"Don't lose control of yourself, boy," he said, placing
his hand gently on his shoulder and making his touch felt
by the intimate closing of his slender fingers upon the
firmly rounded, lean muscles beneath them.

"Follow my directions, and be quick. Put your own
clothes in this bag." He hastily tossed a few things out of
his pigskin valise. " Cram them in ; that's right. Don't
leave a trace of yourself here for them to find. Pull this
cap over your eyes, and walk straight down that path,
and pass them by as if they were nothing to you. If
they speak to you, of course nod to them and pass on.
But if they ask you a question, say politely, * Beg pardon ? '
just like that, as though you did not understand — and
— wait. Don't hurry away from them as if you were
afraid of them. They won't recognize you unless you
give yourself away by your manner. See ? Now say it
oyer after me. Good ! Take these cigars." He placed
his own case in the boy's vest pocket.

62 The Mountain Girl

"Better leave 'em free, suh. I don't like to take all
your things this-a-way." He handed back the case, and
put them loose in his pocket.

"Very well. If you smoke, just light this and walk on,
and if they ask you anything about yourself, if you have
seen a chap of the sort, understand, offer them each a
cigar, and tell them no. Don't say *I reckon not,' for
that will give you away, and don't lift your cap, or they
will see how roughly your hair is cut. Touch it as if you
were going to lift it, only — so. I would take care not to
arrive at the house while they are there ; it will be easier for
you to meet them on the path. It will be the sooner over."

Thryng held out his hand, and Frale took it awk-
wardly, then turned away, swallowing the thanks he did
not know how to utter. For the time being, David had
conquered. '

The lad took a few steps and then turned back. "I'd
like to thank you, suh, an' I'd like to pay fer these here —
I 'low to get work an' send the money fer 'em."

"Don't be troubled about that; we'll see later. Only
remember one thing. I don't know what you've done,
nor why you must run away like this — I haven't asked.
I may be breaking the laws of the land as much as you in
helping you off. I am doing it because, until I know of
some downright evil in you, I'm bound to help you, and
the best way to repay me will be for you to — you know —
do right."

"Are you doin' this fer her.?" He looked off at the
hills as he spoke, and not at the doctor.

"Yes, for her and for you. Don't linger now, and don't
forget my directions."

The youth turned on the doctor a quick look. Thryng
could not determine, as he thought it over afterward, if
there was in it a trace of malevolence. It was like a flash
of steel between them, even as they smiled and again bade
each other good-by.

For a time all was silent around Hanging Rock. Thryng
sat reading and pondering, expecting each moment to
hear voices from the direction Frale had taken. He
could not help smiling as he thought over his attempt to
make this mountain boy into the typical English tourist,
and how unique an imitation was the result.

David aids Frale to Escape 63

He called out to comfort Hoyle's fearful little heart :
"Your brother's all safe now. Come out here until we
hear men's voices."

"I better stay whar I be, I reckon. They won't talk
none when they get nigh hyar."

'*Are you comfortable down there .f^"

"Yas, suh."

Hoyle was right. The two men detailed for this climb
walked in silence, to give no warning of their approach,
until they appeared in the rear of the cabin, and entered
the shed where Frale's horse was stabled. Sure were
they then that its owner was trapped at last.

They were greatly surprised at finding the premises
occupied. David continued his reading, unconcerned
until addressed.

"Good evenin*, suh."

He greeted them genially and invited them into his
cabin, determined to treat them with as royal hospitality
as was in his power. To offer them tea was hardly the
thing, he reasoned, so he stirred up the fire, while descant-
ing on the beauty of the location and the health-giving
quality of the air, and when his kettle was boiling, he
brought out from his limited stores whiskey, lemons, and
sugar, and proceeded to brew them so fine a quality of
English toddy as to warm the cockles of their hearts.

Questioning them on his own account, he learned how
best to get his supplies brought up the mountains, and
many things about the region interesting to him. At
last one of them ventured a remark about the horse and
how he came by him, at which he explained very frankly
that the widow down below had allowed him the use of the
animal for his keep until her son returned.

They " 'lowed he wa'n't comin' back to these parts very
soon," and David expressed satisfaction. His evident
ignorance of mountain affairs convinced them that noth-
ing was to be gained from him, and they asked no direct
questions, and finally took their departure, with a high
opinion of their host, and quite content.

Then David called his little accomplice from his hiding-
place, took him into his cabin, and taught him to drink
tea with milk and sugar in it, gave him crisp biscuits from
his small remainder in store, and, still further to comfort

64 The Mountain Girl

his heart, searched out a card on which was a picture of
an ocean Hner on an open sea, with flags flying, great rolls
of vapor and smoke trailing across the sky, with white-
capped waves beneath and white clouds above. The
boy's eyes shone with delight. He twisted himself about
to look up in Thryng's face as he questioned him concern-
ing it, and almost forgot Frale in his happiness, as he
trudged home hugging the precious card to his bosom.

Contentedly Thryng proceeded to set his abode in order
after the disarray of the morning, undisturbed by any
question as to the equity of his deed. His mind was in a
state of rebellion against the usual workings of the criminal
courts, and, biassed by his observation of the youth, he
felt that his act might lead as surely toward absolute
justice, perhaps more surely, than the opposite course
would have done.

Erelong he found a few tools carefully packed away, as
was the habit of his old friend, and the labor of preparing
his canvas room began. But first a ladder hanging under
the eaves of the cabin must be repaired, and long before
the slant rays of the setting sun fell across his hilltop, he
found himself, too weary to descend to the Fall Place, even
with the aid of his horse. With a measure of discourage-
ment at his undeniable weakness, he led the animal to
water where a spring bubbled sweet and clear in an em-
bowered hollow quite near his cabin, then stretched him-
self on the couch before the fire, with no other light than
its cheerful blaze, too exhausted for his book and disin-
clined even to prepare his supper.

After a time, David's weariness gave place to a pleasant
drowsiness, and he rose, arranged his bed, and replenished the
fire, drank a little hot milk, and dropped into a wholesome
slumber as dreamless and sweet as that of a tired child.

Such a sense of peace and retirement closed around him
there alone on his mountain, that he slept with his cabin
door open to the sweet air, crisp and cold, lulled by the
murmuring of the swaying pine tops without, and the crack-
ling and crumbling of burning logs within. Rolled in his
warm Scotch rug, he did not feel the chill that came as
his fire burned lower, but slept until daybreak, when the
clear note of a Carolina wren, thrice repeated close to his
open door, sounded his reveille.

David aids Frale to Escape 65

Deeply inhaling the cold air, he lay and mused over the
events of the previous day. How quicklj^ and naturally
he had been drawn into the interests of his neighbors
below him, and had absorbed the peculiar atmosphere of
their isolation, making a place for himself, shutting out
almost as if they had never existed the harassments and
questionings of his previous life. Was it a buoyancy he
had received from his mountain height and the morning
air ? Whatever the cause, he seemed to have settled with
them all, and arrived at last where his spirit needed but
to rest open and receptive before its Creator to be swept
clear of the dross of the world's estimates of values, and
exalted with aspiration.

Every long breath he drew seemed to make his mental
vision clearer. God and his own soul — was that all ?
Not quite. God and the souls of men and of women —
of all who came within his environment — a world made
beautiful, made sweet and health-giving for these — and
with them to know God, to feel Him near. So Christ
came to be close to humanity.

A mist of scepticism that had hung over him and clouded
the later years of his young manhood suddenly rolled away,
dispelled by the splendor of this triumphant thought,
even as the rays of the rising sun came at the same
moment to dispel the earth mists and flood the hills with
light. Light; that was it! "In Him is no darkness at
all."

Joyously he set himself to the preparation for the day.
The true meaning of life was revealed to him. The dis-
couragement of the evening before was gone. Yet now
should he sit down in ecstatic dreaming ^ It must be
joy in hfe — movement — in whatever was to be done,
whether in satisfying a wholesome hunger, in creating
warmth for his body, or in conquering the seeds of decay
and disease therein, and keeping it strong and full of re-
active power for his soul's sake.

It was a revelation to him of the eternal God, wonder-
working and all-pervading. Now no longer with a haunt-
ing sense of fear would he search and learn, but with a
glad perception of the beautiful orderliness of the uni-
verse, so planned and arranged for the souls of men when
only they should learn how to use their own lives, and

66 The Mountain Girl

attune themselves to give forth music to the touch of
the God of Love.

A cold bath, the pure air, and his abstemiousness of the
previous evening gave him a compelHng hunger, and it
was with satisfaction he discovered so large a portion of
his dinner of yesterday remaining to be warmed for his
morning meal. What he should do later, when dinner-time
arrived, he knew not, and he laughed to think how he was
living from hour to hour, content as the small wren fluting
beside his door his care-free note. Ah, yes ! "God's in
His heaven, all's right with the world."

The wren's note reminded him of a slender box which
always accompanied his wanderings, and which had come
to light rolled in the jacket which he had given Frale as
part of his disguise. He opened it and took therefrom
the joints of a silver flute. How long it had lain untouched !

He fitted the parts and strolled out to the rock, and there,
as he gazed at the shifting, subtle beauty spread all before
him and around him, he lifted the wandlike instrument
to his lips and began to play. At first he only imitated
the wren, a few short notes joyously uttered ; then, as
the springs of his own happiness welled up within him, he
poured forth a tumultuous flood of trills — a dancing
staccato of mounting notes, shifting and falling, rising,
floating away, and then returning in silvery echoes,
bringing their own gladness with them.

The psean of praise ended, the work of the day began,
and he set himself with all the nervous energy of his nature
to the finishing of his canvas room. Again, ere the com-
pletion of the task, he found he had been expending his
strength too lavishly, but this time he accepted his weari-
ness more philosophically, glad if only he might labor and
rest as the need came.

Nearly the whole of the glorious day was still left him.
In moving his couch nearer the door, he found his efforts
impeded by some heavy object underneath it, and dis-
covered, to his surprise and almost dismay, the identical
pigskin valise which Frale had taken away with him the
day before. How came it there ? No one, he was certain,
had been near his cabin since Hoyle had trotted home
yesterday, hugging his picture to his breast.

David drew it out into the light and opened it. There

David aids Frale to Escape 67

on the top lay the cigars he had placed in the youth's
pocket, and there also every article of wearing apparel he
had seen disappear down the laurel-grown path on Frale's
lithe body twelve hours or more ago. He cast the articles
out upon the floor and turned them over wonderingly,
then shoved them aside and lay down for his quiet siesta.
He would learn from Cassandra the meaning of this. He
hoped the young man had got off safely, yet the fact of
finding his kindly efforts thus thrust back upon him dis-
turbed him. Why had it been done ? As he pondered
thereon, he saw again the steel-blue flash in the young
man's eyes as he turned away, and resolved to ask no
questions, even of Cassandra.

CHAPTER VII

IN WHICH FRALE GOES DOWN TO FABINGTON IN HIS OWN

WAY

Frale felt himself exalted by the oath he had sworn
to Cassandra, as if those words had lifted the burden from
^ his heart, and taken away the stain. As he walked away
in his disguise, it seemed to him that he had acted under
an irresistible spell cast upon him by this Englishman,
who was to bide so near Cassandra — to be seen by her
every day — to be admired by her, while he, who had the
first right, must hide himself away from her, shielding
himself in that man's clothes. Fine as they seemed to
him, they only abashed him and filled him with a sense
of obligation to a man he dreaded.

Like a child, realizing his danger only when it was close
upon him, his old recklessness returned, and he moved
down the path with his head held high, looking neither to
the right nor to the left, planning how he might be rid of
these clothes and evade his pursuers unaided. The men,
climbing toward him as he descended, hearing his foot-
steps above them, parted and stood watching, only half
screened by the thick-leaved shrubs, not ten feet from
him on either side ; but so elated was he, and eager in
his plans, that he passed them by, unseeing, and thus
Thryng's efforts saved him in spite of himself; for so
amazed were they at the presence of such a traveller in
such a place that they allowed him to pass unchallenged
until he was too far below them to make speech possible.
Later, when they found David seated on his rock, they
assumed the young man to be a friend, and thought no
further of it.

Frale soon left the path and followed the stream to
the head of the fall, where he lingered, tormented by his
own thoughts and filled with conflicting emotions, in sight
of his home.

To go down to the settlement and see the world had its
allurements, but to go in this way, never to return, never

68

Frale goes to Farington 69

to feel again the excitement of his mountain life, evading
the law and conquering its harassments, was bitter. It
had been his joy and delight in life to feel himself master-
fully triumphant over those set to take him, too cunning
to be found, too daring and strong to be overcome, to
take desperate chances and win out; all these he con-
sidered his right and part of the game of life. But to
slink away like a hunted fox followed by the dogs of the
law because, in a blind frenzy, he had slain his own friend !
What if he had promised to repent; there was the law
after him still !

If only his fate were a tangible thing, to be grappled with!
To meet a foe and fight hand to hand to the death was not
so hard as to yield himself to the inevitable. Sullenly he
sat with his head in his hands, and life seemed to stretch
before him, leading to a black chasm. But one ray of
light was there to follow — "Cass, Cass." If only he
would accept the help offered him and go to the station,
take his seat in the train, and find himself in Farington,
while still his pursuers were scouring the mountains for
him, he might — he might win out. Moodily and stub-
bornly he resisted the thought.

At last, screened by the darkness, he turned out his
soiled and torn garments, and divesting himself of every
article Thryng had given him, he placed them carefully
in the Valise. Then, relieved of one humiliation, he set
himself again on the path toward Hanging Rock cabin.

As he passed the great holly tree where Cassandra had
sat beside him, he placed his hand on the stone and paused.
His heart leaned toward her. He wanted her. Should
he go down to her now and refuse to leave her ? But no.
He had promised. Something warm splashed down upon
his hand as he bent over the rock. He sprang up, ashamed
to weep, and, seizing the doctor's valise, plunged on
through the shadows up the steep ascent.

He had no definite idea of how he would explain his act,
for he did not comprehend his own motives. It was only
a wordless repugnance that possessed him, vague and
sullen, against this man's offered friendship ; and his relief
was great when he found David asleep before his open
door.

Stealthily he entered and placed his burden beneath

70 The Mountain Girl

the couch, gazed a moment at the sleeping face whereon
the firelight still played, and softly crept away. Cas-
sandra should know that she had no need to thank the
Englishman for his freedom.

Then came the weary tramp down the mountain,
skulking and hiding by day, and struggling on again by
night — taking by-paths and unused trails — finding his
uncertain way by moonlight and starlight — barked at
by dogs, and followed by hounds baying loudly whenever
he came near a human habitation — wading icy streams
and plunging through gorges to avoid cabins or settle-
ments — keeping life in him by gnawing raw turnips which
had been left in the fields ungathered, until at last, pallid,
weary, dirty, and utterly forlorn, he found himself, in
the half-light of the dawn of the fourth day, near Faring-
ton. Shivering with cold, he stole along the village street
and hid himself in the bishop's grounds until he should
see some one astir in the house.

The bishop had sat late the night before, half expecting
him, for he had received Cassandra's letter, also one from
Thryng. Neither letter threw light on Frale's deed,
although Cassandra's gave him to understand that some-
thing more serious than illicit distilling had necessitated
his flight. David's was a joyous letter, craving his com-
panionship whenever his affairs might bring him near,
but expressing the greatest contentment.

When Black Carrie went out to unlock the chicken
house door and fetch wood for her morning fire, she
screamed with fright as the young man in his wretched
plight stepped before her.

"G'long, yo — pore white trash!" she cried.

"I'm no poor white trash," he murmured. "Be Bishop
Towah in the house ?*'

"Co'se he in de haouse. Whar yo s'poses he be dis
time de mawnin' ?" She made with all haste toward her
kitchen, bearing her armful of wood, muttering as she went.

"I reckon I'll set hyar ontwell he kin see me," he said,
dropping to the doorstep in sheer exhaustion. And there
he was allowed to sit while she prepared breakfast in her
own leisurely way, having no intention of disturbing her
"white folkses fer no sech trash."

The odor of coffee and hot cakes was maddening to the

JOot.scwX-

Skulking a)id Jiidiiig by day, a)id struggling on again
by night. Page 70.

Frale goes to Farington 71

star\dng boy, as he watched her through the open door,
yet he passively sat, withdrawn into himself, seeking in
no way either to secure a portion of the food or to make
himself knowTi. After a time, he heard faintly voices
beyond the kitchen, and knew the family must be there
at breakfast, but still he sat, saying nothing.

At last the door of the inner room was burst open, and
a child ran out, demanding scraps for her puppy.

"I may ! I may, too, feed him in the dining room.
Mamma says I may, after we're through."

"Go off, honey chile, mussin' de flo' like dat-a-way fer
me to clean up agin. Naw, honey. Go out on de stoop
wif yer fool houn' dog." And the tiny, fair girl with her
plate of scraps and her small black dog leaping and danc-
ing at her heels, tumbled themselves out where Frale
sat.

Scattering her crusts as she ran, she darted back,
calling: "Papa, papa! A man's come. He's here."
The small dog further emphasized the fact by barking
fiercely at the intruder, albeit from a safe distance.

"Yas," said Carrie, as the bishop came out, led by his
little daughter, "he b'en hyar sence long fo' sun-up."

"Why didn't you call me.^" he said sternly.

"Sho — how I know anybody wan' see yo, hangin'
'roun' de back do' ^ He ain' say nuthin', jes' set dar."
She continued muttering her crusty dislike of tramps,
as the bishop led his caller through her kitchen and sent
his little daughter to look after her puppy.

He took Frale into his private study, and presently
returned and himself carried him food, placing it before
him on a small table where many a hungry caller had
been fed before. Then he occupied himself at his desk
while he quietly observed the boy. He saw that the youth
was too worn and weak to be dealt with rationally at first,
and he felt it difficult to affix the thought of a desperate
crime upon one so gentle of mien and innocent of face;
but he knew his people well, and what masterful passions
often slept beneath a mild and harmless exterior.

Nor was it the first time he had been called upon to
adjust a conflict between his own conscience and the law.
Often in his office of priest he had been the recipient of
confidences which no human pressure of law could ever

72 The Mountain Girl

wrest from him. So now he proceeded to draw from
Frale his full and free confession.

Very carefully and lovingly he trespassed in the secret
chambers of this troubled soul, until at last the boy laid
bare his heart.

He told of the cause of his anger and his drunken quar-
rel, of his evasion of his pursuers and his vow with Cas-
sandra before God, of his rejection of Doctor Thryng's
help and his flight by night, of his suffering and hunger.
All was told without fervor, — a simple passive narra-
tion of events. No one could believe, while listening to
him, that storms of passion and hatred and fear had torn
him, or the overwhelming longing he had suffered at the
thought of Cassandra.

But when the bishop touched on the subject of repent-
ance, the hidden force was revealed. It was as if the
tormenting spirit within him had cried out loudly, instead
of the low, monotonous tone in which he said : —

"Yas, I kin repent now he's dade, but ef he war
livin' an' riled me agin that-a-way like he done — I
reckon — I reckon God don't want no repentin' Hke I
repents."

It was steel against flint, the spark in the narrow blue
line of his eyes as he said the words, and the bishop under-
stood.

But what to do with this man of the mountains — this
force of nature in the wild; how guard him from a far
more pernicious element in the civilized town life than any
he would find in his rugged solitudes ?

And Cassandra ! The bishop bowed his head and sat
with the tips of his fingers pressed together. The thought
of Cassandra weighed heavily upon him. She had given
her promise, with the devotion of her kind, to save ; had
truly offered herself a living sacrifice. All hopes for her
growth into the gracious womanhood, her inheritance im-
pelled her toward, — her sweet ambitions for study, gone to
the winds — scattered like the fragrant wild rose petals
on her own hillside — doomed by that promise to live as
her mother had lived, and like other women of her kin, to
age before her time with the bearing of children in the midst
of toil too heavy for her — dispirited by privation and the
sorrow of relinquished hopes. Oh, well the bishop knew !

Frale goes to Farington 73

He dreaded most to see the beautiful light of aspiration
die out of her eyes, and her spirit grow sordid in the life
to which this untamed savage would inevitably bring her.
"What a waste !"

And again he repeated the words, "What a waste!"
The youth looked up, thinking himself addressed, but the
bishop saw only the girl. It was as if she rose and stood
there, dominant in the sweet power of her girlish self-
sacrifice, appealing to him to help save this soul. Some-
how, at the moment, he failed to appreciate the beauty
of such giving. Almost it seemed to him a pity Frale
had thus far succeeded in evading his pursuers. It would
have saved her in spite of herself had he been taken.

But now the situation was forced upon the bishop,
either to give him up, which seemed an arbitrary taking
into his own hands of power which belonged only to the
Almighty, or to shield him as best he might, giving heed
to the thought that even if in his eyes the value of the girl
was immeasurably the greater, yet the youth also was
valued, or why was he here ?

He lifted his head and saw Frale's eyes fixed upon him
sadly — almost as if he knew the bishop's thoughts.
Yes, here was a soul worth while. Plainly there was but
one course to pursue, and but one thread left to hold the
young man to steadfast purpose. Using that thread, he
would try. If he could be made to sacrifice for Cassandra
some of his physical joy of life, seeking to give more than
to appropriate to himself for his own satisfaction — if
he could teach him the value of what she had done —
could he rise to such a height, and learn self-control ?

The argument for repentance having come back to him
void, the bishop began again. "You tell me Cassandra
has given you her promise '^ What are you^ going to do
about it .'^ "

"Hit's 'twixt her an' me," said the youth proudly.

"No," thundered the bishop, all the man in him roused
to beat into this crude, triumphant animal some sense of
what Cassandra had really done. "No. It's betwixt you
and the God who made you. You have to answer to God
for what you do." He towered above him, and bending
down, looked into Frale's eyes until the boy cowered and
looked down, with lowered head, and there was silence.

74 The Mountain Girl

Then the bishop straightened himself and began pacing
the room. At last he came to a stand and spoke quietly.
"You have Cassandra's promise ; what are you going to do
about it ?"

Frale did not move or speak, and the bishop felt baflSed.
What was going on under that passive mask he dared not
think. To talk seemed futile, like hammering upon a
flint wall ; but hammer he must, and again he tried.

"You have taken a man's life; do you know what that
means ^ "

"Hangin', I reckon."

" If it were only to hang, boy, it might be better for Cas-
sandra. Think about it. If I help you, and shield you
here, what are you going to do ^ What do you care most
for in all this world ^ You who can kill a man and then not
repent."

"He hadn't ought to have riled me Hke he done; I —
keer fer her."

" More than for Frale Farwell .? "

The boy looked vaguely before him. "I reckon," was
all he said.

Again the bishop paced the floor, and waited.

"I hain't afeared to work — right hard."

" Good ; what kind of work can you doV Frale flushed
a dark red and was silent. "Yes, I know you can make
corn whiskey, but that is the devil's work. You're not
to work for him any more."

Again silence. At last, in a low voice, he ventured :
"I'll do any kind o' work you-all gin' me to do — ef — ef
onlv the officers will leave me be — an' I tol' Cass I'd larn
writin'."

"Good, very good. Can you drive a horse .^ Yes, of

course."

Frale's eyes shone. " I reckon."

The bishop grew more hopeful. The holy greed for
souls fell upon him. The young man must be guarded and
watched ; he must be washed and clothed, as well as fed,
and right here the little wife must be consulted. He went
out, leaving the youth to himself, and sought his brown-
eyed, sweet-faced little wisp of a woman, where she sat
writing his most pressing business letters for him.

"Dearest, may I interrupt you?"

Frale goes to Farington 75

"In a minute, James; in a minute. I'll just address
these."

He dropped into a deep chair and waited, with troubled
eyes regarding her. " There ! " She rubbed vigorously
down on the blotter. "These are all done, every blessed
one, James. Now what?'*

In an instant she was curled up, feet and all, like a kitten
in his lap, her small brown head, its wisps of fine, straight
hair straying over temples and rounded cheeks, tucked
comfortably under his chin; and thus every point was
carefully talked over.

With many exclamations of anxiety and doubt, and
much discreet suggestion from the small adviser, it was at
last settled. Frale was to be properly clothed from the
missionary boxes sent every year from the North. He
should stay with them for a while until a suitable place
could be found for him. Above all things he must be kept
out of bad company.

"Oh, dear! Poor Cassandra! After all her hopes —
and she might have done so much for her people — if
only — " Tears stood in the brown eyes and even ran over
and dropped upon the bishop's coat and had to be care-
fully wiped off, for, as he feelingly remarked, —

"I can't go about wearing my wife's tears in plain view,
now, can I .? "

And then Doctor Hoyle's young friend — she must hear
his letter. How interesting he must be! Couldn't they
have him down ? And when the bishop next went up the
mountain, might she accompany him ? Oh, no. The trip
was not too rough. It was quite possible for her. She
would go to see Cassandra and the old mother. " Poor
Cassandra!"

But the self-respecting old stepmother and her daughter
did not allow these kind friends to trespass on any mis-
sionary supplies, for Uncle Jerry was despatched down the
mountain with a bundle on the back of his saddle, which
was quietly left at the bishop's door ; and Frale next ap-
peared in a neat suit of homespun, home woven and dyed,
and home-made clothing.

CHAPTER VIII

IN WHICH DAVID THRYNG MAKES A DISCOVERY

Standing on the great hanging rock, before his cabin,
Thryng imagined himself absolutely solitary in the centre
of a wide wilderness. Even the Fall Place, where lived the
Widow Farwell, although so near, was not visible from
this point ; but when he began exploring the region about
him, now on foot and now on horseback, he discovered it
to be really a country of homes.

Every mule path branching off into what seemed an
inaccessible wild led to some cabin, often set in a hollow
on a few acres of rich soil, watered by a never failing spring,
where the forest growth had been cut away to make culti-
vation possible. Sometimes the little log house would be
perched like a lonely eagle's nest on a mere shelflike ledge
jutting out from the mountain wall, but always below it or
above it or off at one side he found the inevitable pocket
of rich soil accumulated by the wash of years, where
enough corn and cow-peas could be raised for cattle, and
cotton and a few sheep to provide material for clothing the
family, with a few fowls and pigs to provide their food.

Here they lived, those isolated people, in quiet inde-
pendence and contented poverty, craving little and often
having less, caring nothing for the great world outside
their own environment, looking after each other in times
of sickness and trouble^ keeping alive the traditions of
their forefathers, and clinging to the ancient family
feuds and friendships from generation to generation.

David soon learned that they had among themselves
their class distinctions, certain among them holding their
heads high, in the knowledge of having a self-respecting
ancestry, and training their children to reckon themselves
no "common trash," however much they deprecated
showing the pride that was in them.

Many days passed after Frale's departure before David
learned more of the young man's unhappy deed. He had
gone down to give the old mother some necessary care and,

76

David makes a Discovery 77

finding her alone, remained to talk with her. Pleased with
her quaint expressions and virile intellect, he led her on to
speak of her youth; and one morning, weary of the solitude
and silence, she poured out tales of Cassandra's father,
and how, after his death, she "came to marry Farwell."
She told of her own mother, and the hard times that fell
upon them during the bitter days of the Civil War.

The traditions of her family were dear to her, and she
was well pleased to show this young doctor who had found
the key to her warm, yet reserved, heart that she "wa'n't
no common trash," and her " chillen wa'n't like the runo'
chillen."

"Seems like I'm talkin' a heap too much o' we-uns,"
she said, at last.

"No, no. Go on. You say you had no school; how
did you learn ? You were reading your Bible when I came

m."

(<-

'No. Thar wa'n't no schools in my day, not nigh
enough fer me to go to. Maw, she could read, an' write,
too, but aftah paw jined the ahmy, she had to work right
ha'd and had nothin' to do with. Paw, he had to jine one
side or t'othah. Some went with the North and some
went with the South, — they didn't keer much. The' wa'n't
no niggahs up here to fight ovah. But them war cruel
times when the bushwackers come searchin' 'round an*
raidin' our homes. They were a bad lot — most of 'em
war desertahs from both ahmies. We-uns war obleeged
to hide in the bresh or up the branch — anywhar we could
find a place to creep into. Them were bad times fer the
women an' chillen left at home.

"Maw used to save ev'y scrap of papah she could find
with printin' on hit to larn we-uns our lettahs off 'n. One
time come 'long a right decent captain and axed maw
could she get he an' his men suthin' to eat. He had nigh
about a dozen sogers with him ; an' maw, she done the
bes' she could, — cooked corn-bread, an' chick'n an' sich.
I c'n remember how he sot right on the hearth where you're
settin' now, an' tossed flapjacks fer th' hull crowd.

"He war right civil when he lef, an' said he'd like to give
maw suthin', but they hadn't nothin' but Confed'rate
money, an' hit wa'n't worth nothin' up here ; an' maw said
would he give her the newspapah he had. She seed the

78 The Mountain Girl

«

end of hit standin* out of his pocket ; an' he laughed and
give hit out quick, an' axed her what did she want with hit ;
and she 'lowed she could teach me a heap o' readin' out o'
that papah, an' he laughed again, an' said likely, fer that
hit war worth more'n the money. All the schoolin' I had
war just that thar papah, an' that old spellin'-book you see
on the shelf ; I c'n remembah how maw come by that, too."

"Tell me how she came by the spelling-book, will you ?*'

"Hit war about that time. Paw, he nevah come home
again. I cyan't remembah much 'bouts my paw. Maw
used to say a heap o' times if she only had a spellin'-book
like she used to larn out'n, 'at she could larn we-uns right
smart. Well, one day one o' the neighbors told her 'at he'd
seed one at Gerret's, ovah t'othah side Lone Pine Creek,
nigh about eight mile, I reckon; an' she 'lowed she'd get
hit. So she sont we-uns ovah to Teasley's mill — she war
that scared o' the Gorillas she didn't like leavin' we-uns
home alone — an' she walked thar an' axed could she do
suthin' to earn that thar book; an' ol' Miz Gerret, she
'lowed if maw'd come Monday follerin' an' wash fer her,
'at she mount have hit. Them days we-uns an' the Teas-
leys war right friendly. The' wa'n't no feud 'twixt we-uns
an' Teasleys then — but now I reckon thar's bound to be
blood feud." She spoke very sadly and waited, leaving
the tale of the spelling-book half told.

"TMiy must there be 'blood feud' now.'^ Why can't
you go on in the old way ? "

"Hit's Frale done hit. He an' Ferd'nan' Teasley, they
set up 'stillin' ovah in Dark Cornder yandah. Hit do
work a heap o' trouble, that thar. I reckon you-uns don't
have no thin' sich whar you come from.^^"

"We have things quite as bad. So they quarrelled, did
they?"

"Yaas, they quarrelled, an' they fit."

"No doubt they had been drinking."

"Yas, I reckon."

"But just a drunken quarrel between those two ought
not to affect all the rest. Couldn't you patch it up among
you, and keep the boy at home ? You must need his help
on the place."

"We need him bad here, but the' is no way fer to make
up an* right a blood feud. Frale done them mean. He

David makes a Discovery 79

lifted his hand an' killed his friend. Hit war Sunday
evenin' he done hit. They had been havin' a singin' thar
at the mill, an' preachah, he war thar too, an' all war kind
an' peaceable; an' Ferd an' Frale, they sot out fer thar
' still ' — Ferd on foot an' Frale rid'n' his horse — the one
you have now — they used to go that-a-way, rid'n' turn
about — one horse with them an' one horse kep' alluz hid
nigh the * still ' lest the gov'nment men come on 'em suddent
like. Frale, he war right cute, he nevah war come up with.

" 'Pears like they stopped 'fore they'd gone fer, disputin'
'bouts some thin'. 01' Miz Teasley say she heered ther
voices high an' loud, an' then she heered a shot right quick,
that-a-way, an' nothin' more ; an' she sont ol' man Teasley
an' the preachah out, an' the hull houseful foUered, an*
thar they found Ferd lyin' shot dade — an' Frale — he
an' the horse war gone. Ferd, he still held his own gun in
his hand tight, like he war goin' to shoot, with the triggah
open an' his fingah on hit — but he nevah got the chance.
Likely if he had, hit would have been him a-hidin' now, an'
Frale dade. I reckon so."

Thryng listened in silence. It made him think of the
old tales of the Scottish border. So, in plain words, the
young man was a murderer. With deep pity he recalled
the haunted look in Frale's eyes, and the sadness that
trembled around Cassandra's lips as she said, "I reckon
there is no trouble worse than ours." A thought struck
him, and he asked : —

"Do you know what they quarrelled about?"

**He nevah let on what-all was the fuss. Likely he told
Cass, but she is that still. Hit's right hard to raise a blood
feud thar when we-uns an' the Teasleys alluz war friends.
She took keer o' me when my chillen come, an' I took keer
o' her with hern. Ferd'nan' too, he war like my own, fer
I nursed him when she had the fever an' her milk lef ' her.
Cass war only three weeks old then, an' he war nigh on a
year, but that little an' sickly — he like to 'a' died if I hadn't
took him." She paused and wiped away a tear that
trickled down the furrow of her thin cheek. "If hit war
lef to us women fer to stir 'em up, I reckon thar wouldn't
be no feuds, fer hit's hard on we-uns when we're friendly,
an' Ferd like my own boy that-a-way."

"But perhaps —" David spoke musingly — "perhaps

80 The Mountain Girl

it was a woman who stirred up the trouble between
them."

The widow looked a moment with startled glance into
his face, then turned her gaze away. *'I reckon not. The'
is no woman far or near as I evah heern o' Frale goin' with."

Still pondering, David rose to go, but quickly resumed
his seat, and turned her thoughts again to the past. He
would not leave her thus sad at heart.

''Won't you finish telling me about the spelling-book ?"

"I forget how come hit, but maw didn't leave wechillen
to Teasleys' that day she went to do the washin'. Likely
Miz Teasley war sick — anyway she lef us here. She
baked corn-bread — hit war all we had in the house to eat
them days, an' she fotched water fer the day, an' kivered up
the fire. Then she locked the door an' took the key with
her, an' tol' we-uns did we hear a noise like anybody
tryin' to get in, to go up garret an' make out like thar
wa'n't nobody to home. The' war three o' us chillen.
I war the oldest.* We war Caswells, my fam'ly. My
little brothah ^Vhitson, he war sca'cely more'n a baby,
runnin' 'round pullin' things down on his hade whar he
could reach, an' Cotton war mos' as much keer — that
reckless."

She paused and smiled as she recalled the cares of
her childhood, then wandered on in her slow narration.
"They done a heap o' things that day to about drive me
plumb crazy, an' all the time we was thinkin' we heered
men talkin' or horses trompin' outside, an' kep' ourselves
right busy runnin' up garret to hide.

"Along towa'ds night hit come on to snow, an' then
turned to rain, a right cold hard rain, an' we war that cold
an' hungry — an' Whit, he cried fer maw, — an' hit come
dark an' we had et all the' war to eat long before, so we
had no suppah, an' the poor leetle fellers war that cold an'
shiverin' thar in the dark — I made 'em climb into bed
like they war, an' kivered 'em up good, an' thar I lay tryin'
to make out like I war maw, gettin' my arms 'round both
of 'em to oncet. Whit cried hisself to sleep, but Cotton he
kep' sayin' he heered men knockin' 'round outside, an' at
last he fell asleep, too. He alluz war a natch'ly skeered
kind o' child.

"Then I lay thar still, list'nin' to the rain beat on the

David makes a Discovery 81

roof, an' thinkin' would maw ever get back again, an'
list'nin' to hear her workin' with the lock — hit war a
padlock on the outside — an' thar I must o' drapped off to
sleep that-a-way, fer I didn't hear nothin', no more until I
woke up with a soft murmurin' sound in my ears, an' thar
I seed maw. The rain had stopped an' hit war mos' day,
I reckon, with a mornin' moon shinin' in an' fallin' on her
whar she knelt by the bed, clost nigh to me. I can see hit
now, that long line o' white light streamin' acrost the
floor an' fallin' on her, makin' her look like a white ghost
spirit, an' her two hands held up with that thar book
'twixt 'em.

"I knew hit war maw, fer I'd seed her pray before, but I
war skeered fer all that. I lay right still an' held my
breath, an' heered her thank the Lord fer keerin' fer we-uns
whilst she war gone, an' fer 'lowin' her to get that thar book.

"I don't guess she knew I seed her, fer she got up right
still an' soft, like not to wake we-uns, an' began to light the
fire an' make some yarb tea. She war that wet an' cold
I could see her hand shake whilst she held the match to the
light'ud stick. Them days maw made coffee out'n burnt
corn-bread, an' tea out'n dried blackberry leaves an' sassa-
frax root." She paused and turned her face toward the
open door. David thought she had lost somewhat the
appearance of age ; certainly, what with the long rest, and
Cassandra's loving care, she had no longer the weary,
haggard look that had struck him when he saw her first.

Following the direction of her gaze, he went to the shelf
and took down the old spelling-book, and turned the leaves,
now limp and worn. So this was Cassandra's inheritance
— part of it — the inward impulse that would urge to
toil all day, then walk miles in rain and darkness through
a wilderness, and thank the Lord for the privilege — to
own this book — not for herself, but for the generations
to come. David touched it reverently, glad to know so
much of her past, and turned to the old mother for more.

"Have you anything else — like this ? "

Her sharp eyes sparkled as she looked narrowly at him.
*'I have suthin' 'at I hain't nevah told anybody livin'
a word of, not even Doctah Hoyle — only he war some
differ'nt from you. But I'm gettin' old, an' I may as well
tell you. Likely with all your larnin' you can tell me is it

82 The Mountain Girl

any good to Cass. She be that sot on all sech." She
fumbled at her throat a moment and drew from the bosom
of her gown a leather shoe-lacing, from which dangled
an iron key. Slowly she undid the knot, and handed it
toward him.

*'I nevah *low nobody on earth to touch that thar box,
an' the' ain't a soul livin' knows what's in hit. I been
gyardin' them like they war gold, fer they belonged to my
ol' man — the first one — Cassandra's fathah ; but I
reckon if I die the' won't nobody see any good in them
things. If you'll onlock that thar padlock on that box
yander, you'll find it wropped in a piece o' gingham. My
paw's mothah spun an' wove that gingham — ol' Miz
Caswell. They don't many do work like that nowadays.
They lived right whar we a' livin' now."

David unlocked the chest and lifted the heavy lid.

"Hit's down in the further cornder — that's hit, I
reckon. Just step to the door, will you, an' see is they
anybody nigh."

He went to the door, but saw no one ; only from the
shed came an intermittent rat-tat-tat.

"I don't see any one, but I hear some one pounding.'*

"Hit's only Hoyle makin' his traps." She sighed, then
slowly and tenderly untied the parcel and placed in his
hands two small leather-bound books. Tied to one by
a faded silk cord which marked the pages was a thin,
worn ring of gold.

"That ring war his maw's, an' when we war married, I
wore hit, but when I took Farwell fer my ol' man, I nevah
wore hit any more, fer he 'lowed, bein' hit war gold that-a-
way, we'd ought to sell hit. That time I took the lock
off 'n the door an' put hit on that thar box. Hit war my
gran'maw's box, an' I done wore the key hyar evah since.
Can you tell what they be ? Hit's the quarest kind of
print I evah see. He used to make out like he could read
hit. Likely he did, fer whatevah he said, he done."

It seemed to her little short of a miracle that any one
could read it, but David soon learned that her confidence
in her first "old man" was unlimited.

"What-all's in hit?" She grew restless while he care-
fully and silently examined her treasure, the true signifi-
cance of which she so little knew. Filled with amaze-

David makes a Discovery 83

ment and with a keen pleasure, he took the books to the
Hght. The print was fine, even, and clear.

"What-all be they?" she reiterated. "Reckon the're
no good ?**

David smiled. "In one way they're all the good in the
world, but not for money, you know."

"No, I don't guess. Can you read that thar quare
pnntm f

"Yes. The letters are Greek, and these books are about
a hundred years old."

"Be they .f^ Then they won't be much good to Cass, I
reckon. He sot a heap by them, but I war 'feared they
mount be heathen. Greek — that thar be heathen.
Hain't hit?" ^

David continued, speaking more to himself than to her.
"They were published in London in eighteen twelve.
They have been read by some one who knew them well,
I can see by these marginal notes."

"What be they ?" Her curiosity was eager and intent.

"They are explanations and comments, written here on
the margin — see ? — with a fine pen."

"His grandpaw done that thar. What be they about,
anyhow?"

"They are very old poems written long before this
country was discovered."

"An' that must 'a' been before the Revolution. His
grandpaw fit in that. The' is somethin' more in thar.
I kept hit hid, fer Farwell, he war bound to melt hit up
fer silver bullets. He 'lowed them bullets war plumb
sure to kill. Reckon you can find hit ? Thar 'tis." Her
eyes shone as Thryng drew out another object also wrapped
in gingham. "Hit's a teapot, I guess, but Farwell, he got
a-hold of hit an' melted off the spout to make his silvah
bullets. That time I hid all in the box an' put on the bolt
an' lock whilst he war away 'stillin'. The' is one bullet
left, but I reckon Frale has hit."

David took it from her hand and turned it about.
"Surely ! This is a treasure. Here is a coat of arms —
but it is so worn I can't make out the emblem. Was this
your husband's also ? Is there anything else ?"

"That's all. Yes, they war hisn. I war plumb mad at
Farwell. I nevah could get ovah what he done, all so't he

84 The Mountain Girl

mount sure kill somebody. Likely he meant them bullets
fer the revenue officers, should they come up with him."

*'It would have been a great pity if he had destroyed
this mark. I think — I'm not sure — but if it's what I
imagine, it is from an old family in Wales."

"I reckon you're right, fer they were Welsh — his paw's
folks way back. He used to say the' wa'n't no name
older'n hisn since the Bible. I told him 'twar time he
got a new one if 'twere that old, but he said he reckoned
a name war like whiskey — hit needed a right smart o'
age to make hit worth anything."

Thryng laid the antique silver pot on the bed beside the
old mother's hand and again took up the small volumes.
As he held them, a thought flashed through his mind, yet
hardly a thought, — it was more of an illumination, —
like a vista suddenly opened through what had seemed an
impenetrable, impalpable wall, beyond which lay a joy
yet to be, but before unseen. In that instant of time, a
vision appeared to him of what life might bring, glorified
by a tender light as of red fire seen through a sweet, blue,
obscuring mist, and making thus a halo about the one
figure of the vision outlined against it, clear and fine.

"'Pears like you find somethin' right interestin' in that
book ; be you readin' hit V^

"I find a glorious prophecy. Was your first husband
born and raised here as you were ?"

"Not on this spot; but he was born an' raised like we-
uns here in the mountains — ovah th'other side Pisgah.
I seed him first when I wa'n't more'n seventeen. He come
here fer — I don't rightly recollect what, only he had been
deer huntin' an' come late evenin' he drapped in. He
had lost his dog, an' he had a bag o' birds, an' he axed
maw could she cook 'em an' give him suppah, an' maw,
she took to him right smaht.

** Aftah suppah — I remember like hit war last evenin'
— he took gran'paw's old fiddle an' tuned hit up an' sot
thar an* played everything you evah heered. He played
like the' war birds singin' an' rain fallin', an' like the wind
when hit goes wailin' round the house in the pine tops —
soft an' sad — like that-a-way. Gran'paw's old fiddle.
I used to keer a heap fer hit, but one time Farwell got
religion, an' he took an' broke hit 'cause he war 'feared

David makes a Discovery 85

Frale mount larn to play an' hit would be a temptation
of the devil to him."

"Well, I say ! That was a crime, you know."

"Yes. Sometimes I lay here an' say what-all did I
marry Farwell fer, anyway. Well — every man has his
failin's, the' say, an' Farwell, he sure had hisn."

"May I keep these books a short time "^ I will be very
careful of them. You know that, or you would not have
shown them to me,"

"You take them as long as you like. Hit ain't like hit
used to be. Books is easy come by these days — too easy,
I reckon. Cassandrj^ she brung a whole basketful of
'em with her. Thar they be on that cheer behin' my
spinnin'- wheel."

"Was the basket full of books .^ So, that was why it
was so heavy. Might I have a look at them ?"

"Look 'em ovah all you want to. She won't keer, I
reckon. She hain't had a mite o' time since she come home
to look at 'em."

But David thought better of it. He would not look
in her basket and pry among her treasures without her
permission.

"When is she coming back.^^" he asked, awakened to
desire further knowledge of the silent girl's aspirations.

"Soon, I reckon. She's been a right smart spell longah
now 'n she 'lowed she'd be. Hit's old man Irwin. He's
been hurted some way. She went ovah to see could Aunt
Sally Carew go an' help Miz Irwin keer fer him — she's
a fool thing, don't know nothin'. They sont down fer
me — but here I be, so she rode the colt ovah fer Sally.'*

David wrapped and tied the piece of silver as he had
found it. As he replaced it in the box, he discovered the
pieces of the broken fiddle loosely tied in a sack, precious
relics of a joy that was past. Carefully he locked the box
and returned the key, but the books he folded in the strip
of gingham and carried away with him.

"I'll be back to-night or in the morning. If she doesn't
return, send Hoyle for me. You mustn't be too long
alone. Shall I mend the fire .^ "

He threw on another log, then lifted her a little and
brought her a glass of cool water, and climbed back to his
cabin, walking hghtly and swiftly.

CHAPTER IX

IN WHICH DAVID ACCOMPANIES CASSANDRA ON AN ERRANT

OF MERCY

Filled with the enthusiasm of his thoughts, David
cHmbed too rapidly, and now he found he must take the
more gradual rise of the mule trail without haste. His
cap thrust in his pocket, the breeze lifted his hair and
dried the perspiration which would still come with any too
eager exertion. But why should he care ? Even to be
alive these days was joy. This was continually the refrain
of his heart, nor had he begun to exhaust his resources
for entertainment in his solitary life.

Never were the days too long. Each was filled with
such new and lively interest as to preclude the thought of
ennui. To provide against it, he had sent for books —
more than he had had time to read in all the busy days of
the last three years. These and his microscope and his
surgical instruments had been brought him on a mule
team by Jerry Carew, who did his "toting" for him,
fetching all he needed for work or comfort, in this way,
from the nearest station where goods could be sent until
the hotel opened in the early summer. Not that he needed
them, but that, as an artist loves to keep a supply of paints
and canvas, or a writer — even when idle — is happier to
know that he has at hand plenty of pens and blank paper,
he liked to have them.

Thus far he had felt no more need of his books than he
had for his surgical instruments, but now he was glad
he had them for the sake of the girl who was "that sot on
all such." He would open the box the moment he had
eaten, and look them over. The little brother should take
them down to her one at a time — or better — he would
take them himself and watch the smile which came so
rarely and sweetly to play about her lips, and in her eyes,
and vanish. Surely he had a right to that for his pains.

He heard the sound of rapid hoof beats approaching
across the level space from the cabin above him, and look-

86

An Errand of Mercy 87

iag up, as if conjured from his innermost thought, he saw
her coming, allowing the colt to swing along as he would.
Her bonnet hung by the strings from her arm, her hair
blew in crinkling wisps across her face, and the rapid
exercise had brought roses into the creamy whiteness of
her skin. She kept to the brow of the ridge and would
have passed him unseeing, her eyes fixed on the distant
hills, had he not called to her in his clear Alpine jodel.

She reined in sharply and, slipping from the saddle,
walked quickly to him, leading the colt, which was warm
and panting as if he had carried her a good distance at
that pace.

"Oh, Doctor Thryng, we need you right bad. That's
why I took this way home. Have you been to the
house ? "

"Yes. I have just come from there."

"Is mother all right .?^"

"Doing splendidly." He waited, and she lifted her face
to him anxiously.

"We need you bad. Doctor."

"Yes — but not you — you're not — " he began
stupidly.

"It's Mr. Irwin. I went there to see could I help any,
and seemed like I couldn't get here soon enough. When
I found you were not at home, I was that troubled. Can
— can you go up there and see why I can't rest for think-
ing he's a heap worse than he reckons ? He thinks he's
better, but — but — "

"Come in and rest and tell me about it."

"Mistress Irwin isn't quite well, and I must go back as
soon as I can get everything done at home. I must get
dinner for mother and Hoyle. You have been that kind
to mother — I thought — I thought — if you could only
see him — they can't spare him to die."

" Indeed, I'll go, gladly. But you must tell me more,
so that I may know what to take with me. What is the
matter with the man ? Is he ill or hurt ? Let me — oh,
you are an independent young woman."

She had turned from him to mount, and he stepped
forward with outstretched hand to aid her, but, in a breath,
not seeing his offer, she placed her two hands on the horn
of the saddle, and from the slight rise of ground whereon

88 The Mountain Girl

she stood, with one agile spring, landed easily in the saddle
and wheeled about.

*'He's been cutting trees to clear a patch for corn, and
some way he hurt his foot, and he's been lying there nigh
a week with the misery. Last evening she sent one of the
children for mother, not knowing she was bad herself,
so I went for Aunt Sally ; but she was gone, so I rode on
to the Irwins to see could I help. He said he wasn't
suffering so much to-day, and it made my heart just stop
to hear that, when he couldn't lift himself. You see, my
stepfather — he — he was shot in the arm, and right soon
when the misery left him, he died, so I didn't say much —
but on the way home I thought of you, and I came here
fast. We know so little here on the mountains," she added
sadly, as she looked earnestly down at him.

"You have acted wisely. Just ride on, Miss Cassandra,
and I will follow as soon as — '*

"Come dovv^n with me now and have dinnah at our place.
Then we can start togethah."

"Thank you, I will. You are more expert in the art of
dinner getting than I am, so we will lose less time." He
laughed and was rewarded with the flash of a grateful
smile as she started on without another w^ord.

It took David but a few minutes to select what articles
he suspected, from her account, might be required. He
hurried his preparations, and, being his own groom, stable
boy, and man-of-all-work, he was very busy about it.

As a strain of music or a floating melody will linger in
the background with insistent repetition, while the brain
is at the same time busily occupied with surface affairs,
so he found himself repeating some of her quaint phrases,
and seeing her eyes — the wisps of wind-blown hair —
and the smile on her lips, as she turned away, like an
accompaniment to all he was thinking and doing.

Soon, equipped for whatever the emergency might
demand, he was at the widow's door. His horse nickered
and stretched out his nose toward Cassandra's colt as
if glad to have once more a little horse companionship.
Side by side they stood, with bridles slipped back and hung
to their saddles, while they crunched contentedly at the
corn on the ear, which Hoyle had brought them.

While at dinner, Cassandra showed David her books,

An Errand of Mercy 89

pleased that he asked to see them. "I brought them to
study, should I get time. It's right hard to give up hope
— " she glanced at her mother and lowered her voice.
*'To stop — anyhow — I thought I might teach Hoyie
a little."

"Ah, these are mostly school-books," he said, glancing
them over.

"Yes, I was at school this time — near Farington it was.
Once I stayed with Bishop Towahs and helped do house-
work. I could learn a heap there — between times.
They let me have all the books I wanted to read." She
looked lovingly at her few precious school-books. "I
haven't touched these since I got back — we're that
busy."

Then she resumed her work about the house, cooking
at the fireplace, waiting upon David, and serving her
mother, while directing Hoyle what to do, should she be
detained that night. He demurred and hung about her,
begging her not to stay.

"I won't, son, without I can't help it. You won't
care so much now — mother's not bad like she was."

"Yas, I will," he mourned.

"I reckon I'll have to call you 'baby' again," said his
mother. " You're gettin' that babyfied since Cass come
back doin' all fer ye. You has a heap o' compan3^ Thar's
the cow to keer fer, 'n' ol' Pete hollerin' at ye, an' the
chickens tellin' how many aigs they've laid fer ye. Run
now. Thar's ol' Frizzle cacklin'. Get the aig, an' we'll
send hit to the pore sick man. Thar, Cass," she added, as
Hoyle ran out, half ashamed, to do her bidding — "hit's
your own fault fer makin' such a baby of him. I 'low
you betteh take 'long a few fresh aigs ; likely they'll need
'em, so triflin' they be. I don't guess you'll find a thing in
the house fer him to eat."

Cassandra packed one of her oddty shaped little baskets,
as her mother suggested, for the sadly demoralized and
distracted family to which they were going, and tucked in
with the rest the warm, newly laid egg Hoyle brought her,
smiling indulgently, and kissing his upturned face as she
took it from him.

Toward David she was alwavs entirely simple and
natural, except when abashed by his speech, which seemed

90 The Mountain Girl

to her most elaborate and sometimes mystifying. She
would pause and gaze on him an instant when he extended
to her a courtesy, as if to give it its exact value. Not
that she in the least distrusted him, quite the contrary,
but that she was wholly unused to hearing phrased cour-
tesies, or enthusiasms expressed in the form of words.

She had seen something of it in the bishop's pretty
complimentary pleasantries with his wife, but David's
manner of handing her a chair, offering her a suggestion
— with a "May I be allowed.'^" was foreign to her, and
she accepted such remarks with a moment's hesitation
and a certain aloofness hardly understood by him.

He found himself treating her with a measure of freedom
from the constraint which men often place upon themselves
because of the recognition of the personal element which
will obtrude between them and femininity in general.
He recognized the reason for this in her absolute lack of
coquetry toward him, but analyze the phenomenon, as
yet, he could not.

To her he was a being from another world, strange and
delightful, but set as far from her as if the sea divided them.
She turned toward him sweet, expectant eyes. She lis-
tened attentively, gropingly sometimes. She would under-
stand him if she could, — would learn from him and trust
him implicitly, — but her femininity never obtruded itself.
Hei personality seemed to be enclosed within herself
and never to lean toward him with the subtile flattery men
feel and like to awaken, but which they often fear to arouse
when they wish to remain themselves unstirred. Her
dignified poise and perfect freedom from all arts to attract
his favor and attention pleased him, but while it gave him
the safe and unconstrained feeling when with her, it still
piqued his man's nature a little to see her so capable of
showing tenderness to her own, yet so unstirred by him-
self.

Cassandra had never been up to his cabin when he was
there, until to-day, since the morning she came to consult
him about Frale, nor had that young man's name been
uttered between them. David had said nothing to her of
the return of the valise, not wishing to touch on the sub-
ject unless she gave the opportunity for him to ask what
she knew about it. Now, since his morning's talk with her

An Errand of Mercy 91

mother had envisioned an ideal, and shown a glory beyond,
he was glad to have this opportunity of being alone with
her and of sounding her depths.

For a long time they rode in silence, and he remembered
her mother's words, "He may have told Cass, but she is
that still." She carried her basket carefully before her
on the pommel of her saddle. Gradually the large sun-
bonnet which quite hid her face slipped back, and the sun
lighted the bronze tints of her hair. As he rode at her
side he studied her watchfully, so simply dressed in home-
spun material which had faded from its original color to
a sort of turquoise green. The stuff was heavy and clung
closely to her figure, and she rode easily, perched on her
small, old-fashioned side-saddle, swaying with lithe move-
ment to the motion of her horse. She wore no wrap,
only a soft silk kerchief knotted about her neck, the flutter-
ing ends of which caressed her chin.

Her cheeks became rosy with the exercise, and her gray
eyes, under the green pines and among the dense laurel
thickets, took on a warm, luminous green tint like the hue
of her dress. David at last found it difiicult to keep his
eyes from her,* — this veritable flower of the wilderness, —
and all this time no word had been spoken between them.
How impersonal and far away from him she seemed !
While he was filled with interest in her and eager to learn
the secret springs of her life, she was riding on and on,
swaying to her horse as a flower on its slender stem sways
in a breeze, as undisturbed bv him as if she were not a
human breathing girl, subject to man's dominating power.

Was she, then, so utterly untouched by his masculine
presence ? he wondered. If he did not speak first, would
she keep silent forever ? Should he wait and see ? Should
he will her to speak and of herself unfold to him ?

Suddenly she turned and looked clearly and pleasantly
in his eyes. "We'll be on a straight road for a piece after
this hill ; shall we hurry a little then ? "

"Certainly, if you think best. You set the pace, and
I'll follow." Again silence fell.

"Do you feel in a hurry ?" he asked at length.

"I would like to get there soon. We can't tell what
might be." She pressed her hand an instant to her throat
and drew in her breath as if something hurt her.

92 The Mountain Girl

"What is it?" he asked, drawing his horse nearer.

** Nothing. Only I wish we were there now."

"You are suffering in anticipation, and it isn't necessary.
Better not, indeed. Think of something else."

"Yes, suli." The two little words sounded humbly
submissive. He had never been so baffled in an endeavor
to bring another soul into a mood responsive to his own.
This gentle acquiescence w as not what he wished, but that
she should reveal herself and betray to him even a hint
— a gleam — of the deep undercurrent of her life.

Suddenly they emerged on the crest of a narrow ridge
from which they could see off over range after range of
mountain peaks on one side, growing dimmer, bluer, and
more evanescent until lost in a heavenly distance, and on
the other side a valley dropping down and down into a deep
and purple gloom richly w^ooded and dense, surrounded
by precipices topped with scrubby, wind-blown pines and
oaks — a wild and rocky descent into mystery and seclu-
sion. Here and there a slender thread of smoke, intensely
blue, rose circling and filtering through the purple density
against a black-green background of hemlocks.

Contrasted w ith the view^ on the other side, so celestially
fair, this seemed to present something sinister, yet weirdly
beautiful — a baffling, untamed wilderness. Along this
ridge the road ran straight before them for a distance,
stony and bleak, and the air swept over it sweet and strong
from the sea, far aw^ay.

"Wait — wait a moment," he called, as his panting horse
rounded the last curve of the climb, and she had already
put her own to a gallop. She reined in sharply and came
back to him, a glowing vision. "Stand a moment near
me. We'll let our horses rest a bit and ourselves, too.
There is strength and vitality in this air ; breathe it in
deeply. ^ATiat joy to be alive !"

She came near, and their horses held quiet commamion,
putting their noses together contentedly. Cassandra
lifted her head high and turned her face toward the bil-
lowed mountains, and did what Thryng had not known
her to do, what he had wondered if she ever did — She
laughed — laughed aloud and joyously.

"Why do you laugh ?" he asked, and laughed with her.

"I'm that glad all at once. I don't know why. If the

An Errand of Mercy 93

mountains could feel and be glad, seems like they'd be
laughing now away off there by the sea. I wonder will
I ever see the ocean."

"Of course you will. You are not going to live always
shut up in these mountains. Laugh again. Let me hear
you."

But she turned on him startled eyes. *'I clean forgot
that poor man down below, so like to die I am 'most afraid
to get back there. Look down. It must have been in a
place like that where Christian slew Apollyon in the dark
valley, like I was reading to Hoyle last night."

*'Does he live down in there .^ I mean the man Irwin

— not Apollyon. He's dead, for Christian slew him."
"Yes, the Irwins live there. See yonder that spot of

cleared red ground ? There's their place. The house is
hid by the dark trees nigh the red spot. Can you make
it out?"

"Yes, but I call that far."

" It's easy riding. Shall we go on .^^ I'm that frightened

— we'd better hurry."

"Is that your way when you are afraid to do a thing;
you hurry to do it all the more ? "

"Seems like we have to a heap of times. Seems like if
I were only a man, I could be brave, but being a girl so, it
is right hard."

She started her horse to a gallop, and side by side they
hurried over the level top of the ridge — to Thryng an
exhilarating moment, to her a speeding toward some
terrible, unknown trial.

CHAPTER X

IN WHICH CASSANDRA AND DAVID VISIT THE HOME OP

DECATUR IRWIN

Soon the way became steep and difficult and the path
so narrow they were forced to go single file. Then Cas-
sandra led and David followed. They passed no dwellings,
and even the little home to which they were going was
lost to view. He wondered if she were not weary, remem-
bering that she had been over the distance twice before
that day, and begged her, as he had done when they set
out, to allow him to carry the basket, but still she would
not.

*'I never think of it. I often carry things this way.
— We have to here in the mountains." She glanced back
at him and smiled. *'I reckon you find it hard because
you are not used to living like we do; we're soon there
now, see yonder ? "

A turn in the path brought them in sight of the cabin,
set in its bare, desolate patch of red soil. About the door
swarmed unkempt children of all sizes, as bees hang out
of an over-filled hive, the largest not more than twelve
years old, and the youngest carried on the mother's arm.
It was David's first visit to one of the poorest of the moun-
tain homes, and he surveyed the scene before him with
dismay.

Below the house was a spring, and there, suspended from
the long-reaching branch of a huge beech tree, now leaf-
less and bare, a great, black iron pot swung by a chain
over a fire built on the ground among a heap of stones.
On a board at one side lay wet, gray garments, twisted
in knots as they had been wrung out of the soapy water.
The woman had been washing, and the vapor was rising
from the black pot of boiling suds, but, seeing their ap-
proach, she had gone to her door, her babe on her arm
and the other children trooping at her heels and clinging
to her skirts. They peered up from under frowzy, over-

94

Cassandra and David 95

hanging locks of hair like a group of ragged, bedraggled
Scotch terriers.

The mother herself seemed scarcely older than the oldest,
and Thryng regarded her with amazement when he noticed
her infantile, undeveloped face and learned that she had
brought into the world all those who clustered about her.
His amazement grew as he entered the dark little cabin
and saw that they must all eat and sleep in its one small
room, which they seemed to fill to overflowing as they
crowded in after him, accompanied by three lean hounds,
who sniffed suspiciously at his leggings.

Far in the darkest corner lay the father on a pallet of
corn-husks covered with soiled bedclothing. The windows
w^ere mere holes in the walls, unglazed, unframed, and
closed at night or in bad weather by wooden shutters,
when the room was lighted only by the flames from the
now black and empty fireplace. Here, while mother
and children were out by '*the branch'* washing, the
injured man lay alone, stoically patient, declaring that
his "laig" was some better, that he did not feel '*so much
misery in hit as yesterday.'*

Thryng had seen much squalor and wretchedness, but
never before in a home in the country where women and
children were to be found. For a moment he looked
helplessly at the silent, staring group, and at the man, who
feebly tried to indicate to his wife the extending of some
courtesy to the stranger.

"Set a cheer, Polly," he said weakly, offering his great
hand. "You are right welcome, suh. Are you visitin' these
parts ?'*

"This is the doctor I was telling you about, Cate, —
Doctor Thryng. I begged him to come up and see could
he do anything for you," said Cassandra. Then she urged
the woman to go back to her work and take the children
with her. "Doctor and I will look after your old man
awhile." She succeeded in clearing the place of all but one
lean hound, who continued to stand by his master and
lick his hand, whining presciently, and one or two of the
children, who lingered around the door to peer in cu-
riously at the doctor.

A shutter near the bed was tightly closed and, in strug-
gling to open it, Cassandra discovered it was broken at the

96 The Mountain Girl

hinges and had been nailed in place. David flew to hei
assistance and, wrenching out the nails, tore it free, let-
ting in a flood of light upon the wretchedness around them.
Then he turned his attention to the patient, a man of
powerful frame, but lean almost to emaciation, who
w^atched the young physician's face silently with widely
opened blue eyes, their pale color intensified by the sur-
rounding shock of matted, curling, vividly red hair and
beard.

It required but a few moments to ascertain that the
man's condition was indeed critical. Cassandra had gone
out and now returned with her hands full of dry pine
sticks. Bending on one knee before the empty fireplace,
she arranged them and hung a kettle over them full of
fresh water. David turned and watched her light the
fire.

"Good. We shall need hot water immediately. How
long since you have eaten ? *' he asked the man.

"He hain't eat nothing all day," said the wife, who
had returned and again stood in the door with all her
flock, gazing at him. Then the woman grew plaintively
garrulous about the trouble she had had "doin' fer him,"
and begged David to tell her "could he he'p 'im." At
last Thryng put a hurried end to her talk by saying he
could do nothing — nothing at all for her old man, un-
less she took herself and the children all away. She
looked terror-stricken, and her mouth drew together in
a stubborn, resentful line as if in some way he had pre-
cipitated ill luck upon them by his coming. Cassandra
at once took her basket and walked out toward the stream,
and they all followed, leaving David and the father in
sole possession of the place.

Then he turned to the bed and began a kindly explana-
tion. He fourxi the man more intelligent and much
more tractable than the woman, but it was hard to make
him believe that he must inevitably lose either his life
or his foot, and that they had not an hour — not a half
hour — to spare, but must decide at once. David's
manner, gentle, but firmly urgent, at last succeeded. The
big man broke down and wept weakly, but yielded; only
he stipulated that his wife must not be told.

"No, no ! She and the children must be kept away;

Cassandra and David 97

but I need help. Is there no one — no man whom we can
get to come here quickly ? "

"They is nobody — naw — I reckon not."

David was distressed, but he searched about until he
found an old battered pail in which to prepare his anti-
septic, and busied himself in replenishing the fire and
boiling the water ; all the time his every move was watched
by the hound and the pathetic blue eyes of his master.

Soon Cassandra returned, to David's great relief, alone.
She smiled as she looked in his face, and spoke quietly :
"I told her to take the children and gather dock and
mullein leaves and such like to make tea for her old man,
and if she'd stay awhile, I'd look after him and have supper
for them when they got back. Is there anything I can do
now .? ';

David was troubled indeed, but what could he do ?
He explained his need of her quickly, in low tones, out-
side the door. *'I believe you are strong and brave and
can do it as well as a man, but I hate to ask it of you.
There is not time to wait. It must be done to-day, now."

"I'll help you," she said simply, and walked into the
hut. She had become deadly pale, and he followed her
and placed his fingers on her pulse, holding her hand and
looking down in her eyes.

"You trust me.^^" he asked.

"Oh, yes. I must."

"Yes — you must — dear child. You are all right.
Don't be troubled, but just think we are trying to save
his life. Look at me now, and take in all I say."

Then he placed her with her back to his work, taught
her how to count the man's pulse and to give the ether;
but the patient demurred. He would not take it.

"Naw, I kin stand hit. Go ahead. Doctor."

"See here. Gate Irwin. You are bound to do as Doctor
Thryng says or die," she said, bending over him. "Take
this, and I'll sit by you every minute and never take
my hand off yours. Stop tossing. There ! " He obeyed
her, and she sat rigidly still and waited.

The moments passed in absolute silence. Her heart
pounded in her breast and she grew cold, but never took
her eyes from the still, deathlike face before her. In
her heart she was praying — praying to be strong enough

98 The Mountain Girl

to endure the horror of it — not to faint nor fall — until
at last it seemed to her that she had turned to stone in her
place; but all the time she could feel the faintly beating
pulse beneath her fingers, and kept repeating David's
words: "We are trying to save his life — we are trying
to save his life."

David finished. Moving rapidly about, he washed, cov-
ered, and carried away, and set all in order so that noth-
ing betrayed his grewsome task. Then he came to her
and took both her cold hands in his warm ones and led
her to the door. She swayed and walked weakly. He
supported hfer with his arm and, once out in the sweet
air, she quickly recovered. He praised her warmly,
eagerly, taking her hands in his, and for the first time,
as the faint rose crept into her cheeks, he felt her to be
moved by his words ; but she only smiled as she drew her
hands aw^ay and turned toward the house.

"They'll be back directly, and I promised to have
something for them to eat."

"Then I'll help you, for our man is coming out all
right now, and I feel — if he can have any kind of care —
he will live."

The sky had become overcast with heavy clouds and
the wind had risen, blowing cold from the north. David
replaced the shutter he had torn off and mended the fire
with fuel he found scattered about the yard; while
Cassandra swept and set the place in order and the re-
suscitated patient looked about a room neater and
more homelike than he had ever slept in before. Cas-
sandra searched out a few articles with which to prepare a
meal — the usual food of the mountain poor — salt pork,
and corn-meal mixed with water and salt and baked in the
ashes. David watched her as she moved about the dark
cabin, lighted only by the fitful flames of the fireplace,
to perform those gracious, homely tasks, and would
have helped her, but he could not.

At last the woman and her brood came streaming in,
and Cassandra and the doctor were glad to escape into
the outer air. He tried to make the mother understand
his directions as to the care of her husband, but her pas-
sive "Yas, suh" did not reassure him that his wishes
would be carried out, and his hopes for the man's recovery

Cassandra and David 99

grew less as he realized the conditions of the home. After
riding a short distance, he turned to Cassandra.

"Won't you go back and make her understand that he
is to be left absolutely alone ? Scare her into making the
children keep away from his bed, and not climb into it.
You made him do as I wished, with only a word, and
maybe you can do something with her. I can't."

She turned back, and David watched her at the door
talking with the woman, who came out to her and handed
her a bundle of something tied in a meal sack. He won-
dered what it might be, and Cassandra explained.

"These are the yarbs I sent her and the children aftah.
I didn't know how to rid the cabin of them without I
sent for something, and now I don't know what to do
with these. We — we're obliged to use them some way."
She hesitated — "I reckon I didn't do right telling her
that — do you guess "^ I had to make out like you needed
them and had sent back for them ; it — it wouldn't do
to mad her — not one of her sort." Her head drooped
with shame and she added pleadingly, "Mother has used
these plants for making tea for sick folks — but — "

He rode to her side and lifted the unwieldy load to his
own horse, "Be ye wise as a serpent and harmless as a
dove," he said, laughing.

"How do you mean "^ "

"You were wise. You did right where I would only have
dove harm and been brutal. Can't you see these have
already served their purpose ?"

"I don't understand."

"You told her to get them because you wished to make
her think she was doing something for her husband,
didn't you ^ And you couldn't say to her that she would
help most by taking herself out of the way, could you .^ She
could not understand, and so they have served their pur-
pose as a means of getting her quietly and harmlessly
away so we could properly do our work."

"But I didn't say so — not rightly; I made her
think — "

"Never mind what you said or made her think. You
did right, God knows. We are all made to work out
£jood — often when we think erroneously, just as you
made her uncomprehendingly do what she ought. If

100 The Mountain Girl

ever she grows wise enough to understand, well and good ^
if not, no harm is done.'*

Cassandra listened, but doubtingly. At last she stopped
her horse. *'If you can't use them, I feel like I ought to
go back and explain," she said. Her face gleamed whitely
out of the gathering dusk, and he saw her shiver in the cold
and bitter wind. He was more warmly dressed than she,
and still he felt it cut through him icily.

'"No. You shall not go back one step. It would be a
useless waste of your time and strength. Later, if you
still feel that you must, you can explain. Come."

She yielded, touched her horse lightly with her whip, and
they hurried on. The night was rapidly closing in, the
thick, dark shadows creeping up from the gorges below as
they climbed the rugged steep they had descended three
hours earlier. They picked their way in silence, she ahead,
and he following closely. He wondered what might be
her thoughts, and if she had inherited, along with much
else that he could perceive, the Puritan conscience which
had possibly driven some ancestor here to live undisturbed
of his precious scruples.

When they emerged at last on the level ridge where she
fiad so joyously laughed out, Thryng hurried forward and
again rode at her side. She sat wearily now, holding the
reins with chilled hands. Had she forgotten the happy
moment ? He had not. The wind blew more shrewdly
past them, and a few drops of rain, large and icy cold,
struck their faces.

"Put these on your hands, please," he begged, pulling
off his thick gloves ; but she would not.

He reached for the bridle of her horse and drew him
nearer, then caught her cold hands and began chafing
them, first one and then the other. Then he slipped the
warm gloves over them. "Wear them a little while to
please me," he urged. "You have no coat, and mine is
thick and warm."

Suddenly he became aware that she was and had been
silently weeping, and he was filled with anxiety for her,
so brave she had been, so tired she must be — worn out —
poor little heart !

"Are you so tired ?" he asked.

"Oh, no, no."

Cassandra and David 101

"Won't you tell me what troubles you? Let me put
this over your shoulders to keep off the rain."

"Oh, no, no !" she cried, as he began to remove his coat.
"You need it a heap more than I. You have been sick,
and I am well.'*

"Please wear it. I will walk a little to keep warm."

"Oh ! I can't. I'm not cold, Doctor Thryng. It isn't
that."

He became imperative through anxiety. "Then tell me
what it is," he said.

"I can't stop thinking of Decatur Irwin. I can feel you
working there yet, and seems like I never will forget. I
keep going over it and over it and can't stop. Doctor,
are you sure — sure — it was right for us to do what we
did?"

"Poor child ! It was terrible for you, and you were fine,
you know — fine; you are a heroine — you are — "

"I don't care for me. It isn't me. Was it right.
Doctor ? Was there no other way ? " she wailed.

"As far as human knowledge goes, there was no other
wa3^ Listen, Miss Cassandra, I have been where such
accidents were frequent. Many a man's leg have I taken
off. Surgery is my work in life — don't be horrified. I
chose it because I wished to be a saver of life and a helper
of my fellows." She was shivering more from the nervous
reaction than from the cold, and to David it seemed as if
she were trying to draw farther away from him.

"Don't shrink from me. There are so many in the world
to kill and wound, some there must be to mend where it is
possible. I saw in a moment that your intuition had led
you rightly, and soon I knew what must be done; I only
hope we were not too late. Don't cry, Miss Cassandra.
It makes me feel such a brute to have put you through
it."

"No, no. You were right kind and good. I'm only
crying now because I can't stop."

"There, there, child ! We'll ride a little faster. I must
get you home and do something for you." He spoke out
of the tenderness of his heart toward her.

But soon they were again descending, and the horses,
careful for their own safety if not for their riders', continued
slowly and stumblingly to pick their footing in the darkness.

102 The Mountain Girl

Now the rain began to beat more fiercely, and before they
reached the Fall Place they were wet to the skin.

David feared neither the wetting nor the cold for him-
self; only for her in her utter weariness was he anxious.
She would help him stable the horses and led away one
while he led the other, but once in the house he took
matters in his own hands peremptorily. He rebuilt the
fire and himself removed her wet garments and her shoes.
She was too exhausted to resist. Following the old moth-
er's directions, he found woollen blankets and, wrapping
her about, he took her up like a baby and laid her on her
bed. Then he brewed her a hot milk punch and made her
take it.

"You need this more than I, Doctah. If you'll just
take some yourself, as soon as I can I'll make your bed
in the loom shed again, and — "

*' Drink it; drink it and go to sleep. Yes, yes. I'll have
some, too.'*

**Cass, you lie still and do as doctah says. You nigh
about dade, child. If only I could get off'n this bed an'
walk a leetle, I'd 'a' had your place all ready fer ye, Doctah.
The' is a featheh bade up garret, if ye could tote hit down
an' drap on the floor here fer — "

David laughed cheerily. "Why, this is nothing for me."
He stood turning himself about to dry his clothing on all
sides before the blaze. "As soon as Miss Cassandra closes
her eyes and sleeps, I w^ill look after myself. It's a shame
to bring all these wet things in here, I say ! "

"You are a-steamin' like you are a steam engine," piped
little Hoyle, peering at him over his mother's shoulder
from the far corner of her bed.

"You lie down and go to sleep again, youngster," said
David.

x^Lnd gradually they all fell asleep, while Thryng sat long
before the fire and pondered until Cassandra slept. Once and
again a deep quivering sigh trembled through her parted
lips, as he watched beside her. A warm rose hue played
over her still features, cast by the dancing red flames, and
her hair in a dishevelled mass swept across the pillow and
down to the floor. At last the rain ceased ; warmed and
dried, Thryng stole away from the silent house and rode
back to his own cabin.

CHAPTER XI

IN WHICH SPRING COMES TO THE MOUNTAINS, AND CAS-
SANDRA TELLS DAVID OF HER FATHER

Ere long such a spring as David had never dreamed of
swept up the mountain, with a charm so surpassing and
transcending any imagined beauty that he was filled with
a sort of ecstasy. He was constantly out upon the hills
revelling in the lavish bounty of earth and sky, of rushing
waters, and all the subtile changes in growing things,
as if at last he had been clasped to the heart of nature.
He visited the cabins wherever he was called, and when
there was need for Cassandra's ministrations he often
took her with him ; thus they fell naturally into good
camaraderie. Thus, also, quite as naturally, Cassandra's
speech became more correct and fluent, even while it lost
none of its lingering delicacy of intonation.

David provided her with books, as he had promised
himself. Sometimes he brought them down to her, and
they read together ; sometimes he left them with her and
she read them by herself eagerly and happily; but so busy
was she that she found very little time to be with him.
Not only did all the work of the household fall on her,
but the weaving, which her mother had done heretofore,
and the care of the animals, which had been done by
Frale.

The life she had hoped to lead and the good she had
longed to do when she left home for school, encouraged by
the bishop and his wife, she now resolutely put away from
her, determined to lead in the best way the life that she
knew must henceforth be hers. She hoped at least she
might be able to bring the home place back to what it
used to be in her Grandfather Caswell's time, and to this
end she labored patiently; albeit sadly.

David was ever aware of a barrier past which he might
never step, no matter how merry or how intimate they
might seem to be, and always about her a silent air of
waiting, which deterred him in his efforts to draw her

103

*

104 The Mountain Girl

into more confidential relations. Yet as the days passed,
he became more interested in her, influenced by her near-
ness to him, and still more by her remoteness.

Allured and baffled, often in the early morning or late
evening he would sit in the doorway of his cabin, or out
on his rock with his flute, when his thoughts were full
of her. Simple, maidenly, and strong, his heart yearned
toward her, while instinctively she held herself aloof in
quiet dignity. Never had she presented herself at his
door unless impelled by necessity. Never had she sat
with him in his cabin since that first time when she came
to him so heavy hearted for Frale.

Only when she knew him to be absent had she gone to
his cabin and set all its disorder to rights. Then he would
return to find it swept and cleaned, and sweet with wild
flowers and pine greenery and vines, his cooking utensils
washed and scoured, the floor whitened with scrubbing,
in his larder newly baked corn-bread and white beaten
biscuits, his honey jar refilled and fresh butter pats in
the spring. Sometimes a brown, earthen jug of cool,
refreshing buttermilk stood on his table, but always his
thanks would be swept aside with the words : —

"Mother sent me up to see could I do anything for you.
You are always that kind and we can't do much."

"And you never come up when I am at home ? "

"It isn't every time I can get to go up, I'm that busy
here most days."

"Only the days when I am absent can you *get to go
up'.^^" he would say teasingly. "Don't I ever deserve
a visit ?"

"Cass don't get time fer visitin' these days. Since
Frale lef she have all his work an' hern too on her, an'
mine too, only the leetle help she gets out'n Hoyle, an'
hit hain't much," said the mother. "Doctah, don't ye
guess I can get up an' try walkin' a leetle ? "

"If you will promise me you will only try it when I am
here to help you, I will take off the weight, and we'll see
what you can do to-day."

Cassandra loved to watch David attend on her mother,
so tender was he ; and he adopted a playful manner that
always dispelled her pessimism and left her smiling and
talkative. Ere he was aware, also, he made a place for

Cassandra tells of her Father 105

himself in Cassandra's heart when he became interested
in the case of her Httle brother, and attempted gradually
to overcome his deformity.

Every morning when the child climbed to his eyrie and
brought his supply of milk, David took him in and gently,
out of his knowledge and skill, gave him systematic care,
and taught him how to help himself; but he soon saw
that a more strenuous course would be the only way to
bring permanent relief, or surely the trouble would in-
crease.

'*What did Doctor Hoyle say about it?" he asked one
day.

"He wa'n't that-a-way when doctah war here last.
Hit war nigh on five year ago that come on him. He had
fevah, an' a right smart o' times when we thought he war
a-gettin' bettah he jes' went back, ontwell he began to
kind o' draw sideways this-a-way, an' he hain't nevah
been straight sence, an' he has been that sickly, too.
When doctah saw him last, he war nigh three year old
an' straight as they make 'em, an' fat — you couldn't
see a bone in him."

David pondered a moment. "Suppose you give him
to me awhile," he said. "Let him live with me in my
cabin — eat there, sleep there — everything, and we'll
see what can be done for him."

"I'm wnllin', more'n willin', when only I can get to help
Cass some. Hoyle, he's a heap o' help, with me not able
to do a lick. He can milk nigh as well as she can, an' tote
in water, an' feed the chick'ns an' th' pig, an' rid'n' to
mill fer meal — yas, he's a heap o' help. Cass, she got to
get on with th' weavin'. We promised bed kivers an' such
fer INIiss INIayhew. She sells 'em fer ladies 'at comes to
the hotel in summah. We nevah would have a cent o'
money in hand these days 'thout that, only what chick'ns
'nd aigs she can raise fer the hotel, too. Hit's only in
summah. I don't rightly see how we can spare Hoyle."

"\Miere's Miss Cassandra now?" he asked, onlv more
determined on his course the more he was hampered by
circumstances.

"She's in the loom shed weavin'. I throwed on the
warp fer a blue and white bed kiver 'fore I war hurt, an'
she hain't had time to more'n half finish hit. I war helpin*

106 The Mountain Girl

to get the weavin' done whilst she war at school this winter,
an' come spring she war 'lowin' to come back an' help
Frale with the plantin' an' makin' crap fer next year.
Here in the mountains we-uns have to be forehanded, an'
here I be an' can't crawl scarcely yet."

After the thrifty soul had taken a few steps, instead of
realizing her good fortune in being able to take any, she
was bitterly disappointed to find that weeks must still
pass ere she could walk by herself. She was seated on
her little porch where David had helped her, looking out
on the growing things and the blossoming spring all about
— a sight to make the heart glad ; but she saw only that
the time was passing, and it would soon be too late to make
a crop that year.

She was such a neat, self-respecting old woman as she
sat there. Her work-worn old hands were not idle, for
she turned and mended Hoyle's funny little trousers,
home-made, with suspenders attached.

"I don't know what-all we can do ef we can't make a
crap. We won't have no corn nor nothin', an' nothin' to
feed stock, let alone we-uns. We'll be in a fix just like
all the poor white trash, me not able to do a lick."
. David came and sat beside her a few moments and said
a great many comforting things, and when he rose to go
the world had taken on a new aspect for her eyes — bright,
dark eyes, looking up at him with a gleam of hope.

"I believe ye," she said. "We'll do anything you say,
Doctah."

Thryng walked out past the loom shed and paused to
look in on the young girl as she sat swaying rhythmically,
throwing the shuttles with a sweep of her arm, and draw-
ing the great beam toward her with steady beat, driving
the threads in place, and shifting the veil of warp stretched
before her with a sure touch of her feet upon the treadles,
all her lithe body intent and atune. It seemed to him as
he sat himself on the step to watch, that music must come
from the flow of her action. The noise of the loom pre-
vented her hearing his approach, and silently he watched
and waited, fascinated in seeing the fabric grow under
her hand.

As silently she worked on, and slowly, even as the pat-
tern took shape and became plain before her, his thoughts

4^\

It see7ned to hint that
nut sic must come fro/n the
floiv of he7' action. Page \ 06.

^

Cassandra tells of her Father 107

grew and took definite shape also, until he became filled
with a set purpose. He would not disturb her now nor
make her look around. It was enough just to watch her
in her sweet serious unconsciousness, with the flush of
exercise on her cheeks as he could see when she slightly
turned her head with every throw of the shuttle.

When at last she rose, he saw a look of care and weari-
ness on her face that disturbed him. He sprang up and
came to her. She little dreamed how long he had been
there.

"Please don't go. Stay here and talk to me a moment.
Your mother is all right ; I have just been with her. May
I examine what you have been doing ? It is very interest-
ing to me, you know." He made her show him all the
manner of her work and drew her on to tell him of the
different patterns her mother had learned from her grand-
mother and had taught her.

"They don't do much on the hand-looms now in the
mountains, but Miss Mayhew at the hotel last summer
— I told you about her — sold some of mother's work
up North, and I promised more, but I'm afraid — I don't
guess I can get it all done now."

"You are tired. Sit here on the step awhile with me
and rest. I want to talk to you a little, and I want
you alone." She looked hesitatingly toward the declin-
ing sun. He took her hand and led her to the door.
" Can't you give me a few, a very few moments ? You
hold me off and won't let me say what I often have in
mind to ask you." She sat beside him where he placed
her and looked wonderingly into his face, but not in the
least as if she feared what his question might be, or as if
she suspected anything personal. "You know it's not
right that this sort of thing should go on indefinitely?'*

"I don't know what sort of thing you mean." She
lifted grave, wide eyes to his — those clear gray eyes —
and his heart admonished him that he had begun to love
to look into their blue and green depths, but heed the
admonishment he would not.

"I mean working day in and day out, as you do. You
have grown much thinner since I saw you first, and look
at your hands." He took one of them in his and gently
stroked it. "See how thin they are, and here are callous

108 The Mountain Girl

places. And you are stooping over with weariness, and,
except when you have been exercising, your face is far
too white."

She looked off toward the mountain top and slowly
drew her hand from his. "I must do it. There is no one
else," she said in a low voice.

"But it can't go on always — this way."

" I reckon so. Once I thought — it might — be some
different, but now — " She waited an instant in silence.

"But now — what .^"

"It seems as if it must go on — like this way — always,
as if I were chained here with iron."

"But why? Won't you tell me so I may help you?"

"I can't," she said sadly and with finality. "It must
be."

He brooded a moment, clasping his hands about one
knee and gazing at her. "Maybe," he said at last,
"maybe I can help you, even if you can't tell me what is
holding you."

She smiled a faintly fleeting smile. "Thank you —
but I reckon not."

"Miss Cassandra, when you know I am at your service,
and will do anything you ask of me, why do you
hold something back from me ? I can understand, and
I may have ways — "

"It's just that, suh. Even if I could tell you, I don't
guess you could understand. Even if I went yonder
on the mountain and cried to heaven to set me free, I'd
have to bide here and do the work that is mine to do, as
mother has done hers, and her mother before her."

"But they did it contentedly and happily — because
they wished it. Your mother married your father be-
cause she loved him, and was glad — "

"Yes, I reckon she did — but he was different. She
could do it for him. He lived alone — alone. Mother
knew he did — she could understand. It was like he
had a room to himself high up on the mountain, where
she never could climb, nor open the door."

David leaned toward her. "What do you see when
you look off at the mountain like that ? "

" It's like I could see him. He would take his little books
up there and walk the high path. I never have showed

Cassandra tells of her Father 109

you his path. It was his, and he would walk in it, up and
down, up and down, and read words I couldn't understand,
reading Hke he was singing. Sometimes I would climb
up to him, and he'd take me in his arms and carry me like
I was a baby, and read. Sometimes he would sit on a
bank of moss under those trees — see near the top by that
open spot of sky a right dark place ? There are no other
trees like them. They are his trees. He would sit with
me there and tell me the stories of the strange words ;
but we never told mother, for she said they were heathen
and I mustn't give heed to him." When deeply absorbed,
she often lapsed into her old speech. David liked it.
He almost wished she would never change it for his.
"After father died I hunted and hunted for those little
books, but I never could find them."

" You remember him so well, won't you tell me how he
looked ? "

She slowly brought her eyes down from the mountain
top and fixed them on his face. "Sometimes — just for
a minute — you make me think of him — but you don't
look like him. I never heard any one laugh like he could
laugh — and with his eyes, too. He was tall like you, and
he carried his shoulders high like you do when you hurry,
but he was a dark man. \Mien he stood here in the door
of the loom shed, his head touched the top. I thought of
it when you stood here a bit ago and had to stoop. He
always did that." She lifted her gaze again to the moun-
tain, and was silent.

"Tell me a little more .^ Just a little.^ Don't you
remember anything he said.'^"

"He used to preach, but I was too little to remember
what he said. They used to have preaching in the school-
house, and in winter he used to teach there — when he
could get the children to come. They had no books, but
he marked with charcoal where they could all see, and
showed them writing and figures ; but somehow they got
the idea he didn't know religion right, and they wouldn't
go to hear him any more. Mother says it nigh broke
his heart, for he fell to ailing and grew that thin and white
he couldn't climb to his path any more." She stopped
and put her hand to her throat, as her way was. She
too had grown white with the ache of sorrowful remem-

110 The Mountain Girl

brance. He thought it cruel to urge her, but felt impelled
to ask for more.

"And then?"

"Yes. One day we were all alone sitting right here in
the loom shed door. He put one hand on my head, and
then he put the other hand under my chin and turned
my face to look in his eyes — so great and far — like they
could see through your heart. Seems like I can feel the
touch of his hand here yet and hear him say: 'Little
daughter, never be like the rest. Be separate, and God
will send for you some day here on the mountain. He
will send for you on the mountain top. He will compass
you about and lift you up and you shall be blessed.* Then
he kissed me and went into the house. I could hear him
still saying it as he walked, * On the mountain top one will
come for you, on the mountain top.' He went in and lay
down, and I sat here and waited. It seemed like my
heart stood still waiting for him to come back to me, and
it must have been more than an hour I sat, and mother
came home and went in and found him gone. He never
spoke again. He lay there dead."

She paused and drew in a long, sighing breath. "I
have never said those words aloud until now, to you, but
hundreds of times when I look up on the mountain I have
said them in my heart. I reckon he meant I was to bide
here until my time was come, and do all like I ought to do
it. I did think I could go to school and learn and come
back and teach like he used to, a^id so keep myself separate
like he did, but the Lord called me back and laid a hard
thing on me, and I must do it. But in my heart I can
keep separate like father did."

She rose and stood calmly, her eyes fixed on the moun-
tain. David stood near and longed to touch her passive
hand — to lift it to his lips — but forebore to startle her
soul by so unusual an act. For all she had given him a
confidence she had never bestowed on another, he felt
himself held aloof, her spirit withdrawn from him and lifted
to the mountain top.

CHAPTER Xn

IN WHICH CASSANDRA HEARS THE VOICES, AND DAVID

LEASES A FARM

That evening David sat long on his rock holding his
flute and watching the thin golden crescent of the new
moon floating through a pale amber sky, and one star
near its tip slowly sliding down with it toward the deepen-
ing horizon.

The glowing sky bending to the purple hilltops — the
crescent moon and the lone shining star — the evening
breeze singing in the pines above him — the delicate arbu-
tus blossoms hiding near his feet — the call of a bird to
its mate, and the faint answering call from some distant
shade — the call in his own heart that as yet returned to
him unanswered, but with its quiet surety of ultimate
response — the joy of these moments perfect in beauty
and a more abundant assurance of gladness near at hand —
filled him and lifted his soul to follow the star.

Guided by the unseen hand that held the earth, the
crescent moon and the star to their orbits, would he find
the great happiness that should be not his alone, but also
for the eyes uplifted to the mountain top and the heart
waiting in the shadows for the one to be sent ? Ah, surely,
surely, for this had he come. He stooped to the arbutus
blossoms to inhale their fragrance. He rose and, lifting
his flute to his lips, played to solace his own waiting, in-
venting new caprices and tossing forth the notes daringly —
delicately — rapturously — now penetrating and strong,
now faintly following and scarcely heard, uttering a word-
less gladness.

Under the great holly tree in the shadows Cassandra
sat, watching, as he watched, the crescent moon and the
lone star sailing in the pale amber light, with the deepen-
ing purple mountain hiding the dim distance below them.
Often in the early evening when her mother and Hoyle
were sleeping, she would climb up here to pray for Frale
that he might truly repent, and for herself that she might

111

112 The Mountain Girl

be strong in her purpose to give up all her cherished hopes
and plans, if thereby she might save him from his own
wild, reckless self.

It was here his boy's passion had been revealed to her,
and here she had seen him changed from boy to man,
filled with a man's hunger for her, which had led him to
crime, and held him unrepentant and glad could he thus
hold her his own. She must give up the life she had hoped
to lead and take upon her the life of the wife of Cain, to
help him expiate his deed. For this must she bow her
head to the yoke her mother had borne before her. In
the sadness of her heart she said again and again: "Christ
will understand. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief ! He will understand."

Again came to her, as they had often come of late,
dropping down through the still air, down through the
leafless boughs like joyful hopes yet to be realized, the
flute notes. What were they, those sweet sounds ? She
held her breath and lifted her face toward the sky. Once,
long ago in France, the peasant girl had heard the "Voices."
Were they heavenly sw^eet, like these sounds ? Did they
drop from the sky and fill the air like these ? Oh, why
should they seem like hopes to her who had put away from
her all hope ? Were they bringing hope to her who must
rise to toil and lie down in weariness for labor never done ;
who must hold always with sorrowing heart and clinging
hands to the soul of a murderer — hold and cling, if haply
she might save — and weep for that which, for her, might
never be ? Were they bringing hope that she might yet
live gladly as the birds live ; that she might go beyond that
and live like those who have no sin imposed on them, to
walk with the gods, she knew not how, but to rise to things
beyond her ken ?

Down came the notes, sweet, shrill, white notes, —
hurrying, drifting, lingering, calling her to follow ; down on
her heart with healing and comfort they fell, lightly as
dew on flowers, sparkling with life, joy-giving and pure.

Slowly she began climbing, listening, waiting, one step
upward after another, following the sound. As if in a
trance she moved. Below her the noise of falling water
made a murmuring accompaniment to the music dropping
from above — an earth-made accompaniment to heaven-

The Voices 113

sent melody, meeting and forming a perfect harmony in
her heart as she climbed. Gradually the horror and the
sorrow fell away from her even, as the soul shall one day
shed its garment of earth, until at last she stood alone and
silent near David, etherealized in the faint light to a spirit-
like semblance of a woman.

With a glad pounding of his heart he sprang towards
her. Scarcely conscious of the act he held out both his
arms, but she did not move. She stood silently regarding
him, her hands dropped at her side, then with drooping
head she turned and began wearily to descend the way she
had come. He followed her and took her hand. She let it
lie passively in his and walked on. He wished he might
feel her fingers close warmly about his own, but no, they
were cold. She seemed wholly withdrawn from him, and
her face bore the look of one w^ho was walking in her sleep,
yet he knew her to be awake.

"Miss Cassandra, speak to me," he begged, in quiet
tones. "Don't walk away until you tell me why you
came."

She seemed then to become aware that he was holding
her by the hand and withdrew it, and in the faint light he
thought she smiled. "It was just foolishness. You will
laugh at me. I heard the music, and I thought it might
be — you made it I reckon, but down there it sounded like
it might be the 'Voices.' You remember how they came
to Joan of x\rc, like we were reading last week ? " She
began to walk on more hurriedly.

"I will go down with you," he said, "you thought it
might be the voices ? What did they say to you ? ".

"Oh, don't go with me. I never heed the dark."

"Won't you let me go with you? W'hat did the flute
say to you ? Can't you tell me ? "

She laughed a little then. "It was only foolishness. I
reckon the 'Voices' never come these days. I have heard
it before, but didn't know where it came from. It just
seemed to drop down from heaven like, and this time it
seemed some different, as if it might be the 'Voices ' calling.
It was pretty, suh, far away and soft — like part — of
everything. My father's playing sounded sad most times,
like sweet crying, but this was more like sweet laughing.
I never heard anything so glad like this was, so I tried to

114 The Mountain Girl

find It. Now I know it is you who make it I won't dis-
turb you again, suh. Good evening." She hastened
away and was soon lost in the gloom.

David stood until he heard her footsteps no more, then
turned and entered his cabin, his mind and heart full of her.
Surely he had called her, and the sound of his call was to
her like *' sweet laughing." Her face and her quaint ex-
pressions went with him into his dreams.

When he hurried down to the widow's place next
morning, his mind filled with plans which he meant to
carry out and was sure, with the boyish certainty of his
nature he could compass, he heard the voice of little
Hoyle shrilly calling to old Pete: "Whoa, mule. Haw
there. Haw there, mule. What ye goin' that side fer ;
come 'round here."

Below the widow's house, the stream, after its riotous
descent from the fall, meandered quietly through the rich
bit of meadow and field, her inheritance for over a hundred
years, establishing her claim to distinction among her
neighbors. Here Martha Caswell had lived with her
mother and her two brothers until she married and went
with her young husband over "t'other side Pisgah";
then her mother sent for them to return, begging her son-in-
law to come and care for the place. Her two sons, reck-
less and wild, were allowing the land to run to waste, and
the buildings to fall in pieces through neglect.

The daughter Martha, true to her name, was thrifty
and careful, and under her influence, her gentle dreamer of a
husband, who cared more for his fiddle, his books, and his
sermons, gradually redeemed the soil from w^eeds and the
buildings from dilapidation, until at last, with the proceeds
of her weaving and his own hard labor, they saved enough
to buy out the brothers' interests.

By that time the younger son had fallen a victim to his
wild life, and the other moved down into the low country
among his wife's people. Thus were the Merlins left alone
on their primitive estate. Here they lived contentedly
with Cassandra, their only child, and her father's constant
companion, until the tragedy which she had so simply
related to David.

Her father's learning had been peculiar. Only a little
classic lore, treasured where schools were none and books

The Voices 115

were few, handed down from grandfather to grandson.
His Greek he had learned from the two small books the
widow had so carefully preserved, their marginal notes
his only lexicon. They and his Bible and a copy of
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress were all that were left of his
treasures. A teething puppy had torn his Dialogues of
Plato to shreds, and when his successor had come into the
home, he had used the Marcus Aurelius for gun wadding,
ere his wife's precaution of placing the padlock from the
door on her mother's old linen chest.

To-day, as David passed the house, the old mother sat
on her little p(5rch churning butter in a small dasher churn.
She was glad, as he could see, because she could do some-
thing once more.

"Now are you happy?" he called laughingly, as he
paused beside her.

"Well, I be. Hit's been a right smart o' while since I
been able to do a lick o' work. We sure do have a heap
to thank you fer. Be Decatur Irwin as glad to lose his
foot as I be to git my laig back ? " she queried whimsically ;
**I reckon not."

"I reckon not, too, but with him it was a case of losing
his life or his foot, while with you it was only a question
of walking about, or being bedridden for the next twenty
years."

"They be ignorant, them Irwins, an' she's more'n that,
fer she's a fool. She come round yest'day wantin' to
borry a hoe to fix up her gyarden patch, an' she 'lowed ef
you'n Cass had only lef ' him be, he'd 'a' come through all
right, fer hit war a-gettin' better the day you-uns took hit
off. I told her yas, he'd 'a' come cl'ar through to the nex'
world, like Farwell done. When the misery left him, he
up an' died, an' Lord knows whar he went."

"I'll get him an artificial foot as soon as he is able
to wear one. He'll get on very well with a peg under
his knee until then. \\Tiat's Hoyle doing with the
mule?''

"He's rid'n' him fer Cass. She's tryin' to get the ground
ready fer a crap. Hit's all we can do. Our women nevah
war used to do such work neither, but she would try."

"What's that? Is she ploughing?" he asked sharply,
and strode away.

116 The Mountain Girl

"I reckon she don't want ye there, Doctah," the widow
called after him, but he walked on.

The land lay in a warto hollow completely surrounded
by hills. It had been many years cleared, and the mellow
soil was free from stumps and roots. When Thryng ar-
rived, three furrows had been run rather crookedly the
length of the patch, and Cassandra stood surveying them
ruefully, flushed and troubled, holding to the handles of
the small plough and struggling to set it straight for the
next furrow.

The noise of the fall behind them covered his approach,
and ere she was aware he was at her side. Placing his
two hands over hers which clung stubbornly to the handles
of the plough, he possessed himself of them. Laughingly
he turned her about after the short tussle, and looked
down into her warm, flushed face. Still holding her hands,
he pulled her away from the plough to the grassy edge of
the field, leaving Hoyle waiting astride the mule.

"Whoa, mule. Stand still thar," he shrilled, as the
beast sought to cross the bit of ploughed ground to reach
the grass beyond.

"Let him eat a minute, Hoyle," said David. "Let him
eat until I come. Now, Miss Cassandra, what does this
mean ? Do you think you can plough all that land ? Is
that it?"

"I must."
'You must not."

"There is no one else now. I must." He could feel
her hands quiver in his, as he forcibly held them, and knew
from her panting breath how her heart was beating. She
held her head high, nevertheless, and looked bravely
back into his eyes.

"You must let me — " he paused. Intuitively he knew
he must not say as yet what he would. "Let me direct
you a little. You have been most kind to me — and —
it is my place ; I am a doctor, you know."

"If I were sick or hurt, I would give heed to you, I
would do anything you say ; but I'm not, and this is laid
on me to do. Leave go my hands. Doctor Thryng."

"If you'll sit down here a moment and talk this thing
out with me, I will. Now tell me first of all, why is this
laid on you?"

id

The Voices 117

"Frale is gone and it must be done, or we will have no
crop, and then we must sell the animals, and then go down
and live like poor white trash." Her low, passive mono-
tone sounded like a moan of sorrow.

"You must hire some one to do this heavy work.**

** Every one is working his own patch now, and — no,
I have no money to hire with. I reckon I've thought it
all over every way. Doctor." She looked sadly down at
her hands and then up at the mountain top. "I know you
think this is no work for a girl to do, and you are right.
Our women never have done such. Only in the war times
my Grandmother Caswell did it, and I can now. A girl
can do what she must. I have no way to turn but to live
as my people have lived before me. I thought once I
might do different, go to school and keep separate —
but — " She spread out her hands with a hopeless ges-
ture, and rose to resume her work.

"Give me a moment longer. I'm not through yet.
That's right, now listen. I see the truth of what you
say, and I came down this morning to make a proposition
to your mother — not for your sake only — don't be afraid,
for my own as well ; but I didn't make it because I hadn't
time. She told me what you were doing, and I hurried
off to stop you. Don't speak yet, let me finish. I feel
I have the right, because I know — I know I was sent here
just now for a purpose — guided to come here." ^ He
paused to allow his words to have their full weight.
Whether she would perceive his meaning remained to be
seen.

"I understand." She spoke quietly. "Doctor Hoyle
sent you to be helped like he was — and you have been
right kind to more than us. You've helped that- many it
seems like you were sent here for we-all as well as for your
own sake, but that can't help me now. Doctor ; it — "

"Ah, yes it can. I'm far from well yet. I shall be, but
I must stay on for a long time, and I want some interest
here. I want to see things of my own growing. The
ground up around my little cabin is stony and very poor,
and I want to rent this little farm of yours. Listen —
I'll pay enough so you need not sell your cattle, and you
— you can go on with your weaving. You can work in
the house again as you have always done. Sometime,

118 The Mountain Girl

when your mother is stronger, you can take up your life
again and go to school — as you meant to live — can't

you?"

*'That can never be now. If you take the farm or not, I
must bide on here in the old way. I must take up the
life my mother lived and my grandmother, and hers before
her. It is mine, forever, to live it that way — or die."

" Why do you talk so ? "

"God knows, but I can't tell you. Thank you, suh. I
will be right glad to rent you the farm. I'd a heap rather
you had it than any one else I ever knew, for we care more
for it than you would guess, but for the rest — no. I
must bide and work till I die ; only maybe I c^n save little
Hoyle and give him a chance to learn something, for he
never could work — being like he is."

Thryng's eyes danced with joy as he regarded her.
"Hoyle is not going to be always as he is, and he shall have
the chance to learn something also. Look up, Miss
Cassandra, look squarely into my eyes and laugh. Be
happy. Miss Cassandra, and laugh. I say it."

She laughed softly then. She could not help it.

"Wasn't that what the * Voices' were saying last night
when you followed ? "

"Yes, yes. They seemed like they were calling, *Hope,
hope,' but they were not the real * Voices.' You made it."

"Yes, I made it; and I was truly calling that to you.
And you replied ; you came to me."

"Ah, but that is different from the * Voices' she heard."
But if they called the truth to you — what then ? "
Doctah, there is no longer any hope for me. God
called me and let me cut off all hope, once. I did it, and
now, only death can change it."

"If I believe you, you must believe me. W^e won't
talk of it any more. I'm hungry. Your mother was
churning up there ; let's go and get some buttermilk, and
settle the business of the rent. You've run three good
furrows and I'll run three more beside them — my first,
remember, in all my life. Then we'll plant that strip to
sunflowers. Come, Hoyle, tie the mule and follow us."

So David carried his way. They walked merrily back
to the house, chattering of his plans and what he would
raise. He knew nothing whatever of the sort of crops to

The Voices 119

be raised, and she was naively gay at his expense, a mood
he was overjoyed to awaken in her. He vowed that merely
to walk over ploughed ground made a man stronger.^

On the porch he sat and drank his buttermilk and,
placing his paper on the step, drew up a contract for rent.
Then Cassandra went to her weaving, and he and Hoyle
returned to the field, where with much labor he succeeded
in turning three furrows beside Cassandra's, rather crooked
and uncertain ones, it is true, but quite as good as hers, as
Hoyle reluctantly admitted, which served to give David
a higher respect for farmers in general and ploughmen
especially.

CHAPTER XIII

IN WHICH DAVID DISCOVERS CASSANDRA's TROUBLE

After turning his furrows, David told Hoyle to ride
the mule to the stable, then he sat himself on the fence,
and meditated. He bethought him that in the paper he
had drawn up he had made no provision for the use of the
mule. He wiped his forehead and rubbed the perspira-
tion from his hair, and coughed a little after his exertion,
glad at heart to find himself so well off.

He would come and plough a little every day. Then he
began to calculate the number of days it would take him
to finish the patch, measuring the distance covered by the
six furrows with his eye, and comparing it with the
whole. He laughed to find that, at the rate of six furrows
a day, the task would take him well on into the summer.
Plainly he must find a ploughman.

Then the laying out of the ground ! Why should he
not have a vineyard up on the farther hill slope .^ He
never could have any fruit from it, but what of that !
Even if he went away and never returned, he would know
it to be adding its beauty to this wonderful dream. Who
could know what the future held for him — what this
little spot might mean to him in the days to come ^ That
he would go out, fully recovered and strong to play his part
in life, he never doubted. Might not this idyl be a part of
it ? He thought of the girl sitting at her loom, swaying
as she threw her shuttle with the rhythm of a poem, and
weaving — weaving his life and his heart into her web,
unknown to herself — weaving a thread of joy through
it all which as yet she could not see. He knocked the
ashes from his pipe and stood a moment gazing about
him.

Yes, he really must have a vineyard, and a bit of pasture
somewhere, and a field of clover. What grew best there
he little knew, so he decided to go up and consult the
widow.

There were other things also to claim his thoughts.

120

Cassandra's Trouble 121

Over toward "Wild Cat Hole" there was a woman who
needed his care ; and he must not become so absorbed in
his pastoral romance as to forset Hoyle. He was looking
actually haggard these last few days, and his mother said
he would not eat. It might be that he needed more than
the casual care he was giving him. Possibly he could take
him to Doctor Hoyle's hospital for radical treatment later
in the season, when his crops were well started. He smiled
as he thought of his crops, then laughed outright, and
strolled back to the house, weary and hungry, and happy
as a boy.

"Well, now, I like the look of ye," called the old mother
from the porch, where she still sat. '"Pears like it's done
ye good a-ready to turn planter. The' hain't nothin*
better'n the smell o' new sile fer them 'at's consumpted."

"Mother," cried Cassandra from within, "don't call
the doctor that ! Come up and have dinner with us.
Doctor." She set a chair for him as she spoke, but he
would not. As he stood below them, looking up and ex-
changing merry banter with her mother, he laughed his
contagious laugh.

"I bet he's tired," shrilled Hoyle, from his perch on the
porch roof. "He be'n settin' on the fence smokin' an'
rubbin' his hade with his handkercher like he'd had enough
with his ploughin'. You can nigh about beat him, Cass.
Hisn didn't look no better'n what yourn looked."

"Here, you young rascal you, come down from there,"
cried David. Catching him by the foot, which hung far
enough over to be within reach of his long arm, he pulled
him headlong from his high position and caught him in
mid-air. "Now, how shall I punish you .^^ "

"Ye bettah whollop him. He hain't nevah been
switched good in his hull life. Maybe that's what ails
him."

The child grinned. "I hain't afeared. Get me down
on the ground oncet, an' I c'n run faster'n he can."

"Suppose I duck him in the water trough yonder.^"

"I reckon he needs it. He generally do," smiled Cas-
sandra from the doorway. "Come, son, go wash up."
David allowed the child to slip to the ground. "Seems
like Hoyle is right enough about you, though. Don't go
away up the hill ; bide here and have dinner first."

122 The Mountain Girl

David dropped on the step for a moment's rest. **I
see I must make a way up to my cabin that will not pass
your door. How about that .^ Was dinner included in
the rent, and the mule and the mule's dinner ? And what
is Hoyle going to pay me for allowing him to ride Pete up
and down while I plough.^"

"Yas, an' what are ye goin' to give him fer 'lowin' ye
to set his hade round straight, an' what are ye goin' to
give me fer 'lowin' ye to set me on my laigs again ? Ef ye
go a-countin' that-a-way, I'm 'feared ye're layin' up a
right smart o' debt to we-uns. I reckon you'll use that
mule all ye want to, an' ye'll lick him good, too, when he
needs hit, an' take keer o' yourself, fer he's a mean critter;
an' ye'll keep that path right whar hit is, fer hit goes
with the farm long's you bide up yandah."

"You good people have the best of me; we'll call it all
even. Ever since I leaped off that train in the snow, I
have been dependent on you for my comfort. Well, I
must hurry on ; since I've turned farmer I'm a busy man.
Can you suggest any one I might get to do that ploughing?
Miss Cassandra here may be able to do it without help,
but I confess I'm not equal to it."

*'I be'n tellin' Cass that thar Elwine Timms, he ought
to be able to do the hull o' that work. Widow Timmses'
son. They live ovah nigh the Gerret place thar at Lone
Pine Creek. He used to help Frale with the still. An'
then thar's Hoke Belew — he ought to do sumthin' fer
all you done fer his wife — sittin' up the hull night long,
an' gettin' up at midnight to run to them. Oh, I hearn a
heap sittin' here. Things comes to me that-a-way.
Thar hain't much goin' on within twenty mile o' here
'at I don't know. They is plenty hereabouts owes you a
heap."

"I think I've been treated very well. They keep me
supplied with all I need. What more can a man ask ?
The other day, a man brought me a sack of corn meal,
fresh and sweet from the mill — a man with six children
and a sick mother to feed, but what could I do ? He
would leave it, and I — well, I — "

"When they bring ye things, you take 'em. Ye'll help
'em a heap more that-a-way 'n ye will curin' 'em. The'
hain't nothin' so good fer a man as payin' his debts. Hit

Cassandra's Trouble 1£S

keeps his hade up whar a man 'at's good fer anything
ought to keep hit. I hearn a heap o' talk here in these
mountains 'bouts bein' stuck up, but I tell 'em if a body
feels he hain't good fer nothin', he pretty generally hain't.
He'd a heap better feel stuck up to my thinkin'."

"They've done pretty well, all who could. They've
brought me everything from corn whiskey to fodder for
my horse. A woman brought me a bag of dried blueberries
the other day. I don't know what to do with them. I
have to take them, for I can't be graceless enough to send
them away with their gifts."

"You bring 'em here, an' Cass'U make ye a blueberry
cake to eat hot with butter melt'n' on hit 'at'll make ye
think the world's a good place to live in."

"I'll do it," he said, laughing, and took his solitary path
up the steep. Halfway to his cabin, he heard quick,
scrambling steps behind him, and, turning, saw little
Hoyle bringing Cassandra's small melon-shaped basket,
covered with a white cloth.

"I said I could run faster'n you could. Cass, she sont
some th' chick'n fry." He thrust the basket at Thryng
and turned to run home.

"Here, here !" David called after the twisted, hunched
little figure. "You tell your sister 'thank you very much,'
for me. Will you?"

"Yas, suh," and the queer little gnome disappeared
among the laurel below.

In the morning, David found the place of the Widow
Timms, and her son agreed to come down the next day and
accept wages for work. A weary, spiritless young man he
was, and the home as poverty-stricken as was that of
Decatur Irwin, and with almost as many children. It
was with a feeling of depression that David rode on after
his call, leaving the grandmother seated in the doorway,
snuff stick between her yellow teeth, the grandchildren
clustering about her knees, or squatting in the dirt, like
young savages. Their father lounged in the wretched
cabin, hardly to be seen in the windowless, smoke-black-
ened space nearly filled with beds heaped with ragged
bedclothes, and broken splint-bottomed chairs hung about
with torn and soiled garments.

The dirt and disorder irritated David, and he felt

124 The Mountain Girl

angered at the clay-faced son for not being out preparing
his little patch of ground. Fortunately, he had been able
to conceal his annoyance enough to secure the man's prom-
ise to begin work next day, or he would have gained
nothing but the family's resentment for his pains. Al-
ready David had learned that a sort of resentful pride was
the last shred of respectability to which the poorest and
most thriftless of the mountain people clung — pride of
he knew not what, and resentfulness toward any who, by
thrift and labor, were better off than themselves.

He reasoned that as the young man had been Frale's
helper at the still, no doubt corn whiskey was at the
bottom of their misery. This brought his mind to the
thought of Frale himself. The young man had not been
mentioned between him and Cassandra since the day she
sought his help. He thought he could not be far from the
still, as he forded Lone Pine Creek, on his way to the home
of Hoke Belew, whose wife he was going to see.

David was interested in this young family ; they seemed
to him to be quite of the better sort, and as he put space
between himself and the Widow Timms' deplorable state,
his irritation gradually passed, and he was able to take note
of the changes a week had wrought in the growing things
about him.

More than once he diverged to investigate blossoming
shrubs which were new to him, attracted now by a sweet
odor where no flowers appeared, until closer inspection
revealed them, and now by a blaze of color against the
dark background of laurel leaves and gray rocks. Ah,
the flaming azalea had made its appearance at last, huge
clusters of brilliant bloom on leafless shrubs. How daz-
zlingly gay !

In the midst of his observance of things about him, and
underneath his surface thoughts, he carried with him a
continual feeling of satisfaction in the remembrance of
the little farm below the Fall Place, and in an amused way
planned about it, and built idly his "Castles in Spain."
A bit of stone wall whose lower end was overgrown with
vines pleased him especially, and a few enormous trees,
which had been left standing when the spot had been
originally cleared, and the vine-entangled, drooping
trees along the banks of the small river that coursed

Cassandra's Trouble 125

crookedly through it, — what possibilities it all presented
to his imagination ! If only he could find the right man to
carry out his ideas for him, he would lease the place
for fifty years for the privilege of doing as he would
with it.

After a time he came out upon the cleared farm of
Hoke Belew, who was industriously ploughing his field for
cotton, and called out to him, "How's the wife?'*

"She hain't not to say right smart, an' the baby don't
act like he's w^ell, neither, suh. Ride on to th' house an*
hght. She's thar, an' I'll be up d'rectly."

Thryng rode on and dismounted, tying his horse to a
sapling near the door. The place was an old one. A
rose vine, very ancient, covered the small porch and the
black, old, moss-grown roof. The small green foliage
had come out all over it in the week since he was last
there. The glazed windows w^ere open, and white home-
spun curtains were swaying in the light breeze. A small
fire blazed on the hearth, and before it, in a huge-splint-
bottomed rocking-chair, the pale young mother reclined
languidly, wrapped in a patchwork quilt. The hearth
was swept and all was neat, but very bare.

Close to the black fireplace on a low chair, with the
month-old baby on her knees, sat Cassandra. She was
warming something at the fire, which she reached over to
stir now and then, while the red light played brightly over
her sweet, grave face. Very intent she was, and lovely
to see. She wore a creamy white homespun gown, coarse
in texture, such as she had begun to wear about the house
since the warm days had come. Thryng had seen her
in such a dress but once before, and he liked it. With
one arm guarding the little bundle in her lap, dividing her
attention between it and the porridge she was making,
she sat, a living embodimxcnt of David's vision, silhouetted
against and haloed by the red fire, softened by the blue,
obscuring smoke-wreaths that slowly circled in great rings
and then swept up the wide, overarching chimney.

He heard her low voice speaking, and his heart leaped
toward her as he stood an instant, unheeded by them, ere
he rapped lightly. They both turned with a slight start.
Cassandra rose, holding the sleeping babe in the hollow of
her arm, and set a chair for him before the fire. Then she

126 The Mountain Girl

laid the child carefully in the mother's arms, and removed
the porridge from the fire.

"Shall I call Hoke?" she asked, moving toward the
door.

David did not want her to leave them, loving the sight
of her. "Don't go. I saw him as I came along," he said.

But she went on, and sat herself on a seat under a huge
locust tree. Tardiest of all the trees, it had not yet
leaved out. Later it would be covered with a wealth of
sweet white blossoms swarming with honey-bees, and
the air all about it would be filled with its lavish fragrance
and the noise of humming wings.

Presently Hoke came plodding up from the field, and
smiled as he passed her. "Doc inside.^" he asked.

She nodded. When David came out, he found her still
seated there, her head resting wearily against the rough
tree. She rose and came toward him.

"I thought I wouldn't leave until I knew if there was
anything more I could do," she said simply.

"No, you've done all you can. She'll be all right.
Where's your horse ? "

"I walked."

"Why did you do that ? You ought not, you know."

"Hoyle rode the colt down to see could Aunt Sally
come here for a day or two, until Miz Belew can do for
herself better." She turned back to the house.

"Come home now with me. Ride my horse, and I'll
walk. I'd like to walk," urged David.

"Oh, no. Thank you. Doctor, I must speak to Azalie
first. Don't wait."

She went in, and David mounted and rode slowly on,
but not far. Where the trail led through a small stream
which he knew she must cross, he dismounted and allowed
the horse to drink, while he stood looking back along the
way for her to come to him. Soon he saw her white dress
among the glossy rhododendron leaves as she moved
swiftly along, and he walked back to meet her.

"I have waited for you. You are not used to this kind
of a saddle, I know, but what's the difference ? You can
ride cross-saddle as the young ladies do in the North,
can't vou ?"

I reckon I could." She laughed a little. "Do they

it

Cassandra's Trouble 127

ride that way where you come from ? It must look right
funny. I don't guess I'd Uke it."

*'But just try — to please me? Why not?"

"If you don't mind, I'd rather walk, please, suh. Don't
wait."

"Then I will walk with you. I may do that, may I
not?" He caught the bridle-rein on the saddle, leaving
the horse to browse along behind as he would, and walked
at her side. She made no further protest, but was
silent.

"You don't object to this, do you ?" he insisted.

"It's pleasanter than being alone, but it's right far to
walk, seems like, for you."

"Then why not for you ?" She smiled her mysterious,
quiet smile. "You must know that I am stronger than
you?" he persisted.

"I ought to think so, since that day we rode over to
Gate Irwin's, but I was right afraid for you that time,
lest you get cold ; and then it was me — " she paused, and
looked squarely in his eyes and laughed. "You wouldn't
say 'it was me,' would you ?"

He joined merrily in her laughter. "I never corrected
you on that."

"You never did, but you didn't need to. I often know,
after I've said something — not — right — as you would
say it."

"Do you, indeed?" he walked nearer, boyishly happy
because she was close beside him. He wanted to touch
her, to take her hand and walk as children do, but could
not because of the subtile barrier he felt between them.
He determined to break it down. "Finish what you were
saying? And then it was me — what?'*

"And then it was I who gave out, not you."

"But you were a heroine — a heroine from the ground
up, and I love you." He spoke with such boyish impul-
siveness that she took the remark as one of his extrava-
gances, and merely smiled indulgently, as if amused at it.
She did not even flush, but accepted it as she would an
outburst from Hoyle.

David was amazed. It only served to show him how
completely outside that charmed circle within which she
lived he still was. He was maddened by it. He came

128 The Mountain Girl

nearer and bent to look in her face, until she lifted her
eyes to look fairly in his.

''That's right. Look at me and understand me. I
waited there only that I might tell you. Why do you put
a wall between us "^ I tell you I love you. I love you,
Cassandra ; do you understand ?"

She stood quite still and gazed at him in amazement,
almost as if in terror. Her face grew white, and she
pressed her two hands on her heart, then slowly slid them
up to her round white throat as if it hurt her — a move-
ment he had seen in her twice before, when suffering
emotion.

"Why, Cassandra, does it hurt you for me to tell you
that I love you ? Beautiful girl, does it .? "
* "Yes, suh," she said huskily.

He would have taken her in his arms, but refrained
for very love of her. She should be sacred even from his
touch, if she so wished, and the barrier, whatever it might
be, should halo her. He had spoken so tenderly he had
no need to tell her. The love was in his eyes and his
voice, but he went on.

"Then I must be cruel and hurt you. I love you all
the days and the nights — all the moments of the days —
I love you."

In very terror, she flung out her hands and placed them
on his breast, holding him thus at arm's-length, and with
head thrown back, still looked into his eyes piteously,
imploringly. With trembling lips, she seemed to be speak-
ing, but no voice came. He covered her hands with his,
and held them where she had placed them.

"You have put a wall between us. Why have you
done it?"

"I didn't — didn't know; I thought you were — as
far — as far away from us as the star — the star of gold
is — from our world in the night — so far — I didn't guess
— you could come so — near." She bowed her head
and wept.

"You are the star yourself, you beautiful — you are — "

But she stopped him, crying out. She could not draw
her hands away, for he still held them clasped to his
heart.

"No, no ! The wall is there. It must be between us

Cassandra's Trouble 129

for always, I am promised." The grief wailed and wept
in her tones, and her eyes were wide and pleading. "I
must lead my life, and you — you must stay outside the
wall. If you love me — Doctor, — you must never know
it, and I must never know it." Her beating heart stopped
her speech and they both stood thus a moment, each seeing
only the other's soul.

"Promised.^" The word sank into his heart like lead.
*' Promised .^" Slowly he released her hands, and she
covered her face with them and sank at his feet. He bent
down to her and asked almost in a whisper : "Promised ?
Did you say that word.^^"

She drooped lower and was silent.

All the chivalry of his nature rose within him. Should
he come into her life only to torment and trouble her ?
Ought he to leave the place ? Could he bear to live so
near her ? What had. she done — this flower ? Was she
to be devoured by swine ? The questions clamored at
the door of his heart. But one thing could he see clearly.
He must wait without the wall, seeking only to serve and
protect her.

With the unerring instinct which led her always straight
to the mark, she had seen the only right course. He
repeated her words over and over to himself. " If j^ou love
me, you must never know it, and I must never know it."
Her heart should be sacred from his personal intrusion,
and their old relations must be reestablished, at whatever
cost to himself.

With flash-light clearness he saw his diflficulty, and that
only by the elimination of self could he serve her, and also
that her manner of receiving his revelation had but inten-
sified his feeling for her. The few short moments seemed
hours of struggle with himself ere he raised her to her
feet and spoke quietly, in his old way.

He lifted her hand to his lips. *'It is past, Miss Cas-
sandra. We will drop these few moments out of your life
into a deep well, and it shall be as if they had never been."
He thought as he spoke that the well w^as his own heart,
but that he would not say, for henceforth his love and
service must be selfless. "We may be good friends still?
Just as we were ?"

"Yes, suh," she spoke meekly.

130 The Mountain Girl

"And we can go right on helping each other, as we have
done all these weeks ? I do not need to leave you ? "

*'0h, no, no !" She spoke with a gasp of dismay at the
thought. ** It — won't hurt so much if I can see you going
right on — getting strong — like you have been, and
being happy — and — " She paused in her slowly trail-
ing speech and looked about her. They were down in a
little glen, and there were no mountain tops in sight for
her to look up to as was her custom.

*' And what, Cassandra l! Finish what you were saying."
Still for a while she was silent, and they walked on together.
"And now won't you say what you were going to say?"
He could not talk himself, and he longed to hear her voice.

"I was thinking of the music you made. It was so glad.
I can't talk and say always what I think, like you do,
but seems like it won't hurt me so here," she put her hand
to her throat, "where it always hurts me when I am sorry
at anything, if I can hear you glad in the music — like
you were that — night I thought you were the ' Voices.* "

"Cassandra, it shall be glad for you, always."

She looked into his eyes an instant with the clear light
of understanding in her own. "But for you .^ It is for
you I want it to be glad."

CHAPTER XIV

IN TVHICH DAVID VISITS THE BISHOP, AND FRALE SEES HIS

ENEMY

The bishop was seated in a deep canvas chair on his
wide veranda, looking out over his garden toward a dis-
tant hne of blue hills. His little wife sat close to his side
on a low rocker, very busy with the making of buttonholes
in a small girl's frock of white dimity and lace. Betty
Towers loved lace and pretty things.

The small girl was playing about the garden paths with
her puppy and chattering with Frale in her high, happy,
childish voice, while he bent weeding among the beds of
okra and egg-plant. His face wore a more than usually
discontented look, even when answering the child with
teasing banter. Xow and then he lifted his eyes from his
work and watched furtively the movements of David
Thryng, who was pacing restlessly up and down the long
veranda in earnest conversation with the bishop and his
wife.

The two in the garden could not understand what was
being said at the house, but each party could hear the
voices of the other, and by calling out a little could easily
converse across the dividing hedge and the intervening
space.

"Talk about the influence of the beautiful in nature
upon the human soul, — it is all very pretty, but I believe
the soul must be more or less enli<2:htened to feel it. I've
learned a few things among your people up there in the
mountains. Strange bcinfsrs thev are."

*'It onlv goes to show that hereditv alone won't do every-
thing," said the bishop, placing the tips of his fingers
together and frowning meditatively.

"Heredity? It means a lot to us over there in Eng-
land."

"Yes, ves. But vour old families need a little new
blood in them now and then, even if they have to come
over here for it."

131

132 The Mountain Girl

*'For that and — your money — yes." Thryng
laughed. "But these mountain people of yours, who
are they anyway 't "

*']Most of them are of as pure a strain of British as any
in the world — as any you will find at home. They have
their heredity — and only that — from all your classes
over there, but it is from those of a hundred or more years
ago. They are the unmixed descendants of those you sent
over here for gain, drove over by tyranny, or exported for
crime."

"How unmixed in your most horribly mixed and mon-
grel population '^ "

"Circumstances and environment have kept them to the
pure stock, and neglect has left them untrammelled by
civilization and unaided by education. Time and genera-
tions of ignorance have deteriorated them, and nature
alone — as you were but now admitting — has hardly
served to arrest the process by the survival of the fittest.'*

"Nature — yes — how do you account for it.^ I have
been in the grandest, most wonderful places, I venture to
say, that are to be found on earth, and among all the glory
that nature can throw around a man, he is still, if left to
himself, more bestial than the beasts. He destroys and
defaces and defiles nature ; he kills — for the mere sake
of killing — more than he needs ; he enslaves himself
to his appetites and passions, follows them wildly, yields
to them recklessly ; and destroys himself and all the beauty
around him that he can reach, wantonly. Why, Bishop
Towers, sometimes I've gone out and looked up at the stars
above me and wondered which was real, they and the mar-
vellous beauty all around me, or the three hundred reeking
humanity sleeping in the camp beneath them. Sometimes
it seemed as if only hell were real, and the camp was a bit
of it let loose to mock at heaven."

"We mustn't forget that what is transitory is not a
part of God's eternity of spirit and truth."

"Oh, yes, yes ! But we do forget. x\nd some transitory
things are mighty hard to endure, especially if they must
endure for a lifetime."

David was thinking of Cassandra and what in all prob-
ability would be her doom. He had not mentioned her
name, but he had come down with the intention of learning

David visits the Bishop 133

all he could about her, and if possible to whom she was
*'promised." He feared it might be the low-browed,
handsome youth bending over the garden beds beyond
the hedge, and his heart rebelled and cried out fiercely
within him, *'What a waste, what a waste!"

Betty Towers, intent on her sewing, felt the thrill that
intensified David's tone, and she, too, thought of Cas-
sandra. She dropped her work in her lap and looked
earnestly in her husband's face.

"James, I feel just as Doctor Thryng does — when I
think of some things. When I see a tragedy coming to
a human soul, I feel that a lifetime of transitory things
like that is hard to endure. Fancy, James ! Think of
Cassandra. You knov/ her, Doctor Thryng, of course.
They live just below your place. She is the Widow Far-
well's daughter, but her name is Merlin."

David arrested his impatient stride and, drawing a chair
near her, dropped into it. "What about her.'^" he said.
"Whatis the tragedy .5"^

"I think, Betty, the hills must keep their ot^ti secrets,"
said the bishop.

His little wife compressed her lips, glanced over the
hedge at the young man who happened at the moment
to have straightened from his bent position among the
plants and was gazing at their guest, then resumed her
sewing.

"Is it something I must not be told.^" asked David,
quietly. "But I may have my suspicions. Naturally
we can't help that."

"I think it is better to know the truth. I don't like
suspicions. They are sure to lead to harm. James, let
me put it to the doctor as I see it, and see what he thinks
of it."

"As you please, dear."

**It's like this. Have you seen anything of that girl
or observed her much ? "

"I certainly have."

"Then, of course, you can see that she is one of the best
of the mountain people, can't you '^ Well ! She has
promised to marry — promised to marry — think of it !
one of the wildest, most reckless of those mountain bovs,
one that she knows very well has been in illicit distilling.

134 The Mountain Girl

He is a lawbreaker in that way ; and, more than that, he
drinks, and in a drunken row he shot dead his friend."

"All!" David rose, turned away, and again paced the
piazza. Then he returned to his seat. "I see. The
young man I tried to help off when I first arrived."

"Yes. There he is."

*'I see. Handsome type."

"He's down here now, keeping quiet. How long it will
last, no one knows. Justice is lax in the mountains. His
father shot three or four men before he died himself of
a gunshot wound which he received while resisting the
ofiicers of the law. If there's a man left in the family to
follow this thing up, Frale will be hunted down and arrested
or shot; otherwise, when things have cooled off a little
up there, he will go back and open up the old business, and
the tragedy will be repeated. James, you know how often
after the best you could do and all their promises, they
go back to it .?"

"I admit it's always a question. They don't seem to
be content in the low country. I think it is often a sort
of natural gravitation back to the mountains where they
were born and bred, more than it is depravity."

"I know, James, but that excuse won't help Cassandra.'*

"AMiv did she do it.'^" asked David. "She must have
known to v\4iat such a marriage would bring her."

"Do it ? That is the sort of girl she is. If she thought
she ought, she would leap over that fall there."

"But wh}^ should she think she ought ? Had she given
her — promise — " David saw her as she appeared to him
when she had said that word to him on the mountain, and
it silenced him, but only for a moment. He would learn
all he could of her motives now. He must — he would
know. "I mean before he did this, before she went away
to study — had she made him such a — promise ? "

"No. You tell him about it, James. You have seen
her and talked with her. They were quarrelling about her,
as I understand, and she thinks because she was the cause
of the deed she must help him make retribution. Isn't
that it, James ? She knows perfectly well what it means
for her, for she has had her aspirations. I can see it all.
Frale says he w^as not drunk nor his friend either. He
says the other man claimed — but I won't go into that —

David visits the Bishop 135

only Cassandra promised him before God, he says, that if
he would repent, she would marry him. xVnd when she
was here she used to talk about the wav those women live.
How her own mother has worked and aged ! ^^ hy, she
is not yet sixty. You have seen how they live in their
wretched little cabins. Doctor; that's what Frale would
doom her to. He never in life will understand her. He'll
grow old like his father, — a passionate, ignorant, untamed
animal, and worse, for he would be drunken as well. He's
been drunk twice since he came down here. James, you
know they think it's perfectly right to get drunk Saturday
afternoon."

*' Yes, it seems a terrible waste ; but if she has children,
she will be able to do more for them than her mother has
done for her, and they will have her inheritance ; so her
life can't be wholly wasted, even if she is not able to live
up to her aspirations."

"James Towers! I — that — it's because you are a
man that you can talk so ! I'm ashamed, and you a
bishop ! I wish — " Betty's eyes were full of angry tears.
*'I only wish you were a woman. Slowly improve the race
by bearing children — giving them her inheritance ! How
would she bear them ? Year after year — ill fed, half
clothed, slaving to raise enough to hold their souls in their
bodies, bringing them into the world for a brute who knows
only enough to make corn whiskey — to sell it — and drink
it — and reproduce his kind — when — when she knows
all the time what ought to be ! Oh, James, James,
think of it ! "

"My dear, my dear, you forget, he has promised to
repent and live a different life. If he does, things will be
better than we now see them. If he does not change, then
we may interfere — perhaps."

*'I know, James. But — but — suppose he repents and
she becomes his wife, and puts aside all her natural tastes,
and the studies she loves, and goes on living v/ith him there
on the home place, and he does the best he can — even.
Don't you see that her nature is fine and — and so dif-
ferent — even at the best, James, for her it will be death
in life. And then there is the terrible chance, after all,
that he might go back and be like his father before him,
and then what ? "

136 The Mountain Girl

"Well, their lives and destinies are not in our hands;
we can only watch out for them and help them."

"James, he has been drunk twice !"

"Yes, yes, Betty, my Httle tempest, and if he gets drunk
twice more, and twice more, she will still forgive him until
seventy times seven. We must make her see that unless
he keeps his promise to her, she must give him up."

"Of course. I suppose that's all we can do. I — don't
know what you'll think of me. Doctor Thryng; I'm a
dreadful scold. If James were not an angel — "

"It's perfectly delicious. I would rather hear you scold
than — "

"Than hear James preach," laughed the bishop. "I
agree with you."

"I agree with her," said David, emphatically. "It
ought to be stopped if — "

"If it ought to be, it will be. T\Tiat do you think she
said to me about it when I went to reason with her ? ' If
Christ can forgive and stand such as he, I can. It is laid
on my soul to do this.' I had no more to say."

"That is one point of view, but we mustn't lose sight of
the practical, either. To be his wife and bear his children
— I call it a waste, a — '*

"Yes, yes. So it is." And what more could the bishop
say .f^ After a little, he added, "But still we must not
forget that he, too, is a human soul and has a value as great
as hers."

"According to your viewpoint, but not to mine — not
to mine. If a man is enslaved to his own appetites, he has
no right to enslave another to them."

The following day David took himself back to his hermi-
tage, setting aside all persuasions to remain.

"Don't make a recluse of yourself," begged the bishop's
wife. "The amenities of life can't always be dispensed
with, and we need you, James and I, you and your

music.'*

David laughed. "I'm too fatally human to become
a recluse, and as for the amenities, they are not all of one
order, you know. I find plenty of scope for exercising
them on others, and I often submit to having them exer-
cised on me, — after their own ideas." He laughed again.
"I wish you could look into my larder. You'd find me

David visits the Bishop 137

provided with all the hills afford. They have loaded me
with gifts."

"No wonder ! I know what your life up there means to
them, taking care of their mothers and babies, and sitting
up with them nights, going to them when they are in
trouble, rain or shine, and visiting them in their bare,
wretched, crowded homes."

"It wouldn't be so bad often, if it weren't that when a
family is in serious trouble or has a case needing quiet and
care, the sympathies of all their relatives are roused, and
they come crowding in. In one case, the father was ill
with pneumonia. I did all I could for him, and next day
— would you believe it .^^ — I found his sister and her ' old
man' and their three youngsters, his old mother and a
brother and a widowed sister, all camped down on them,
all in one room. The sister sat by the fire nursing her
three-months-old baby, his mother was smoking at her
side, and the sick man's six little children and their three
cousins were raising Ned, in and out, with three or four
hounds. Not one of the visitors was helping, or, as they
say up there, 'doing a hck,' but the vdie was cooking for
the vrhole raft when her husband needed all her care.
Marvellous ideas they have, some of them."

"You ought to write out some of your experiences."

"Oh, I can't. It would seem like a sort of betrayal of
friendship. They have adopted me, so to speak, and are
so naive and kind, and have trusted me — I think they
are my friends. I may be very odd — you know."

"I know how you feel," said Betty.

The bishop's little daughter had assumed the proprie-
torship of the doctor. She even preferred his companion-
ship to that of her puppy. She clung to his hand as he
walked away, pulling and swinging upon his arm to coax
him back. He took her in his arms and carried her out
upon the walk, the small dog barking and snapping at his
heels, as David threatened to bear his tyrannical young
mistress away to the station.

"Doggie wants you to leave me here," she cried, pound-
ing him vigorously with her two little fists.

He brought her back and placed her on the broad, flat
top of the high gate-post. "Very well, doggie may have
you. I will leave you here."

138 The Mountain Girl

<('

Doggie wants you to stay, too." She held him with
her small arms about his neck.

"Well, doggie can't have me." He unclinched her
chubby hands, crossed them in her lap, and held them fast
while he kissed her tanned and rosy cheek. "Good-by,
you young rogue," he said, and strode away.

"Come and lift me down," she wailed. But he knew
well she could scramble down by herself when she chose,
and walked on. She continued to call after him ; then,
spying Frale in the wood yard, she imperatively summoned
him to her aid, and trotted at his side back to the wood-
pile, where they sat comfortably upon a log and visited
together.

They were the best of friends and chattered with each
other as if both were children. In the slender shadow
of a juniper tree that stood like a sentinel in the corner
of the wood yard they sat, where a high board fence sepa-
rated them from the back street.

The bishop's place was well planted, and this corner had
been the quarters of the house servants in slave times.
It was one of Frale's duties to pile here, for winter use, the
firewood which he cut in short lengths for the kitchen fire,
and long lengths for the open fireplaces.

He hated the hampered village life, and round of small
duties — the weeding in the garden, cleaning of piazzas
and windows, and the sweeping of the paths. The wood-
cutting was not so bad, but the rest he held in contempt
as women's work. He longed to throw his gun in the hol-
low of his arm and tramp off over his own mountains. At
night he often wept, for homesickness, and wished he might
spend a day tending still, or lying on a ridge watching the
trail below for intruders on his privacy.

The joy of life had gone out for him. He thought con-
tinually of Cassandra and desired her ; and his soul wearied
for her, until he was tempted to go back to the mountains
at all risks, merely for a sight of her. Painfully he had
tried to learn to write, working at the copies Betty Towers
had set for him, — and certainly she had done all her
conscientious heart prompted to interest him and keep
him away from the village loungers. He had even pro-
gressed far enough to send two horribly spelled missives
to Cassandra, feeling great pride in them. And now he

David visits the Bishop 139

had begun to weary of learning. To be able to write those
badly scrawled notes was in his eyes surely enough to dis-
tinguish him from his companions at home ; of what use
was more ?

"What's that you are tossing up in the air? Let me
see it," demanded the child, as Frale tossed and caught
again a small, bright object. He kept on tossing it and
catching it away from the two little hands stretched out
to receive it. "Give it to me. Give it to me, Frale. Let
me see it."

He dropped it lightly in her palm. "Don't you lose
hit. That thar's somethin' 'at's got a charm to hit."

"\\Tiat's a 'charm to hit' ? I don't see any charm."

Then Frale laughed aloud. He took it with his thumb
and forefinger and held it between his eye and the sun.
"Is that the way you see the 'charm to hit' ? Let me try."

But he slipped it in his pocket, first placing it in a small
bag which he drew up tightly with a string. "Hit hain't
nothing you kin see. Hit's only a charm 'at makes hit
plumb sure to kill anybody 'at hit hits. Hit's plumb sure
to hit an' plumb sure to kill, too."

"Oh, Frale ! What if it had hit me when you threw it
up that way — and — killed me ? Then you'd be sorry,
wouldn't you, Frale .f^"

"Hit nevah wouldn't kill a girl — a nice little girl —
like you be. Hit's charmed that-a-way, 'at hit won't kill
nobody what I don't want hit to."

"Then what do you keep it in your pocket for? You
don't want to kill anybody, do you, Frale ?"

"Naw — I reckon not ; not 'thout I have to."

"But you don't have to, do you, Frale?" piped the
child.

He rose, and selecting an armful of stove wood carried it
into the shed and began packing it away. Dorothy sat
still on the log, her elbows on her knees, her chin in her
hands, meditating. A tall man slouched by and peered
over the high board fence at her. His eyes roved all
about the place eagerly, keen and black. His matted hair
hung long beneath his soft felt hat. The child looked up
at him with fearless, questioning glance, then trotted in to
her friend.

Frale, did you see that man lookin' over the fence?

(< '

140 The Mountain Girl

You think he was lookin' for you, Frale ? Come see who
'tis. P'r'aps he's a friend of yours."

*' Dorothy, Dorothy," called her mother from the piazza,
and the child bounded away, her puppy yelping and leap-
ing at her side. The tall man turned at the corner and
looked back at the child.

The bishop's place occupied one corner of the block, and
the fence with a hedge beneath it ran the whole length of
two sides. Slowly sauntering along the second side, the
gaunt, hungry-eyed man continued his way, searching
every part of the yard and garden, even endeavoring, with
backward, furtive glances, to see into the woodhouse,
where in the darkness Frale crouched, once more pallid
with abject fear, peering through the crack where on its
hinges the door swung half open.

As the man disappeared down the straggling village
street, Frale dropped down on the wheelbarrow and
buried his haggard face in his hands. A long time he sat
thus, until the dinner-hour was past, and black Carrie
had to send Dorothy to call him. Then he rose, but in
the place of the white and haunted look was one of stub-
born recklessness. He strolled to the house with the non-
chalant air of one who fears no foes, but rather glories in
meeting them, and sat himself down at his place by the
kitchen table, where he bantered and badgered Carrie,
who waited on him reluctantly, with contemptuous tosses
of her woolly head. From the day of his first appearance
there had been war between them, and now Frale knew
that if the stranger asked her, she would gladly and slyly
inform against him.

The afternoon wore on. Again Frale sat on the wheel-
barrow, thinking, thinking. He took the small bag from
his pocket and felt of the bullet through the thin covering,
then replaced it, and, drawing forth another bag, began
counting his money over and over. There it was, all he
had saved, five dollars in bills, and a few quarters and
dimes.

He did not like to leave the shelter of the shed, and his
eyes showed only the narrow glint of blue as, with half-
closed lids, he still peered out and watched the street where
his enemy had disappeared. Suddenly he rose and climbed
with swift, catlike movements up the ladder stairs behind

David visits the Bishop 141

him, which led to his sleeping loft. There he rapidly
donned his best suit of dyed homespun, tied his few remain-
ing articles of clothing in a large red kerchief, and before a bit
of mirror arranged his tie and hair to look as like as possible
to the .village youth of Farington. The distinguishing
silken lock that would fall over his brow had grown again,
since he had shorn it away in Doctor Thryng's cabin.
Now he thrust it well up under his soft felt hat, and, taking
his bundle, descended. Again his eyes searched up and
down the street and all about the house and yard before
he ventured out in the daylight.

Dorothy and her dog came bounding down the kitchen
steps. She carried two great fried cakes in her little hands,
warm from the Hot fat, and she laughed with glee as she
danced toward him.

"Frale, Frale. I stole these, I did, for you. I told
Carrie I w^anted two for you, an' she said * G'long, chile.'"
She thrust them in his hands.

"What's the matter, Frale? What you all dressed up
for ? This isn't Sunday, Frale. Is they going to be a
circus, Frale, is they .f^" She poured forth her questions
rapidly, as she hopped from one foot to the other. *'Will
you take me, Frale, if it's a circus ? I'll ask mamma. I
want to see the el'phant."

'Tain't no circus,'' he replied grimly.

"What's the matter, Frale ? Don't you like your fried
cakes ? Then why don't you eat them ? What you
wrapping them up for ? You ought to say thank you,
when I bring you nice cakes 'at I went an' stole for you,"
she remonstrated severely.

His throat worked convulsively as he stood, now looking
at the child, now watching the street. Suddenly he lifted
her in his arms and buried his face in her gingham
apron.

*'I had a little sister oncet, only she's growed up now,
an' she hain't my little sister any more." He kissed her
brown cheek tenderly, even as David had done, and set her
gently down on her two stubby feet. "You run in an'
tell yer maw thank you, fer me, will ye ? Mind, now.
Listen at me whilst I tell you what to tell yer paw an' maw
fer me. Say, * Frale seen a houn' dog on his scent, an' he's
gone home to git shet of him.' "

142 The Mountain Girl

" V^Tiere's the * houn' dog,' Frale ? " She gazed fearfully
about.

"He's gone now. He won't bite — not you, he won't."

"Oh, Frale ! I wish it was a circus."

"Yas," drawled the young man, with a sullen smile
curling his lips, "may be hit be a sort of a circus. Kin ye
remember what I tol' you to tell yer paw .^"

"You — you seen a houn' dog on — on a cent — how
could he be on a cent ?''

"Say, * Frale seen a houn' dog on his scent, an' he's gone
home to git shet of him.' "

"Frale seen a houn' dog on — on a — a cent, an' —
an' — an' he's gone home to — to get shet of him. TMiat's
* get shet of him,' Frale ? "

"Nevah mind, honey; yer paw'll know. Run in an'
tell him 'fore you forgit hit. Good-by."

She danced gayly off toward the house, but turned to call
back at him, as he stood watching her. "Are you going to
hit the ' houn' ' dog with the pretty ball, Frale ? "

"I reckon." He laughed and strode off toward the one
small station in the opposite direction from the way the
man had taken.

Frale knew well where he had gone. On the outskirts
of the village was a small grove of sycamore and gum
trees, by a little stream, where it was the custom for the
mountain people to camp with their canvas-covered
wagons. There they would build their fires on a charred
place between stones, and heat their coffee. There they
would feed their oxen or mule team, tied to the rear wheels
of their wagons, with corn thrown on the ground before
them. At nightfall they would crawl under the canvas
cover and sleep on the corn fodder within.

Often beneath the fodder might be found a few jugs of
raw corn whiskey hidden away, while the articles they had
brought down for sale or barter at the village stores were
placed on top in plain view. Sometimes they brought
vegetables, or baskets of splints and willow withes, made
by their women, or they might have a few yards of home-
spun towelling.

The man Frale had seen was the older brother of his
friend Ferdinand Teasley, and well Frale knew that he was
camped with his ox team down by the spring, where it had

David visits the Bishop 143

been his habit to wait for the cover of darkness, when he
could steal forth and leave his jugs where the money might
be found for them, placed on some rock or stump or fallen
trunk half concealed by laurel shrubs. How often had the
])roducts of Frale's still been conveyed down the moun-
tain by that same ox team, in that same unwieldy vehicle !

Giles Teasley's cabin and patch of soil, planted always
to corn, was a long distance from his father's mill, and also
from his brother's still, hence he could with the more
safety dispose of their illicit drink.

In the slow but deadly sure manner of his people, he had
but just aroused himself to the fact that his brother's
murderer was still alive and the deed unavenged;^ and
Frale knew he had come now, not to dispose of the whiskey,
since the still had been destroyed, but to find his brother's
slayer and accord him the justice of the hills.

To the mountain people the processes of the law seemed
vague and uncertain. They preferred their own methods.
A well-loaded gun, a sure aim, and a few months of hid-
ing among relatives and friends until the vigilance of the
emissaries of the law had subsided was the rule with them.
Thus had Frale's father tTsdce escaped either prison or the
rope, and during the last four years of his life he had never
once ventured from his mountain home for a day at the
settlements below; while among his friends his prowess
and his skill in evading pursuit were his glory.

Now it was Frale's thought to dare the worst, — to walk
to the station like any village youth, buy his ticket, and take
the train for Carew's Crossing, and from there make his
way to his haunt while yet Giles Teasley was taking his
first sleep.

He reasoned, and rightly, that his enemy would linger
about several days searching for him, and never dream of
his having made his escape by means of the train. Since
the first scurry of search was over, it was no longer the
officers of the law Frale feared, but this same lank, ill-
favored mountaineer, who was now warming his coffee
and eating his raw salt pork and corn-bread by the stream,
while his drooling cattle stood near, sleepily chewing their
cuds.

CHAPTER XV

IN WHICH JERRY CAREW GIVES DAVID HIS VIEWS ON
FUTURE PUNISHMENT, AND LITTLE HOYLE PAYS HIM
A VISIT AND IS MADE HAPPY

Uncle Jerry Carew had led David's horse down to the
station ready saddled to meet him, according to agreement,
and side by side they rode back, the old man beguiling the
way with talk of mountain affairs most interesting to the
young doctor, who led him on from tales of his own youthful
prowess, " when catamounts and painters war nigh as
frequent as woodchucks is now," until he felt he knew
pretty well the history of all the mountain side.

"Yas, when I war a littlin', no highah'n my horse's
knees, I kin remember thar war a gatherin' fer a catamount
hunt on Reed's Hill ovah to'ds Pisgah. Catamounts war
mighty pesterin' creeters them days. Ev'y man able to
tote a gun war thar. 01' man Caswell — that war Miz
Merlin — she war only a mite of a baby then — her gran'-
paw, he war the oldest man in th' country ; he went an'
carried his rifle his paw fit in th' Revolution with. He fit
at King's Mountain, an' all about here he fit."

"Did he fight in the Civil War, too ?"

"Her gran'paw's paw? No. He war too ol' fer that,
but his gran'son Caswell, he fit in hit, an' he nevah come
back, neither. 01' Miz Caswell — Cassandry Merlin's
gran'maw, she lived a widow nigh on to thirty year. She
an' her daughter — that's ol' Miz Farwell that is now —
they lived thar an' managed the place ontwell she married
Merlin."

"You knew her first husband, then ?^^

"Yas, know him.? Ev'ybody knew Thad Merlin. He
come fom ovah Pisgah way, an' he took Marthy thar.
Hit's quare how things goes. I always liked Thad Merlin.
The' wa'n't no harm in him."

David saw a quaint, whimsical smile play about the old

144

Hoyle visits David 145

man*s mouth. "He war a preacher — kind of a mixtur
of a preacher an' teacher an' hunter. Couldn't anybody
beat him huntin' — and farmin' — well he could farm, too,
— better'n most. He done well whatever he done, but
he had a right quare way. He built that thar rock wall an'
he 'lowed he'd have hit run plumb 'round the place.

*' He war a fiddler, and he'd build awhile, and fetch his
fiddle — he warn't right strong — an' then he'd set thar
on the wall an' fiddle to the birds ; an' the wild creeturs,
they'd come an' hear to him. I seen squerrels settin' on
end hearkin' to him, myself. Arter a while, folks begun to
think 'at he didn't preach the right kind of religion, an'
they wouldn't go to hear him no more without hit war to
listen did he say anythin' they could fin' fault with. 'Pears
like they got in that-a-way they didn' go fer nothin' else.
Hit cl'ar plumb broke him all up. He quit preachin' an'
took more to fiddlin', an' he sorter grew puny, an' one day
jes' natch'ly lay down an' died, all fer nothin', 'at anybody
could see."

"What was the matter with his preaching.'^" asked
David, and again the whimsical smile played around the
old man's mouth, and his thin lips twitched.

" I reckon thar wa'n't 'nuff hell 'n' damnation in hit. Our
people here on the mountain, they're right kind an' soft
therselves. They don't whop ther chillen, nor do nothin'
much 'cept a shootin' now an' then, but that's only
amongst the men. The women tends mostly to the re-
ligion, an' they likes a heap o' hell 'n' damnation. Hit
sorter stirs 'em up an' gives 'em somethin' to chaw on, an'
keeps 'em contented like. They has somethin' to threat'n
ther men folks with an' keep ther chillen straight on, an'
a place to sen' ther neighbors to when they don't suit.
Yas, hit's right handy fer th' women. I reckon they
couldn't git on without hit."

*'Do they think they will have bodies that can be hurt
by any such thing in the next world .f^"

"I reckon so. But preacher Merlin, he said that thar
war paths o' light an' paths o' darkness, an' that eve'y man
he 'bided right whar he war at when he died. Ef he hed
tuk the path o' darkness, thar he war in hit ; but ef he hed
tuk the path o' light whar war heaven, then he war thar.
An' he said the Lord nevah made no hell, hit war jes'

146 The Mountain Girl

our own selves made sech es that, an* he took an* cut
that thar place cl'ar plumb out'n the Scripturs an' the
worl' to come. But he sure hed a heap o' larnin', only
some said a sight on hit war heathen, an' that war why he
lef all the hell an' damnation outen his religion."

Thus enlightened concerning many things, both of this
particular bit of mountain world, which was all the world
to his companion, and of the world to come, Thryng rode
on, quietly amused.

Sometimes he dismounted to investigate plants new to
him, or to gather a bit of moss or fungi or parasite — any-
thing that promised an elucidating hour with his splendid
microscope. For these he always carried at the pommel
of his saddle an air-tight box. The mountain people sup-
posed he collected such things for the compounding of his
drugs.

When they reached the Fall Place, David continued
along the main road below and took a trail farther on,
merely a foot trail little used, to his eyrie. He had not
seen Cassandra since they had walked together down
from Hoke Belew's place. He had gone to Farington
partly to avoid seeing her, nor did he wish to see her again
until he should have so mastered himself as to betray
nothing by his manner that might embarrass her or remind
her painfully of their last interview, knowing he must elimi-
nate self to reestablish their previous relations.

David rode directly to his log stable, put up his horse,
then unslung his box and walked with it toward his cabin.
Suddenly he stopped. From the thick shrubbery where
he stood he could see in at the large window where his
microscope was placed quite through his cabin into the
light, white canvas room beyond. Before the fireplace,
clearly relieved against the whiteness of the farther room,
stood Cassandra, gazing intently at something she held in
her hand. David recognized it as a small, framed picture
of his mother — a delicately painted miniature. He kept
it always on the shelf near which she was standing. He
saw her reach up and replace it, then brush her hand
quickly across her eyes, and knew she had been weeping.
He 'was ashamed to stand there watching her, but he
could not move. Always, it seemed to him, she was being
presented to him thus strongly against a surrounding halo

Hoyle visits David 147

of light, revealing every gracious line of her figure and
her sweet, clean profile.

He turned his eyes away, but as quickly gazed again;
she had disappeared. He waited, and again she passed
between his eyes and the light, here and there, moving
quietly about, seeing that all was in order, as her custom
was when she knew him to be absent.

He saw her brushing about the hearth, carefully wiping
the dust from his disordered table, lifting the books, touch-
ing everything tenderly and lightly. His flute lay there.
She took it in her hands and looked down at it solemnly,
then slowly raised it to her lips. What '^ Was she going
to try to play upon it ^ No, but she kissed it. Again and
again she kissed the slender, magic wand, hurriedly, then
laid it very gently down and with one backward glance
walked swiftly out of the cabin and away from him, down
the trail, with long, easy steps. Only once more she drew
her hand across her eyes, and with head held high moved
rapidly on. Never did she look to the right or the left or
she must have seen him as he stood, scarcely breathing and
hard beset to hold himself back and allow her to pass
him thus.

Now he knew that she had been deeply stirred by him,
and the revelation fell upon his spirit, filling him with
a joy more intense than anything he had ever felt or ex-
perienced before, so poignantly sweet that it hurt him.
Had he indeed entered into her dreams and become an
undercurrent in her life even as she had in his, and did her
soul and body ache for him as his for her ?

Then he suffered remorse for what he had done. How
long she had defended herself by that wall of impersonality
w^ith which she had surrounded herself ! He had beaten
down the ramparts and trampled in the garden of her soul.
As he stood in the door of his cabin, the place seemed to
breathe of her presence. She had made a veritable bower
of it for his return. Every sweet thing she had gathered
for him, as if, out of her love and her sorrow, she had meant
to bring to him an especial blessing.

A shallow basin filled with wild forget-me-nots stood
on the shelf before his mother's picture. Ferns and vines
fell over the stone mantle, and in earthen jars of mountain
ware the early rhododendron, with its delicate, pearly

148 The Mountain Girl

pink blossoms, filled the dark corners. Masses of the
plumed white ash shook feathery tassels along the walls,
making the air sweet with their fragrance. Ah, how clean
and fresh everything was ! All his disorder was set to
rights, and fresh linen was on his bed in his canvas
room.

Even his table was laid with his small store of dishes,
and food placed upon it, still covered in the basket he was
now so accustomed to see. Sweet and dainty it all was.
He had only to light the fat pine sticks laid beneath the
kettle swung above and make his tea, and his meal was
ready. Had she divined he would not stop at the Fall
Place this time, when in the past it had been his custom
to do so ^ Ah, she knew ; for is not the little winged god
a wonderful teacher ?

Thryng was humbled in the very dust and ashes of re-
pentance as he sat down to his late dinner. The fra-
grance in the room, all he ate, everything he touched, filled
his senses with her ; and he — he had only brought her
sorrow. He had come into her life but to bruise her spirit
and leave her sad at heart with a deep sadness he dared not
and could not alleviate. He lifted a pale purple orchid
she had placed in a tumbler at his hand and examined it.
Evidently she had thought this the choicest of all the
woodland treasures she had brought him, and had placed
it there, a sweet message. What should he do "^ Ah,
what could he do ^ He must not see her yet — at least
not until to-morrow.

Later, David brought in his specimens and occupied
himself with his microscope. He had begun a careful
study of certain destructive things. Even here in the wild
he found them, evil and unwholesome, clinging to the well
and strong, slowly but surely sapping the vitality of those
who gave them life. Every evil, he thought, must, in the
economy of nature, have its antidote. So, with the ardor
of the scientist, he divided with care the nasty, pasty
growth he had found and prepared his plates. Systemati-
cally he made drawings and notes as he studied the mag-
nified atoms beneath his powerful lens, and while he sat
absorbed in his work, Hoyle's childish voice piped at him
from the doorway.

"Howdy, Doctah Thryng."

Hoyle visits David 149

'*Why, hello! Howdy!" said David, without looking
up from his work.

"What you got in that thar gol' machine ? Kin I look,
too?"

"What have I got ? Why — I've got a bit of the devil
in here."

"Whar'dyougithim? Huh?"

'*0h, I found him along the road between here and the
station."

"Did — did he come on the cyars with you? Whar
war he at ? Hu come he in thar ?" David did not reply
for an instant, and the awed child drew a step nearer.
"Whar war he at ? " he insisted. " Hu come he in thar ? "

"He was hanging to a bush as I came along, and I put
him in my box and brought him home and cut him up and
put a little bit of him in here."

Then there was silence, and David forgot the small boy
until he heard a deep-drawn sigh behind him. Looking up
for the first time, he saw him standing aloof, a look of
terror in his wide eyes as if he fain would run away, but
could not from sheer fright. Poor little mite ! David in
his playful speech had not dreamed of being taken in
earnest. He drew the child to his side, where he cuddled
gladly, nestling his twisted little body close, partly for
protection, and partly in love.

"You reckon he's plumb dade ?" David could feel the
child's heart beating in a heavy labored way against his
arm as he held him, and, pushing his papers one side, he
lifted him to his knee.

"Do I reckon who's dead ?" he asked absently, with his
ear pressed to the child's back.

"The devil what you done brought home in yuer box."

"Dead? Oh, yes. He's dead — good and dead. Sit
still a moment — so — now take a long breath. A long
one — deep — that's right. Now another — so."

"Whatfer?"
I want to hear your heart beat."
Kin you hear hit ?"
Yes — don't talk, a minute, — that'll do. "

"What you want to hear my heart beat fer ? I kin feel
hit. Kin you feel yourn ? Be they more'n one devil ? "

"Heaps of them."

<( '

<( '

150 The Mountain Girl

(<-

When I go back, you reckon I'll find 'em hanging on
the bushes ? Do they hang by ther tails, like 'possums
does ?"

Comfortable and happy where he was, the little fellow
dreaded the distance he must traverse to reach his home
under the peculiar phenomena of devils hanging to the
bushes along his route.

*'0h, no, no. Here, I'll show you what I mean." Then
he explained carefully to the child what he really meant,
showing him some of the strange and beautiful ways of
nature, and at last allowing him to look into the micro-
scope to see the little cells and rays. As he patiently and
kindly taught, he was pleased with the child's eager, re-
ceptive mind and naive admiration. Towards evening
Hoyle was sent home, quite at rest concerning devils and
all their kin, and radiantly happy with a box of many
colored pencils and a blank drawing-book, which David
had brought him from Farington.

"I kin larn to make things like you b'en makin' with
these, an' Cass, she'll he'p me," he cried.

"What is Cass doing to-day .^^ " David ventured.

"She be'n up here most all mornin', an' I he'ped get the
light ud fer fire, an' then she sont me home to he'p maw
whilst she stayed to fix up."

"But now, I mean, when you came up here? "

"Weavin' in the loom shed. Maw, she has a lot o'
little biddies. The ol' hen hatched 'em, she did."

"What have you done to your thumb ?" asked David,
seeing it tied about with a rag.

"I plunked hit with the hammer when I war a-makin'
houses fer the biddies. I nailed 'em, I did."

"You made the chicken coops ? Well, you are a clever
little chap. Let me see your hand."

"Yas, maw said I war that, too."

"But you weren't very clever to do this. Whew !
What did you hit your thumb like that for.^"

"Dunno." He looked ruefully at the crushed member
which the doctor laved gently and soothingly.

"Why didn't you come to me with it.f^"

"Maw 'lowed the' wa'n't no use pesterin' you with
eve'ything. She tol' me eve'y man had to larn to hit
a nail on the haid."

Hoyle visits David 151

David laughed, and the child trotted away happy, his
hand in a sling made of one of the doctor's linen hand-
kerchiefs, and his box of pencils and his book hugged to
his irregularly beating heart ; but it was with a grave face
that Thryng saw him disappear among the great masses
of pink laurel bloom.

That evening, as the glow in the west deepened and died
away and the stars came out one by one and sent their
slender rays down upon the hills, David sat on his rock
with his flute in his hand, waiting for a moment to arrive
when he could put it to his lips and send out the message
of glad hopes he had sent before. She had asked that one
little thing, that his music might still be glad, and so for
Cassandra's sake it must be.

He tried once and again, but he could not play. At
last, putting away from him his repentant thoughts, he
gave his heart full sway, saying to himself : "For this mo-
ment I vnll imagine harmlessly that my vision is all mine
and my dream come true. It is the only way." Then he
played as if it were he whom she had kissed so passionately,
instead of his flute ; and thus it w^as the glad notes were
falling on her spirit when Frale found her.

CHAPTER XVI

IN WHICH FRALE RETURNS AND LISTENS TO THE COM-
PLAINTS OF DECATUR IRWIN's WIFE

All was quiet and lonely around Carew's Crossing
when Frale dropped from the train and struck off over the
mountain. Soon there would be bustle and stir and life
About the place, for the hotel would' be open and people
would be crowding in, some to escape the heat of the far
South and the low countries, some from the cities either
North or South to whom the bracing air of the mountains
would bring renewed vitality — business men with shat-
tered nerves and women whose high play during the winter
at the game of social life had left them nervous wrecks.

But now the beauty of the spring and the sweet silences
were undisturbed by alien chatter. As yet were to be
heard only the noises of the forest — of wind and stream
— of bird calls and the piping of turtles and the shrilling
of insects or vibrant croaking of frogs — or mayhap the
occasional sound of a gun, discharged by some solitary
mountain boy, regardless of game laws, to provide a supper
at home, — only these, as Frale climbed rapidly away
from the station toward the Fall Place, and Cassandra.
He would stop there first and then strike for his old haunts
and hiding-places.

He felt a leaping joy in his veins to be again among his
hills. How lonely he had been for them he had not known
until now, when, with lifted head and bounding heart, he
trod lightly and easily the difficult way. And yet the
undercurrent of a tragedy lay quiet beneath his joy and
haunted him, keeping him to the trails above, — the secret
paths which led circuitously to his home, — even while the
thought of Cassandra^ made his heart buoyant and eager.

The sight of Doctor Thryng who during these months
had been near her — perhaps seeing her daily — aroused all
the primitive jealousy of his nature. He would go now
and persuade her to marry him and stand by him until he

152

Frale Returns 158

could fight his way through to the unquestioned right to
live there as his father had done, defying any who would
interfere with his course. Had he not a silver bullet for
the heart of the man who would dare contest his rights ?
It only remained for him to meet Giles Teasley face to face
to settle the matter forever.

Since it was purely a mountain affair, and the officers
of the law had already searched to their satisfaction,
there was little chance that the pursuit would be renewed
by the State. It would, however, be impossible for him
to go back to the Fall Place and live there openly until
the last member of the Teasley family capable of wreaking
vengeance on his head had been settled with; but as the
father was crippled with rheumatism and could do no more
than totter about his mill and talk, only this one brother
was left with whom to deal. Now that Frale was back
in his own hills again, all terror slipped from him, and the
old excitement in the presence of danger to be met, or
avoided, stimulated him to a feeling of exuberance and
triumph. With childlike facility he tossed aside the
thought of his promise to Cassandra. It all seemed to
him as a dream — all the horror and the remorse. Time
had quickly dulled this last.

"Ef I hadn't 'a* killed Ferd, he would 'a' shot me. Any-
how, he hadn't ought to 'a' riled me that-a-way."

He thought with shame of how he had sat cowering at
the head of the fall, and had hurled his own dog to
destruction, in his fear. " I war jes' plumb crazy," he
soliloquized.

As to how he could deal with Cassandra, he did not as
yet know, but he would find a way. In his heart, he
reached out to her and already possessed her. His
blood leaped madly through his veins that he was so soon
to see her and touch her. Have her he would, if he
must continue to kill his way to her through an army of
opponents.

The evening was falling, and, imagining they would all
be sleeping, he meant to creep quietly up and spend the
night in the loom shed. There was no dog there now to
disturb them with joyful bark of recognition. At last he
found himself above the home, where, by striking through
the undergrowth a short distance, he would come out by

154 The Mountain Girl

the great holly tree near the head of the fall. Already he
could hear the welcome sound of rushing water.

He drew nearer through the thick laurel and azalea
shrubs now in full bloom ; their pollen clung to his clothing
as he brushed among them. Cautiously he approached
the spot which recalled to him the emotions he had ex-
perienced there — now throbbing through him anew. He
peered into the gathering dusk with eager eyes as if he
thought to find her still there. Ah, he could crush her in
his mad joy !

Suddenly he paused and listened. Other sounds than
those of the night and the running water fell on his ear —
sounds deliciously sweet and thrilling, filling all the air,
mingling with the rushing of the fall and accenting its flow.
From whence did they come — those new sounds ? He
had never heard them before. Did they drop from the
sky — from the stars twinkling brightly down on him —
now faint and far as if born in heaven — now near and
clear — silvery clear and strong and sweet — penetrating
his very soul and making every nerve quiver to their
pulsating rhythm ? He felt a certain fear of a new kind
creep tinglingly through him, holding him cold and still —
for the moment breathless. Was she there ? Had she
died, and was this her spirit trying to speak ?

Very quietly he drew nearer to the great rock. Yes,
she was there, standing with her back to the silvery gray
bole of the holly tree, her face lifted toward the mountain
top and her expression rapt and listening — holy and
pure — far removed from him as was the star above the
peak toward which her gaze was turned. He could not
touch her, nor crush her to him as a moment before he had
felt he must, but he slowly approached.

She heard his step and then saw him waiting there in
the dim light of the starry dusk. For an instant she re-
garded him in silence, then she essayed to speak, but her
lips only trembled over the words voicelessly. He could
not see her emotion, but he felt it, although her stillness
made her seem calm. Hungrily he stood and watched
her. At last she spoke : —

"Why, Frale, Frale!"

"Hit's me, Cass."

"Have — have you been down to the house, Frale ?"

Frale Returns 155

"Naw, I jes' come this-a-way from the station."

*'Is it — is it safe for you to come here, Frale ?"

She stood a short distance from him, speaking so softly,
and yet he could not touch her ; his hands seemed numb,
and his breath came pantinglJ^

"I reckon hit's safe here as thar," he said huskily.
"An' I'm come to stav, too."

"Then let's go down to mother. Likely she's a-bed by
now, but she'll be right glad to see you. She can walk a
little now." She hastened to fill the moments with words,
anything to divert that fixed gaze and take his thoughts
from her. Instinctively she groped thus for tinie, she
who like a deer would flee if flight were possible, even while
her heart welled with pity for him. "Come. You can
talk w^ith her whilst I get you some supper." She felt his
pent-up emotion and secretly feared it, but held herself
bravely. "Hoyle will nigh jump out of his skin, he'll be
that glad you come back."

He stood stubbornly where he was, and lifted his hand to
grasp her arm, but she glided on just beyond his reach,
either not seeing it, or avoiding it, he could not decide
which, and still she said, "Come, Frale." He followed
stumblingly in her wake, as a man follows an ignis fatuus,
unconscious of the roughness of the way or of the steps he
was taking — and the flute notes followed them from above
— sweetly — mockingly, as it seemed to him. What were
they ? Why were they .^ How came Cassandra there
listening .^ He could stand this mystery no longer — and
he cried out to her.

"Cass, hear. Listen to that."

"Yes, Frale." She spoke wearily, but did not pause.

"Wait, Cass. What be hit, ye reckon.^ Hit sure
hain't no fiddle. Thar! Heark to hit. Whar be hit at .'^ "

"I reckon it's up yonder at Doctor Thryng's cabin. He
has a little pipe like, that he blows on and it makes music
like that."

"An' you clum' up thar to heark to him ? " He bounded
forward in the darkness and walked close to her. She
quivered like a leaf, but held her voice low and steady as
she replied.

"No, Frale. I go there evenings when I'm not too tired.
I've been going there ever since you left to — "

156 The Mountain Girl

" That doctali, he's be'n castin' a spell on you, Cass. I
kin see hit — how you walkin' off an' nevah 'low me to
touch you. Ye hain't said howd'y to me nor how you
glad I come. You like a col' white drift o' snow blowin'
on ahead o' me. You hain't no human girl like you used
to be. I got somethin' to put a spell on him, too, ef he
don't watch out." ?

He spoke in his mild, low-voiced drawl, but he kept
close to her side, and she could hear his breathing, quick
and panting. She felt as if a tiger were keeping pace with
her, and she knew the sinister meaning beneath his words.
She knew that all she could do now was to take him back to
his promise and hold him to it.

"There's no such thing as spell casting, Frale. You
know that, and you have my promise and I have yours.
Have you forgot ^ Talking that way seems like you have
forgot." She walked on rapidly, taking him nearer and
nearer their home, and in her haste she stumbled. In an
instant his arm was thrown around her, holding her on
her feet.

"Look at you now, like to fall cl'ar headlong, runnin'
that-a-way to get shet o' me. 'Pears like you mad that
I come."

He held her back, and they went slowly, but he did not
release her, nor did she struggle futilely against his strength,
knowing it wiser to continue calmly leading him on ; but
she could not reply. The start of her fall and her wildly
beating heart rendered her breathless and weak.

"I tell you that thar doctah man, he have put a spell
on you. He done drawed you up thar to hear to him.
I seed you lookin' like he'd done drawed yuer soul outen
yuer body. I have heard o' sech. He's be'n down to
Bishop Towahs', too, whar I be'n workin' at. I seed him
watchin' me like he come to spy on me, an' he no sooner
gone than I seed that thar Giles Teasley sneakin' 'long the
fence lookin' over an' searchin' eve'y place like he war
a-hungerin' fer a sight o' me." He stopped and swallowed
angrily. They had arrived at the trough of running water,
and she breathed easier to find herself so near her haven.

"What have you done with your dog, Frale? You
reckon he followed you off .^ I haven't seen him since
you left.'' .

Frale Returns " 157

He released her then and, stooping to the water-pipe,
drank a long draft, and thrust his head beneath it, allowing
the water to drench his thick hair. Then he stood a
moment, shaking his curling locks like a spaniel.

"Wait here. I'll fetch a towel." She hastened within.
"Mother, Frale's come back," she said quietly, not to
awaken Hoyle ; then returned and tossed him the towel
which he caught and rubbed vigorously over his head and
face.

"Now you are like yourself again, Frale."

"Yas, I'm here an' I'm myself, I reckon. Who'd ye
think I be ? " He caught her and kissed her, and, with his
arm about her, entered the cabin.

His mood changed with childish ease according to what-
ever the moments brought him. Cassandra lighted a
candle, for now that the days had grown warm, the fire was
allowed to go out unless needed for cooking. His step-
mother had roused herself and peered at him from out
her dark corner, where little Hoyle lay sleeping soundly in
the farther side of her bed. Frale strode across the uneven
floor and kissed her also, resoundingly. Astounded, she
dropped back on her pillow.

"What ails ye, Frale !" The mountain people are for
the most part too reserved to be lavish with their kisses.

"Nothin' ails me. I'm kissin' you fer Cass's sake. Me
an' her's goin' to get jined an' set up togethah. I'm come
back fer to marry with her, and we're goin' ovah t'othah
side Lone Pine, an' I'm goin' to build a cabin thar. That's
how I'm kissin' you. Will you have anothah, or shall I
give hit to Cass ? "

"You hush an* go 'long," said the mother, half con-
temptuously.

"Frale's making fool talk, mothah. Don't give heed to
him. He's light-headed, I reckon, and I'm going to get
him something to eat right quick."

"I 'low he be light-headed. Nobody's goin' to git
Cass whilst I'm livin', 'thout he's got.more'n a cabin ovah
t'othah side Lone Pine. She's right well off here, an' here
she'll 'bide."

Frale turned darkly on the mother. "I reckon you'd
bettah give heed to me mor'n to her," he said, in the low
drawl which boded much with him,

158 The Mountain Girl

Cassandra, on her knees at the hearth, was arranging
sticks of fat pine to Hght the fire. Her hands shook as she
held them. This Frale saw, and his eyes gleamed. He came
to her side and, kneeling also, took them from her.

"Hit's my place to do this fer you now, Cass. F'om
now on — I reckon. I'll hang the kittle fer ye, too, an'
fetch the water."

The mother stared at them in silence, and Cassandra,
taking up the coffee-pot, rose and went out. When she
returned, the fire was crackling merrily, and the great
kettle swung over it. Hoyle was up and seated on his
half-brother's knee. Cassandra's eyes looked heavy and
showed traces of tears.

Frale saw it all, with eyes gleaming blue through nar-
rowly drawn lids. His lips quivered a little as he talked
with Hoyle. He drew out his money for the child to count
over gleefully, thus diverting himself with the boy, while
he watched Cassandra furtively. He decided to say no
more at present until she should have had time to adjust
her mind to the thought he had so daringly announced to
her mother. The two cakes little Dorothy had given him
he took from his bundle and gave to Hoyle, then carried
him back and put him to bed and told him to sleep again.

For all of her promise, Cassandra had not expected this
to come upon her so suddenly, like lightning out of a clear
sky, startling her very soul with fear. As Frale ate
what she set before him, she went over to the bedside, and
sat there holding her mother's hand and talking in low
tones, while Hoyle, with wide eyes, strove to hear.

"Be hit true, what he says, Cass.^"

"Not all, mother. I never told him I would go and
live over beyond Lone Pine. I meant always to live right
here with you, but I am promised to him. I gave him my
word that night he left, to get him to go and save him.
Oh, God ! Mother, I didn't guess it would come so soon.
He promised me he would repent his deed and live right."

The mother brightened and drew her daughter down
and spoke low in her ear. "Make him keep to his promise
first, child. Yuer safe thar. I reckon he's doin' a heap o'
repentin' this-a-way. I ain' goin' 'low you throw you'se'f
away on no Farwell, ef he be good-lookin', 'thout he holds
to his word good fer a year. Hit's jes' the way his paw

Frale Returns 159

done me. He gin me his word 'at he'd stop 'stillin' an'
drinkin', an' he helt to hit fer three months, an' then he
come on me this-a-way an' I married him, an' he opened
up his still again in three weeks, an' thar he went his own
way f'om that day."

Cassandra rose and went to the door. "I'm going to
make you a bed in the loom shed like I made it for the doc-
tor. There is no bed up garret now. I emptied out all
the ticks and thought I'd have them fresh filled against
you come back — but I've been that busy."

Soon he followed her out. "I reckon I won't sleep
thar whar that doctah have slep'. He might put a spell
on me, too," he said, standing in the door of the shed and
looking in on her. The night was lighter now, for the
full moon had glided up over the hills, and she worked
by its light streaming though the open door.

"I can't see with you standing there, Frale. I reckon
you'll have to sleep here, because it's too late to fill your
bed to-night."

"Oh, leave that be and come and sit here with me,"
he said, dropping on the step where the doctor had sat
when she opened her heart to him and told him about
her father. It all surged back upon her now. She
could not sit there with Frale. "I'll make my bed my-
self, an' I'll — I'll sleep wharevah you want me to, ef hit's
up on the roof or out yandah in the water trough. Come,
sit."

"We'll go back on the porch, and I'll take mother's
chair. I'm right tired."

"When we git in our own cabin ovah t'othah side
Lone Pine, you won't have nothin' to do only tend
on me," he said, drawing her to him. He led her
across the open space and placed her gently in her
mother's chair on the little porch.

"Now, Frale, sit down there and listen," she said,
pointing to the step at her feet where Thryng had sat only
a few days before to make out the lease of their land.
Everything seemed to cry out to her of him to-night, but
she must steel her heart against the thought.

"I'm going to talk to you straight, just what I mean,
Frale. You've been talking as you pleased in there, and I
'lowed you to, I was that set back. Anyway, I'd rather

160 The Mountain Girl

talk to you alone. Frale, our promise was made before
God, and you know I will keep to mine. But you
must keep to yours, too. Listen at me. Mrs. Towers
wrote me you had been drunk twice. Is that keeping
your promise to leave whiskey alone ? Is it, Frale ? "

"You have somebody down thar watchin' me, an' I
hain't nobody a-watchin' you," he said sullenly. She
felt degraded by his words.

"Frale, do you know me all these years to think such ,
as that of me now ? "

"I tell you he have put a spell on you. I kin feel hit
an' see hit. Hit ain't your fault, Cass. I'd put one on
you myself, ef I could. Anyhow, I'll take you out of this
fer he have done hit."

"Do you never say that word to me again as long as you
live, Frale," she said sternly. " Listen at me, I say.
You go back there and work like you said you would — "

"Didn't I tell you that thar houn' dog Giles Teasley
war on my scent ? I seen him. I got to come back
ontwell I c'n git shet o' him."

"And that means another murder ! Oh, Frale, Frale !"
She covered her face with her hands and moaned. Then
they sat silent awhile.

After a little she lifted her head. "Frale, I'll go over
to Teasleys' and beg for them to leave you be. I'll
beg Giles Teasley on my knees, I will. Then when you
have bided your year and kept your promise like you swore
before God, I'll marry you like I promised, and we'll
live here and keep the old place like it ought to be kept.
You hear, Frale ? Good night, now. It's only fair you
should give heed to me, Frale, if I do that for you.
Good night."

She glided past him into the house like a wraith, and
he rose without a word of reply and stretched himself
on the half-made bed in the loom shed, as he was. Sullen
and angry, he lay far into the night with the moonlight
streaming over him, but he did not sleep, and his mood
only grew more bitter and dangerous.

When the first streak of dawn was drawn across the
eastern sky, he rose unrefreshed, and began a search, feel-
ing along the rafters high above the bags of cotton. Pres-
ently he drew forth an ancient, long-barrelled rifle, and,

Frale Returns 161

taking it out into the light, examined it carefully. He
rubbed and cleaned the barrel and polished the stock
and oiled the hammer and trigger. Then he brought
from the same hiding-place a horn of powder and gun
wadding, and at last took from his pocket the silver bullet,
with which he loaded his old weapon even as he had seen
it charged in past days by his father's hand.

Below the house, built over a clear v*^elling spring which
ran in a bright little rivulet to the larger stream, was the
spring-house. Here, after the warm days came, the
milk and butter were kept, and here Frale sauntered
down — his gun slung across his arm, his powder-horn at
his belt, in his old clothes — with his trousers thrust in
his boot-tops — to search for pro\'isions for the day and his
breakfast as well. He had no mind to allow the family
to oppose his action or reason him out of his course.

He found a jug of buttermilk placed there the evening
before for Hoyle to carry to the doctor in the morning, and
slung it by a strap over his shoulder. In one of the sheds
lay two chickens, ready dressed to be cut up for the frying-
pan, and one of these, with a generous strip of salt
pork from the keg of dry salt where it was kept, he
dropped in a sack. He would not enter the house
for corn-bread, even though he knew he was welcome to
all the home afforded, but planned to arrive at some
mountain cabin where friends would give him what he
required to complete his stock of food. His gun would
provide him. with an occasional meal of game, and he thus
felt himself prepared for as long a period of ambush as
might be necessary.

Before sunrise he was well on his way over the mountain.
He did not attempt to go directly to his old haunt, but
turned aside and took the trail leading along the ridge — the
same Thryng and Cassandra had taken to go to the cabin of
Decatur Irwin. Frale had no definite idea of going there,
but took the high ridge instinctively. So long had he been
in the low country that he craved now to reach the heights
where he might see the far blue distances and feel the
strong sweet air blowing past him. It was much the
same feeling that had caused him to thrust his head under
the trough of running water the evening before.

As a wild creature loves the freedom of the plains, or

162 The Mountain Girl

an eagle rises and circles about in the blue ether aimless
and untrammelled, so this man of the hills moved now in
his natural environment, living in the present moment,
glad to be above the low levels and out from under all
restraint, seeing but a little way into his future, content
to satisfy present needs and the cravings of his strong,
virile body.

Moments of exaltation and aspiration came to him,
as they must come to every one, but they were moments
only, and were quickly swept aside and but vaguely com-
prehended by him. As a child will weep one minute
over some creature his heedlessness has hurt and the
next forget it al^ in the pursuit of some new delight, so
this child of nature took his way, swayed by his moods
and desires — an elemental force, like a swollen torrent
taking its vengeful way — forgetful of promises — glad
of freedom — angry at being held in restraint, and will-
ing to crush or tear away any opposing force.

At last, breakfastless and weary after his long climb,
his sleepless night, and the depression following his talk
with Cassandra the evening before, he paused at the edge
of the descent, loath to leave the open height behind him,
and stretched himself under a great black cedar to rest.
As he lay there dreaming and scheming, with half-shut
eyes, he spied below him the bare red patch of soil around
the cabin of Decatur Irwin. Instantly he rose and be-
gan rapidly to descend.

Decatur was away. He had got a "job of hauling,'*
his wife said, and had to be away all day, but she willingly
set herself to bake a fresh corn-cake and make him coffee.
He had already taken a little of his buttermilk, but he
did not care for raw salt pork alone. He wanted his
corn-bread and coffee, — the staple of the mountaineer.

She talked much, in a languid way, as she worked, and
he sat in the doorway. Now and then she asked questions
about his home and *'Cassandry," which he answered
evasively. She gossiped much about all the happenings
and sayings of her neighbors far and near, and com-
plained much, when she came to take pay from him for
what she provided, of the times which had come upon
them since *'Cate had hurt his foot." She told how
that fool doctor had come there and taken "hit off.

Frale Returns 163

makin' out like Cate'd die of hit ef he didn't," and how
"Cassandry Merlin had done cheated her into goin' off
so 't she could bide thar at the cabin alone with that
doctah man herself an' he'p him do hit."

With her snuff stick between her yellow teeth and her
numerous progeny squatting in the dirt all about the door-
way, idly gazing at Frale, she retailed her grievances with-
out reserve. How the wife of Hoke Belew had been
"ailin'," and Cassandra had *' be'n thar ev'y day
keerin' fer her. I 'low she jes' goes 'cause she 'lows
she'll see that doctah man thar an' ride back with him
like she done when she brung him here," said the pallid,
spiteful creature, and spat as she talked. "She nevah
done that fer me. I be'n sick a heap o' times, an' she
hain't nevah come nigh me to do a lick."

Frale was annoyed to hear Cassandra thus spoken
against, for was she not his own ? He chose to defend
her, while purposely concealing his bitter anger against the
doctor. " The' hain't nothin' agin Cassandry. She's
sorter kin to me, an' I 'low the' hain't."

"Naw," said the woman, changing instantly at the
threatening tone, " the' hain't nothin' agin her. I
reckon he tells her whar to go, an' she jes' goes like he
tells her."

Frale threw his sack over his shoulder and started on
in silence, and the woman smiled evilly after him as she
sat there and licked her lips, and chewed on her snuff
stick and spat.

CHAPTER XVII r

IN WHICH DAVID THRYNG MEETS AN ENEMY

The next day David gave his attention to the letters
which he found awaiting him. One was from Doctor
Hoyle in Canada. He had but just returned from a visit
to England, and it was full of news of David's family
there.

"Your two cousins and your brother are gone with
their regiments to South Africa," he wrote. "They are
jubilant to be called to active service, as they ought to
be, but your mother is heartbroken over their departure.
You stay where you are, my boy. She is glad enough
to have you out of England now, and far from the
temptation which besets youth in times of war. It
has already caused a serious blood-letting for Old Eng-
land. I have grave doubts about this contention. In
these days there ought to be a way of preventing such
disaster. Write to your mother and comfort her heart,
— she needs it. I was careful not to betray to her what
your condition has been, as I discovered you had not
done so. Hold fast and fight for health, and be content.
Your recuperative power is good.'*

David was filled with contrition as he opened his
mother's letter, which was several weeks old and had
come by way of Canada, since she did not know he had
gone South. For some time he had sent home only
casual notes, partly to save her anxiety, and partly be-
cause writing was irksome to him unless he had some-
thing particularly pleasant to tell her. His plans and
actions had been so much discussed at home and he had
been considered so censurably odd — so different from
his relatives and friends in his opinions, and so impossible
of comprehension (which branded him in his own circle
as being quite at fault) — that he had long ago abandoned

164

David meets an Enemy 165

all effort to make himself understood by them, and had
retired behind his mask of reserve and silence to pursue
his own course undisturbed. Thus, at best, an occasional
perfunctory letter that all was well with him was the sum
total of news they received. Thryng had no money
anxieties for his family. The needs of his mother and his
sister — not yet of age — were amply provided for by a
moderate annuity, while his brother had his position in
the army, and help from his uncle besides. For himself,
he had saved enough, with his simple tastes and much
hard work, to tide him over this period of rest.

David sat now and turned his mother's letter over and
over. He read and reread it. It was verv sad. Her
splendid boys both gone from her, one possibly never to
return — neither of them married and with no hope of
grandchildren to solace her declining years. "Stay
where you are, David," she wrote; "Doctor Hoyle tells
us you are doing well. Don't, oh, don't enter the army !
One son I have surrendered to my country's service;
let me feel that I still have one on whom I may depend
to care for Laura and me in the years to come. We do
not need you now, but some day we may."

David's quandary was how to give her as much of his
confidence as filial duty required without betrajdng him-
self so far as to arouse the antagonistic comment of her
immediate circle upon his course.

At last he found a way. Telling her he did not know
how soon he might return to Canada, he requested her
to continue to address him there. He then filled his
letter with loving thoughts for her and Laura, and a humor-
ous description of what he had seen and experienced in
the "States" and the country about him, all so foreign
and utterly strange to her as to be equal to a small manu-
script romance. It was a cleverly written letter, so hiding
the vital matters of his soul, which he could not reveal
even to the most loving scrutiny, that all her motherly
intuition failed to read between the lines. The humorous
portions she gave to the rector's wife, — her most intimate
friend, — and the dear son's love expressed therein she
treasured in her heart and was comforted.

Then David rode away up the mountain without
descending to his little farm. He craved to get far into

166 The Mountain Girl

the very heart of the wildest parts, for with the letters
the old conventional and stereotyped ideals seemed to
have intruded into his cabin.

He passed the home of Hoke Belew and stopped there
to see that all was well with them. The rose vine covering
the porch roof was filled with pink blossoms, hundreds
of them swinging out over his head. The air was sweet
with the odor of honeysuckle. The old locust tree would
soon be alive with bees, for it was already budded. He
took the baby in his arms and saw that its cheeks were
growing round and plump, and that the young mother
looked well and happy, and he was glad.

"Take good care of them, Hoke; they are worth it,"
he said to the young father, as he passed him coming in
from the field.

"I will that," said the man.

"Can you tell me how to reach a place called *Wild
Cat Hole' '^ I have a fancy to do a little exploring."

"Waal, hit's sorter round about. I don't guess ye c'n
find hit easy." The man spat as if reluctant to give the
information asked, which only stimulated David all the
more to find the spot.

"Keep right on this way, do 1?'^

"Yas, you keep on fer a spell, an' then you turn to th'
right an' foller the stream fer a spell, an' you keep on
follerin' hit off an' on till you git thar. Ye'll know hit
when you do git thar, but th' still's all broke up."

"Oh, I don't care a rap about the still."

"Naw, I reckon not. Better light an' have dinner
'fore you go on. Azalie, keep the doc to dinner. I'm
comin' in a minute," he called to his wife, who stood
smiling in the doorway.

David willingly accepted the proffered hospitality, as
he had often done before, knowing it would be well after
nightfall ere he could return to his cabin, and rode back
to the house.

While Azalea prepared dinner, Hoke sat in the open
door and held his baby and smoked. David took a splint-
bottomed chair out on the porch and smoked with him,
watching pleasantly the pride of the young father, who
allowed the tiny fist to close tightly around his great
work-roughened finger.

David meets an Enemy 167

"Look a-tliar now. See that hand. Hit ain't bigger'n
a bumble-bee, an' see how he km hang on."

"Yes," said David, absently regarding them. "He's
a fine boy."

"He sure is. The' hain't no finer on this mountain."

Azalea came and looked down over her husband's shoul-
der. "Don't do that-a-way, Hoke. You'll wake him up,
bobbin' his arm up an' down like you a-doin'. Hoke,
he's that proud, you can't touch him."

"You hear that. Doc .'^ Azalie, she's that sot on him
she's like to turn me outen the house fer jes' lookin' at him.
She 'lows he'll grow up a preacher, on account o' the way
he kin holler an' thrash with his fists, but I tell her hit
hain't no thin' but madness an' devilment 'at gits in him."

With a mother's superior smile playing about her lips,
she glanced understandingly at David, and went on with
her cooking. As they came in to the table, she called
David's attention to a low box set on rockers, and, taking
the baby from her husband's arms, carefully placed him,
still asleep, in the quaint nest.

"Hoke made that hisself," she said with pride. "And
Cassandry, she made that kiver."

Tliryng touched the cover reverently, bending over it,
and left the cradle rocking as he sat down at Hoke's side
and began to put fresh butter between his hot biscuit,
as he had learned to do. His mother would have flung
up her hands in horror had she seen him doing this, or
could she have known how many such he had devoured
since coming to recuperate in these mountain wilds.

The home was very bare and simple, but sweet and clean,
and love was in it. To sit there for a while with the child-
like young couple, enjoying their home and their baby
and the hospitality generously offered according to their
ability, warmed David's heart, and he rode away happier
than he came.

With mind absorbed and idle rein, he allowed his horse
to stray as he would, while his thoughts and memory
played strange tricks, presenting contrasting pictures to
his inward vision. Now it was his mother reading by
the evening lamp, carelessly scanning a late magazine,
only half interested, her white hair arranged in shining
puffs high on her head, and soft lace — old lace — falling

168 The Mountain Girl

from open sleeves over her shapely arms ; and Laura,
red-cheeked and plump, curled, feet and all, in a great
lounging chair, poring over a novel and yawning now and
then, her dark hair carelessly tied, with straight, straying
ends hanging about her face as he had many a time seen
her after playing a game of hockey with her active, romp-
ing friends.

His mother and Laura were the only ones at home now,
since the big elder brother was gone. Of course they would
miss him and be sad sometimes, but Laura would enjoy life
as much as ever and keep the home bright with youth.
Even as he thought of them, the room faded and his own
cabin appeared as he had seen it the day before, through
the open window, with Cassandra moving about in her
quiet, gliding way, haloed with light. Again he would see
a picture of another room, all white and gold, with slight
French chairs and tables, and couches and cushions, and
candelabra of quivering crystals, with pale green walls
and gold-framed paintings, and a great, three-cornered
piano, massive and dark, where a slight, fair girl sat idly
playing tinkling music in keeping with herself and the room,
but quite out of keeping with the splendid instrument.

He saw people all about her, chatting, laughing, sipping
tea, and eating thin bread and butter. He saw, as if from
a distance, another man, himself, in that room, standing
near the piano to turn her music, while the tinkling runs
and glib, expressionless trills wove in and out, a ceaseless
nothing.

She spent years learning to do that, he thought, and any
amount of money. Oh, well. She had it to spend, and
of what else were they capable — those hands ? He could
see them jfluttering caressingly over the keys, pink, slender,
pretty, — and then he saw other hands, somewhat work-
worn, not small nor yet too large, but white and shapely.
Ah ! Of what were they not capable ? And the other
girl in coarse white homespun, seated before the fire in
Hoke Belew's cabin, holding in her arms the small bundle
— and her smile, so rare and fleeting !

He saw again the handsome sullen youth in Bishop
Towers' garden, regarding him over the hedge with
narrowed eyes, and his whole nature rebelled and cried out
as before, "What a waste !" Why should he allow it to

David meets an Enemy 169

go on ? He must thrash this thing out once for all before .
he returned to his cabin — the right and the wrong of
the case before he should see her again, while as yet he
could be engineer of his own forces and hold his hand on
the throttle to guide himself safely and wisely.

Could he succeed in influencing her to set her young
lover's claims one side ? But in his heart he knew if such
a thing were possible, she would not be herself ; she would
be another being, and his love for her would cease. No,
he must see her but little, and let the tragedy go on even as
the bishop had said — go on as if he never had known her.
As soon as possible he must return and take up his work
where he could not see the slow wreck of her life. A heavy
dread settled down upon him, and he rode on with bowed
head, until his horse stumbled and thus roused him from
his re very.

To what wild spot had the animal brought him ? David
lifted his head and looked about him, and it was as if he
had been caught up and dropped in an enchanted wood.
The horse had climbed among great boulders and paused
beneath an enormous overhanging rock. He heard,
off at one side, the rushing sound of a mountain stream
and judged he was near the head of Lone Pine Creek.
But oh, the wildness of the spot and the beauty of it and
the lonely charm ! He tied his horse to a lithe limb that
swung above his head and, dismounting, clambered on
towards the rushing water.

The place was so screened in as to leave no vista any-
where, hiding the mountains on all sides. Light green
foliage overhead, where branches thickly interlaced from
great trees growing out of the bank high above, made a
cool, lucent shadowiness all around him. There was a
delicious odor of sweet-shrub in the air, and the fruity
fragrance of the dark, wild wake-robin underfoot. The
tremendous rocks were covered with the most exquisite
forms of lichen in all their varied shades of richness and
delicacy.

He began carefully removing portions here and there
to examine under his microscope, when he noticed, almost
crushed under his foot, a pale purple orchid like the one
Cassandra had placed on his table. Always thinking of her,
he stooped suddenly to lift the frail thing, and at the instant

170 The Mountain Girl

a rifle-shot rang out in the still air, and a bullet meant
for his heart cut across his shoulders like a trail of fire and
flattened itself on the rock where he had been at work.
At the same moment, with a bound of tiger-like ferocity
and swiftness, one leaped toward him from a near mass
of laurel, and he found himself grappling for life or death
with the man who fired the shot.

Not a word was spoken. The quick, short breathing,
the scufiling of feet among the leaves, and the snapping
of dead twigs underfoot were the only sounds. Had the
youth been a trained wrestler, David would have known
what to expect, and would have been able to use method
in his defence. As it was, he had to deal with an enraged
creature who fought with the desperate instinct of an
antagonist who fights to the death. He knew that the
odds were against him, and felt rising within him a wild
determination to win the combat, and, thinking only of
Cassandra, to settle thus the vexed question, to fight with
the blind passion and the primitive right of the strongest ■
to win his mate. He gathered all his strength, his good
English mettle and nerve, and grappled with a grip of steel. ;

This way and that, twisting, turning, stumbling on the
uneven ground, with set teeth and faces drawn and fierce, ,
they struggled, and all the time the light tweed coat on i
David's back showed a deeper stain from his heart's blood,
and his face grew paler and his breath shorter. Yet a
joy leaped within him. It was thus he might save her,
either to win her or to die for her, for should Frale kill
him, she would turn from him in hopeless horror, and
David, even in dying, would save her.

Suddenly the battle was ended. Thryng's foot turned,
on a rounded stone, causing him to lose his foothold. At
the same instant, with terrible forward impetus, Frale
closed with him, bending him backward until his head
struck the lichen-covered rock. The purple orchid was
bruised beneath him, and its color deepened with his
blood. Then Frale rose and looked down upon the pallid,
upturned face and inert body, which lay as he had crushed
it down. As he stood thus, a white figure, bareheaded and
alone, came swiftly through the wall of laurel which hid
them and pausing terror-stricken in the open space, looked
from one to the other.

" / take it back - back fi'om God- the promise I gave you
there by thefaiiy Page 171.

David meets an Enemy 171

For an instant Cassandra waited thus, as if she too were
struck dead where she stood. Then she looked no more
on the fallen man, but only at Frale, with eyes immovable
and yet withdrawn, as if she were searching in her own
soul for a thing to do, while her heart stood still and her
throat closed. Those great gray eyes, with the green sea
depths in them, began to glow with a cruel light, as if she
too could kill, — as if they were drawing slowly from the
deep well of her being, as it were, a sword from its scab-
bard wherewith to cut him through the heart. Her hand
stole to her throat and pressed hard. Then she lifted it
high above her head and held it, as if in an instant more
one might see the invisible sword flash forth and strike
him. Frale cried out then, "Don't, don't curse me, Cass,'*
and lifted his arm to shield his face, while great beads of
moisture stood out on his face.

"It's not for me to curse, Frale." Her voice was low
and clear. "Curses come from hell, like what you been
carrying in your heart that made you do this." Her
voice grew louder, and her hand trembled and shut as if it
grasped something. "I take it back — back from God —
the promise I gave you there by the fall." Then, looking
up, her voice grew low again, though still distinct. "I
take that promise back forever, oh, God ! " Her hand
dropped. The cruel light died slowly out of her eyes> and
she turned and knelt by the prostrate man, and began
pulling open his coat. Frale took one step toward her.

"Cass," he said, with shaking voice, "I'll he'p you."

Her hands clinched into David's coat as she held it.
"Go back. Don't you touch even his least finger," she
cried, looking up at him from where she knelt like a crea-
ture hurt to the heart, defending its own. "You've done
your work. Take your face where I never can see it
again,"

He still stood and looked down on her. She turned
again to David, and, thrusting her hand into his bosom,
drew it forth with blood upon it.

"I say, you Frale !" she cried, holding it toward him,
quivering with the ferocity she could no longer restrain,
"leave here, or with this blood on my hand I'll call all
hell to curse you."

Frale turned with bowed head and left her there.

CHAPTER XVIII

IN WHICH DAVID THRYNG AWAKES

Thryng lay in Hoke Belew's cabin, — not in the one
great living-room where were the fireplace and the large
bed and the tiny cradle, but in the smaller addition at
the side, entered only from the porch which extended
along the front of both parts.

He still lay on the litter upon which he had been placed
to carry him down the mountain, — an improvised thing
made by stretching quilts across two poles of slender
green pines. The litter was placed on low trestles to raise
it from the floor, and close to the open door to give him
air. David had not regained consciousness since his hurt,
but lay like one dead, with closed eyes and blanched lips ;
yet they knew him to be living.

Cassandra sat beside him alone. All night long she had
been there unsleeping, hollow-eyed, and worn with tearless
grief. She had done all she knew how to do. Before going
for help she had removed his clothing and bound about
his body strips torn from her dress to stop the bleeding
of his shoulders where the silver bullet had torn across
them. How the ball had missed giving a mortal wound
was like a miracle.

Hoke Belew had tried to arouse him, but had failed.
At intervals, during the night, Cassandra had managed
to drop a little whiskey between his lips with a spoon,
and she had bathed him with the stimulant over heart and
lungs, and chafed his hands, and had tried to warm his
feet by rubbing them and wrapping them up between
jugs of hot water. She had bathed his bruised head and
cut away the softly curling hair from the spot where his
head had struck the rock. What more she could do she
knew not, and now she sat at his side still chafing his hands
and waiting for Hoke Belew's return.

Hoke had gone to the station to telegraph for Bishop

172

David Thryng Awakes 173

Towers;' Fortunately, as the hotel was so soon to be
QP^ned ^nd the busy summer life to begin, the operator
was. already there.

Azalea, in the great room, was preparing dinner, stop-
ping now and then to touch her baby's cradle, or to stoop
a moment over the treasure therein. Aunt Sally sat in the
doorway smoking her cob pipe and telling grewsome tales
of how she had "seen people hurted that-a-way and nevah
come out en hit." Sally had ridden over to give help and
sympathy, but Cassandra had said she would watch alone.
She had eaten nothing since the day before, only sipping
the coffee Azalea had brought her.

It was one of those breathless hours before a rain when
not a leaf stirs ; even the birds were silent. Cassandra
tried once more to give David a few drops of the whiskey,
and this time it seemed as if he swallowed a little. She
thought she saw his eyelids quiver, and her heart pounded
suffocatingly in her breast. She dropped beside him on
her knees and once again tried to give him the only stimu-
lant they had. This time she was sure he took it, and,
still kneeling there, she bowed her head and pressed her
lips upon the hand she had been chafing. Did it move or
not ? She could not tell, and again she sat gazing in the
still, white face. Oh, the suspense ! Oh, the joy that
was agony ! If this were truly the awakening and meant
life ! In her intensity of longing for some further signs
she drew slowly nearer and nearer, until at last her lips
touched his. Then in shame she hid her face in the quilt
at his side and, weak with the exhaustion of her long an-
guish and fasting and watching, she wept the first tears
— tears of hope she was not strong enough to bear. As
she thus knelt, weeping softly, his fluttering eyelids lifted
and he saw her there, and felt the quivering hand beneath
his head.

Not understanding how or why this should be, he waited
perfectly still, trying to gather his thoughts. A great
peace was in his heart — a peace and content so sweet he
did not wish to move. Lingering beneath this content,
he held a dim memory of a great anger — a horror of anger,
when he saw red, and hungered for blood. Vaguely it
seemed to him now that all was as he wished it to be with
Cassandra near. He liked to feel her hand beneath his

174 The Mountain Girl

head and her other hand upon his own, and her heavy
bronze hair so close, and he closed his eyes once more to
shut out all else, for the room was strange to him — this
raftered place all whitewashed from ceiling to floor.

He had forgotten what had happened, but Cassandra
was there, and he was content. Something had touched
his lips and brought him back, he was sure of that, and his
weakly beating heart stirred to more vigorous action. He
turned his head a little, a very little, toward her, and his fin-
gers closed about her hand to hold it there. She lifted her
head then, and they looked into each other's eyes, a long, deep
look. Later, when Azalea entered, she found them both
sleeping, Cassandra's hand still beneath his head, his face
pressed to her soft hair and his free arm flung about her.

Azalea stole away and hurried with the news to old
Sally, who also crept in and looked on them and stole away.

"Yas, she sure have saved his life," said Sally. "Heap
o' times they nevah do come out en that thar kin' o' sleep.
I done seed sech before."

" Ef he have come to hisself, you reckon I bettah wake
'em up and give her a lee tie hot milk? She hain't eat
nothin' sence yestiday."

" Naw, leave 'em be. No body nevah hain't starved in
his sleep yit, I reckon."

"He hain't eat nothin', neithah. He sure have been
bad hurted."

The two women sat in the large room and talked in low
tones, while at intervals Azalea crept to the door and
looked in on them.

At last the baby wailed out with lusty cry, which
sounded through the stillness of the house and roused
Cassandra, but as she lifted her head, David clung to her
and drew her cheek to his lips.

"Are you hurt V he murmured. In some strange way
he had confused matters, and thought it was she who had
been shot.

"It's not me that's hurt," she said tenderly.

Azalea hurried away and returned w4th the warm milk
she had prepared for Cassandra, who took it and held it
to David's lips.

"Drink it, Doctah. She won't touch anything till you
do."

David Thryng Awakes 175

Then he obeyed, slowly drinking it all, his eyes fixed
on Cassandra's as a child looks up to his mother. As she
rose, he held her with his free hand.

"What is it.'' How long — " His voice sounded thin
and weak. ''Strange — I can't lift this arm at all. Tell

me —

" Seems like I can't. When you are strong again, I will."

Feebly he tried to raise himself. "Don't, oh, don't,
Doctah Thryng. If you bleed again, you'll die," she
wailed.

"Sit near me."

She drew a low chair and sat near him, as she had through
the slow and anxious hours, and again he drowsed off, only
to open his eyes from time to time as if to assure himself
that she was still there. Again Azalea brought her milk
and white beaten biscuit, hot and sweet, and Cassandra
ate. When David opened his eyes to look at her, she
smiled on him, but would not let him talk to her.

Nevertheless his mind was busy trying to understand
why he was lying thus, and dimly the events of the last
few days came back to him, shadowy and confused.
When he looked up and saw her smile, his heart was satis-
fied, but when he closed his eyes again, a strange sense of
tragedy settled down upon him, but what or v/hy he knew
not. Suddenly he called to her as if from his sleep, "Have
I killed some one ? " and there was horror in his voice.

"No, no, Doctor Thryng. You been nigh about killed
3^ourself. Oh, why didn't I send for a doctor who could
do you right ! Bishop Towers won't know anything about
this."

"What have you done ?'*

"I sent for Bishop Towers."

" Who did me up like this ? "

She was silent and, rising quickly, stepped out on the
porch, her cheeks flaming crimson. Yesterday in her
terror and frenzy she could have done anything ; but now
— with his eyes fixed on her face so intently — she could
not reply nor tell how, alone, she had stripped him to the
waist and bound him about with the homespun cotton of
her dress to stanch the bleeding before hurrying down the
mountain for help.

Instinctively she had done the right thing and had done

176 The Mountain Girl

it well, but now she could not talk about it. David tried
to call after her, but she had gone around into the next room
and taken the baby from his cradle, where he was wailing
his demands for attention. Azalea had gone out for a
moment, and Aunt Sally " 'lowed the' wa'n't no use sp'ilin
him by takin' him up every time he fretted fer hit. Hit
would do him good to holler an' stretch." So she sat still
and smoked.

Cassandra walked up and down the porch, comforted
by the feeling of the child in her arms. The small head
bobbed this way and that until she pressed it against her
cheek and held him close, and he gradually settled down
on her bosom, his face tucked softly in the curve of her
neck, and slept. She heard David speaking her name and
went to him, but he only looked up at her and smiled.

"I'm sorry I left you alone," she said tenderly; "I'll call
Aunt Sally." ^

"No — wait — I only want — to look at you."

She stood swaying her lithe body to rock the sleeping
child. David thought he never had seen anything lovelier.
How serious his wounds were, he did not know. But one
thing he knew well, and to that one thought he clung. He
wanted Cassandra where he could see her all the time. He
wished she would talk to him, and not let him lose con-
sciousness, relapsing into the horror of a strange dream that
continued to haunt him.

"Do you love that baby ?" he asked, his voice faint and
high.

"He's a right nice baby."

" I say — do you love him ? "

"Why — I reckon I do. Don't try to move that way,
Doctah. You may not be done right, and you'll bleed
again. Oh, we don't know — we are so ignorant —
Azalie and me — "

He smiled. "Nothing matters now," he said.

They heard voices, and she looked out from the doorway.
"It's Hoke. They've sent old Doctor Bartlett. I'm so
glad. Aunt Sally, I reckon they'll need hot water. Get
some ready, will you ? "

" Cassandra, Cassandra ! " called David, almost irritably.

She came back to him.
Where are they ?**

a ■

David Thryng Awakes 177

"Down the road a piece. I'm glad. You'll be done
right now."

"Stoop to me." She obeyed, and the free arm caught
and held her, then, as the voices drew near, released her
with glowing eyes and burning cheeks.

She stepped out on the porch to meet them, half hiding
her face behind the babe in her arms, and old Dr. Bartlett,
as he looked on her with less prejudiced and more expe-
rienced eyes, thought he too never had seen anything
lovelier.

"He's awake," said Cassandra quietly to Hoke, and the
two men went to David. She carried the child back and
asked Aunt Sally to wait on them, while she sat down in a
low splint rocker, clinging to the little one and listening,
with throbbing nerves, to the voices in the room beyond.

When Hoke came out to them a moment later, Azalea
began eagerly to question him, but Cassandra was silent.

"Doctah says we bettah tote 'im ovah to his own place
to-day. Aunt Sally 'lows she can bide thar fer a while an'
see him well again."

"You hain't goin' to 'low that, be ye, Hoke? Hit
mount look like we wa'n't willin' fer him to bide 'long of us."

"Hit hain't what looks like, hit's what's best fer him,'*
said Hoke, sagely. "Whatevah doctah says, we'll do."
Then Hoke laughed quietly. "He done tol' Doctor
Bartlett 'at he reckoned somebody mus' 'a' took him fer
some sorter wild creetur an' shot him by mistake. I
guess Frale's safe enough f'om him, if the fool boy only
know'd hit."

"Frale, he's plumb crazy, the way he's b'en actin',"
said Azalea.

"An' Bishop Towahs he telegrafted 'at he'd send this
here doctah, an' he'd come up to-morrer with Miz Towahs
to stop ovah with you, so I reckon yer maw wants you
down thar, Cass."

Cassandra rose quickly and placed the sleeping child
gently in his cradle box. "I'll go," she said. "There's
no need for me here now. Hoke — you've been right
good — " She stopped abruptly and turned to his wife.
"I must wear your dress off, Azalie, but I'll send it back
by Hoke as soon as hit's been washed." She went out the
door almost as if she were eager to escape.

178 The Mountain Girl

"Hain't ye goin* to wait fer yer horse?" said Hoke,
laughing. *'Set a minute till I fetch him."

*'I clean forgot," she said, and when he had left, she
turned to her friend. "Azalie — don't say anything to
Hoke about me — us. Did Aunt Sally see .^ You know I
didn't know myself until I woke and found myself there.
I'd been trying to make him take a little whiskey — and —
I must have gone asleep like I was — and he woke up and
must 'a' felt like he had to kiss somebody — he was that
glad to be alive."

"Nevah you fret, child." Azalea smiled a quiet smile.
*'I'm not one to talk ; anyway, I reckon Doctah Thryng's
about right. He sure have been good to me."

The widow sat on her little stoop, waiting and watch-
ing, as her daughter rode to the door and wearily alighted.

"Cassandry Merlin! For the Lord's sake! What-all
is up now ? Hoyle — where is that boy ? — Hoyle, come
here an' take the horse fer sister. Be ye most dade,
honey ? I reckon ye be. Ye look like hit."

Cassandra kissed her mother and passed on into the
house. *'I couldn't send you word last night; anyway, I
reckoned you'd rest better if you didn't know, for we-all
thought Doctor Thryng was sure killed. Did Hoke tell
you this morning '^ "

"I 'lowed you was stoppin' with Azalie — 'at baby was
sick or somethin' — when Hoyle went up to the cabin an'
said doctah wa'n't there. Frale sure have done for hisself .
I reckon you are cl'ar shet o' him now, an' I'm glad ye be,
since he done took to the idee o' marryin' with you. What-
all have he done the doctah this-a-way fer ^ The' wa'n't
nothin' 'twixt him an' doctah. Pore fool boy he ! I'll
be glad fer yuer sake, Cass, if he'll quit these here
mountains."

"Oh, mother, mother! Don't talk about me, don't
think of me ! The doctor's nigh about killed — let alone
the sin Frale has on him now." Wearied beyond further
endurance, she flung herself on her bed and broke into
uncontrollable sobbing, while Hoyle stood in the middle
of the room and gazed with wide-eyed wonder.

"Be the doctah dade, maw?" he asked, in an awed
whisper.

David Thryng Awakes 179

(('

'No, child, no. You fetch a leetle light ud an* chips, an*
we'll make her some coffee. Sister's that tired, pore child !
Have ye been up all night, Cass ? "

She nodded her head and still sobbed on.

"He's gettin' on all right now, be he ? "

Again she nodded, but did not take her hands from her
face.

*'Then you'd ought to be glad. Hit ain't like Frale
had of killed him. Farwell, he had many a time sech as
that with one an' another, an' he nevah come to no harm
f'om hit. I reckon Frale'll be safe. Be ye cryin' fer
him, Cass ? Pore child ! I nevah did think you keered
fer Frale that-a-way."

Then Cassandra burst forth with impetuous fire. "Oh,
mother, mother ! Never say that name to me again.
IMother, I saw them ! I saw them fighting — and all
the time the doctor was bleeding — bleeding and dying,
where Frale had shot him. I don't know how long they'd
been fighting, but I came there and I saw them. I saw
him slip and how Frale crushed him down — down —
and his head struck the rock. I saw — and I almost cursed
Frale. I hope I didn't — oh, I hope not ! But mother,
mother ! Don't ask me anything more now. Oh, I
want to cry ! I want to cry and never stop."

While she lay thus weeping, the soft rain that had been
threatening all day began pattering down, blessed and
soothing, the rain to the earth and the tears to the girl.

In spite of the rain, Thryng was carried home that after-
noon according to the physician's orders, and placed in his
cabin with Aunt Sally to stand guard over him and provide
for his wants. A bed was improvised for her on the floor
of the cabin, while David lay in his own bed in his canvas
room, bandaged about both body and head, and withal
moderately comfortable, sufficiently himself to realize
what had occurred, and overjoyed because of the reward
his wounds had brought him.

Doctor Bartlett came down to the Fall Place and was
given the bed in the loom shed as David had been, and had
the pleasure of again seeing Cassandra, who, her tears dried,
and her manner composed, looked after his needs as if no
storms had ever shaken her soul.

CHAPTER XIX

IN WHICH DAVID SENDS HOKE BELEW ON A COMMISSION,
AND CASSANDRA MAKES A CONFESSION

Early one morning Hoke Belew put his head in at the
door of Thryng's cabin, where Aunt Sally was squatted
before the fireplace, preparing breakfast for the patient.

*' How's doc ?" he asked.

"He's right fa'r. He mount be worse an' he mount be
bettah."

"You reckon I mount go in yandah whar he is at ? "

"Ye can look an' see is he awake. I'm gittin' his hot
bread an' coffee. You bettah bide an' have a leetle," she
said, with ever ready hospitality.

He crossed the floor with careful steps and paused in
the doorway of the canvas room, big and smiling.

"That you, Hoke .^ Come in," said David, cheerfully.
He extended a hand which Hoke took in his and held
aw^kwardly, shocked at the white face before him.

"Ye do look puny," he said at last. "But we-uns sure
be glad yer livin'. Ye tol' me to come early, so I come."

"It's awfully good of you. Bring a chair and sit near,
so we can talk a bit. Now, Hoke, laid up here as I am, I
need your help. I want to send you to Farington or Lone
Pine — somewhere — I don't know where such things are
to be had — but, Hoke, you've been married and know all
about what's needed here."

"Ye want me to git ye a license, I reckon," said Hoke,
grinning, "an' ye mount send me a errant I'd like a heap
worse — that's so ; but what good will hit be to ye now ?
You can't stan' on your feet."

"I can put it under my pillow and keep it to get well on.
See here, Hoke. I don't even know if she'll marry me;
she has not said so, but I'll be ready. You'll keep this
quiet for me, Hoke ? Because it would trouble her if the
whole mountain side should know what I have done before
she does. Yet a girl like Cassandra is worth winning if

180

Cassandra's Confession 181

you have to go to the edge of the grave to do it, so when-
ever she will have me, I want to be ready."

They talked in low tones, Hoke leaning forward close
to David, his elbows on his knees. '*I reckon you are
a-thinkin' to bide on here 'long o' we-uns an' not carry her
off nowhar else V^ he asked gravely.

David's paleness left him for a moment, as the warm
tide swept upward from his heart. "My home is not in
this country, and wherever a man goes, he expects to take
his wife with him. Don't you people here in the moun-
tains do the same ? "

*'I reckon so, but hit would nigh about kill Azalie if she
war to lose Cass. They have been frien's evah sence they
war littlin's."

"Hoke, if you were to find it necessary to go away any-
where, would you leave your wife behind to please Cas-
sandra Merlin .f*" The man was silent, and David con-
tinued. "Before you were married if you had known
there was another man, and a criminal at that, hanging
around determined to get her, wouldn't you have married
her out of hand as soon as you could get her consent .? It's
my opinion, knowing the sort of man you are, that you
would."

" I sure would."

"Then you can understand why I wish to have a mar-
riage license under my pillow."

"I reckon so — but — you — you-all hain't quite our
kind — not bein' kin to none of us — You understand me,
suh. We-uns are a proud people here, an' we think a
heap o' our women. Hit would be right hard should you
git sorter tired o' Cassandry when you come to git her
amongst your people — bein' she hain't like none o' your
folks, understand; an' Cassandry, she's sorter hard hit
jest now, she don't rightly know what-all she do think.
Me an' Azalie, we been speakin' right smart together —
an' — well, we do sure think a heap o' you, Doc — an'
hit ain't no disrespect to you-uns, neither. Have you
said anything to her maw ? "

"Not a word. When I learned another man was before
me, I stood one side as an honorable man should and gave
him his chance. But when it comes to being attacked by
the other man and shot in the back — by heaven ! no

182 The Mountain Girl

power on earth will hold me from trying to win her. As for
the other matter, never you fear. Be my friend, Hoke.'*

*'Waal, I reckon you'll have yer own way, an' I mount
as well git hit fer ye, but I did promise Azalie 'at I'd speak
that word to ye," said the young man, rising with an air of
relief.

"Tell your wife that you are both of you quite right, and
that I am right also. Just hunt up my trousers, will you ?
I want my pocket-book. If I have to sign anything before
anybody — bring him here. I don't care what you do, so
you get it. There, on that card you have it all — my full
name and all that, you know."

David tried to eat what Sally prepared for him, using
his unbound hand; but his egg was hard, his coffee
thick and boiled. He could not drink it very well for his
head was too low, and he could not raise himself, so he
lay silent and uncomfortable, watching her move about his
rooms, wearing her great black sunbonnet. She appeared
kindly and pleasant when he could see her face, which was
thin and very much lined, but motherly and good. He
fell in the way of calling her "Aunt Sally" as others did,
and this seemed to please her. She treated him as if he
were a big boy who did not know what was good for him-
self. She called all the green blossoming things with
which Cassandra had adorned the cabin, "trash," and
asked who had "toted hit thar."

Waiting and listening, sure Cassandra would not leave
him all day without coming to him, even though Aunt
Sally had taken him in charge, David's mind was full of
her. If he closed his eyes, he saw her. If he opened them
and watched Sally's meagre form and black sunbonnet
moving about, he thought what it might be to see Cassan-
dra there.

He could not and would not look at the future. The
picture Hoke Belew had summoned up when he had sug-
gested the taking of Cassandra away among people alien
to her, he put from him. He would not see it nor think of
it. The present was his, and it was all he had, perhaps all
he ever would have ; and now he would not allow one little
joy of it to escape him. He would be greedy of it and have
all the gladness of the moments as they came.

Cassandra's Confession 18S

He could see her down below making ready for their
visitors, and he knew she would not come until the last
task was done, but meantime his patience was wearing
away. Aunt Sally finished her work, and David could
see her from where he lay, seated in the doorway with her
pipe, looking out on the gently falling rain.

Without, all was very peaceful ; only within himself was
turmoil and impatience. But he knew that to remain
calm and unmoved was to keep back his fever and hasten
recuperation, so he closed his eyes and tried to live for the
moment in the remembrance of that awakening when he
had found her kneeling at his side. Thus he dropped to
sleep, and again, when he awoke, he found Cassandra there
as if in answer to his silent call.

She was seated quietly sewing, as if it were no unusual
thing for her to visit him thus, and when his earnest gaze
caused her to look up, she only smiled without pertur-
bation and came to him.

"I sent Aunt Sally down to see mother while I could
stay by you and do for you a little,'' she said.

Calm and restful she seemed, yet when he extended his
free hand and took hers, he felt a tremor in her touch that
delighted his heart. He brought it to his lips.

*'I've been needing you all the morning. Aunt Sally
has done everything — all she could. If I should let you
have this hand again, would you go so far away from me
that I could not reach you .^"

*'Not if you want me near."

"Then put away your sewing and bring your chair close
to me, and let us talk together while we may."

She obeyed and sat looking away from him out through
the open door. Were her eyes searching for the mountain
top ?

"You have thoughts — sweet, big thoughts, dear girl;
put them in words for me now, while we are so blessedly
alone."

"I can't say rightly what I think. Seems like if I had
some other way — something besides words to tell my
thoughts with, I could do it better ; but words are all we
have — and seems like when I want them most they won't

come."

((

That's the way with all of us. Don't you see you are

184 The Mountain Girl

still beyond my reach ? Come. If you can't tell your
thoughts in words, give them by the touch of your hands
as you did a moment ago."

She did as he bade her and, leaning forward, took his
hand in both her own.

"That's right. I'll teach you how to tell your thoughts
without words. Now, how came you to find us the other
day?"

"I don't know myself. It was a strange way. First I
rode down to Teasley's Mill to — to try to persuade them
— Giles Teasley — to allow him to go free." She paused
and put her hand to her throat, as her way was. "I think.
Doctor Thryng, I'd better build up the fire and get you
some hot milk. Doctor Bartlett said you must have it
often — and — to keep you very quiet."

"Not until you tell me now — this moment — what I
ask you. You went to the mill to try to help Frale out of
his trouble. Cassandra, have you loved that boy ?'*

Her face assumed its old look of masklike impassivity.
"I reckoned he might hold himself steady and do right —
would they only leave him be — and give him the chance — "

"Cassandra, answer me. Was it for love of him that
you gave him your promise ? "

Her face grew white, and for a moment she bowed her
head on his hand.

"Please, Doctor Thryng, let me tell you the strange part
first, then you can answer that question in your own way."
She lifted her head and looked steadily in his eyes. "You
remember that day we went to Cate Irwin's ? When we
came to the place where we can see far — far over the
mountains — I laughed — with something glad in my
heart. It was the same this time when I got to that far
open place. All at once it seemed like I was so free — free
from the heavy burden — and all in a kind of light that
was only the same gladness in my heart.

"I stopped there and waited and thought how you said
that time, *It's good just to be alive,' and I thought if
you were there with me and should put your hand on my
bridle as you did that night in the rain, and if you should
lead me away off — even into the * Valley of the shadow of
death' into those deep shadows below us I would go and
never say a word. All at once it seemed as if you were

Cassandra's Confession 185

doing that, and I forgot Frale and kept on and on; and
wherever it seemed like you were leading me, I went.

'*It seemed like I was dreaming, or feeling like a hand
was on my heart — a hand I could not see, pulling me and
making me feel, 'This way, this way, I must go this way.'
I never had been where my horse took me before. I
didn't think how I ever could get back again. I didn't
seem to see anything around me — only to go on — on —
on, and at last it seemed I couldn't go fast enough, until
all at once I came to your horse tied there, and I heard
strange trampling sounds a little farther on where my horse
could not go — and I got off and ran.

"I fell doT\Ti and got up and ran again ; and it seemed as
if my feet wouldn't leave the ground, but only held me back.
It seemed like they hadn't any more power to run — and —
then I came there and I saw." She paused, covering her
face ^4th her hand as if to shut out the sight, and slipped
to her knees beside him. "Oh, I saw your faces — all
terrible — " He put his arm about her and drew her close.
*'I saw you fall, and your face when it seemed like you
were dying as you fought. I saw — " Her sobs shook
her, and she could not go on.

"My beautiful priestess of good and holy things !'* he
said.

She leaned to him then and, placing her arms about him,
ever mindful of his hurt, she lifted his head to her shoulder.
The flood-gates of her reserve once lifted, the full tide of
her intense nature swept over him and enveloped him. It
was as light to his soul and healing to his body. How often
it had seemed as if he saw her with that halo of light about
her, and now it was as if he had been drawn within its
charmed radius, as surely he had.

"And then, dear heart, what did you do ?"

" I thought you were killed, and almost — almost I
cursed him. I hope now I wasn't so wicked. But I — I
— called back from God the promise I had given him."

"And then — tell me all the blessed truth — and
then—"

"You were bleeding — bleeding — and I took off your
clothes — and I saw where vou were bleeding vour life
away, and I tied my dress around you. I tore it in pieces
and wound it all around you as well as I could, and then I

186 The Mountain Girl

put your coat back on you, and still you didn't waken. It
seemed as if you had stopped breathing. And then I
saw the bruise on your head, and I thought maybe you
were only stunned. I brought water from the branch and
put your head on the wet cloth and bound it all around,
but still you looked like he had killed you, and then — "
he stirred in her arms to feel their clasp.

"And then — then— "

"I went for help," she said, in so Iowa tone it seemed
hardly spoken.

"First you did something you have not told me."

She waited in a sweet shame he recognized and gloried
in, but he wanted the confession from her lips.

"And then .?»"

"You said you would teach me to say things without
words," she said tremulously.

"Not now. Later. Put everything you did in words.
And then—"

"I thought you were dying." She drew in a long,
sighing breath.

"And you kissed me. I have a right to know, for I
missed them all — "

"I did, I did," she cried vehemently. "A hundred
times I kissed you. I had called my promise back from
God — and I dared it. I wasn't ashamed. I would have
done it if all the mountain side had been there to see —
but afterwards — when that strange doctor from Faring-
ton came, and I knew he must uncover you and find my
torn dress around you — somehow, then I felt I didn't
want for him to look at me, and I was glad to go away."

"Do you want to know what he said when he saw it?
* Whoever did this kept you alive, young man.' So you
see how you are my beautiful bringer of good. You are
— Oh, I have only one arm now. I am at a disadvantage.
When I can stand on my feet, I will pay them all back —
those kisses you threw away on me then. We shan't
need w^ords then, dearest. I'll teach you the sweet lesson.
Your arms tremble; they are tired, dear. Could you
let your head rest here and sleep as you did the other day ?
To think how I woke and found you beside me sleeping — "

"Let me go now. I have things I ought to do for you."

"Not yet. I have things I must say to you."

Cassandra's Confession 187

«-

Please, Doctor Thryng."

"My name is David. You must call me by it."

"Please, Doctor David, let me go."

"Why?"

"To warm some milk. I brought it up for you."

"Pity we must eat to live. Then if I let you take your
arms away, will you come back to me?"

"Yes. I'll bring the milk."

"There, go. I'm giving you your own way because I
know I will recover the sooner the strength I have lost.
A man flat on his back, with but one arm free, is no good."

"But you don't let me go."

"Listen, Cassandra. You brought me back to life.
Do you know what for ? What did your father tell you ?
That one should be sent for you ? It is I, dearest. From
away over on the other side of the earth, I have come for
you. We fought like beasts — Frale and I. I had given
you up — you — Cassandra; had said in *my heart, *I
will go away and leave her to the one she has chosen, if
that be right,' and even at that moment, Frale shot me
and sprang upon me, and I fought. I was glad the chance
was given me there in the wilderness in that old and primi-
tive way, to settle it and win you.

"I put all the force and strength of my body into it,
and more ; all the strength of my love for you. It was with
that in my heart, we clinched. I said I will fight to the
death for her. She shall be mine whether I live or die.
Stop crying, sweet; be glad as I am. Give thanks that
it was to the life and not to the death. Listen, once more,
while I can feel and know; give way to your great heart of
love and treat me as you did after you had bound up my
wounds. Learn the sweet lesson I said I would teach

you."

Late that evening, Hoke Belew rode up to the door of
David's cabin and called Aunt Sally out to speak with him.

"How's doc?"

"He's doin' right well. He's asleep now. Won't ye
'light an' come in?"

"I reckon not. Azalie, she's been alone all day, an' I
guess she'll be some 'feared. Will you put that thar under
doc's pillow whar he kin find hit in the mawnin' ? Hit's

188 The Mountain Girl

a papah he sont me fer. Tell 'im I reckon hit's all straight.
He kin see. Them people Cassandry was expectin' from
Farington, did they come to-day ?"

*'Yas, they come. They're down to Miz Farwell's."

"Well, you tell doc 'at Azalie an' me, we'll be here 'long
'leven in the mawnin'." Hoke rode off under the winking
stars, for the clouds after the long day of rain had lifted,
and in the still night were rolling away over the moun-
tain tops.

Aunt Sally slipped quietly back into the cabin and softly
closed the door of the canvas room, lest the rustling of
paper should waken her charge, for she meant to examine
that paper, quite innocently, since she could neither read
nor write, but out of sheer childish curiosity.

She need not have feared waking David, however, for,
all his physical discomfort forgotten, dominated by the
supreme happiness that possessed him, yet weak in body
to the point of exhaustion, he slept profoundly and calmly
on, even when she came stealthily and slipped the paper
beneath his pillow, as Hoke had requested.

CHAPTER XX

IN WHICH THE BISHOP AND HIS WIFE PASS AN EVENTFUL

DAY AT THE FALL PLACE

*'Do you know, James," said Betty Towers, as she
walked at her husband's side in the sweet morning, slowly
climbing up to David's cabin from the Fall Place, *'I
feel almost vexed with you for never bringing me here
before."

*' Why — my dear ! "

**Yes, I do. To think of all this loveliness, and for
six years you have been here many times, and never once
told me you knew a place hardly two hours away as en-
trancing as heaven. Even now, James, if it hadn't been
for Cassandra, I wouldn't have come. Why — it's the
loveliest spot on earth. Stand still a minute, James,
and listen. That's a thrush. Oh, something smells so
sweet ! It's a locust ! And that's a redbird's note.
There he is, like a red blossom in those bushes. There —
no, there. You will look in the wrong direction, James,
and now he's gone. You remember what David Thryng
wrote? *It's good just to be alive.' He's always say-
ing that, and now I understand — in such a place as this.
Oh, just breathe the air, James!"

"I certainly can't help doing that, dear." The bishop
was puffing a little over the climb his slight young wife
took so easily.

"I don't care. Here I've lived in cities all my life,

while you have lived down here, and it has lost its charm

to you. Only think of all this gorgeous display of nature

just for these mountain people, and what is it to them ? "

- "To them it's the natural order of things, just as you

^ implied in regard to me."

"Hark, James. Now, that's a catbird!"

"And not a thrush ?"

"The other was a thrush. I know the difference."

"Wise little woman ! Come. There's that young man

189

190 The Mountain Girl

getting up a fever by fretting. We said — I said we
would come early."

"James, I'm going to stay up here and let you go to that
stupid wedding down in Farington without me."

"Perhaps we may have something interesting up here,
if you'll hurry a little."

"What is it, James ?"

"I really can't say, dear." She took his hand, and they
walked on.

"Wouldn't this be an ideal spot to spend a honeymoon ?
Hear that fall away down below us. How cool it sounds !
Why don't you pay attention to me ? What are you
thinking about, James ? "

"I am making a little poem for you, dear. Listen : —

" Chatter, chatter, little tongue.
What a wonder how you're hung !
Up above the epiglottis,
Tied on with a little knot 'tis.'*

"Only geniuses may be silly, James, but perhaps you
can't help it. I think married people ought to establish
the custom of sabbatical honeymoons to counteract the
divorce habit. Suppose we set the example, now we have
arrived at just the right time for one, and spend ours here."

"Anything you say, dear."

Being an absent-minded man, the bishop had fallen
in the way of saying that, when, had he paused to think,
he would have admitted that everything was made to
bend to his will or wish by the spirited little being at his
side. Moreover, being an absent-minded man, he drew
her to him and kissed her. Aunt Sally, watching them
from the cabin door, wondered if the bishop were going
away on a journey, to leave his wife behind, for why else
should he kiss her thus ?

"Will you sit there on the rock and enjoy the mountains
while I see how he is.^" said the bishop.

So they parted at the door, and Aunt Sally brought her
a chair and stood beside her, giving her every detail of the
affair as far as she knew it. She sat bareheaded in the
sun, to Sally's amazement, for she had her hat in her lap
and could have worn it.

An Eventful Day 191

The wind blew wisps of her fine straight hair across her
pink cheeks and in her eyes, as she gazed out upon the
blue mountains and Ustened to Sally's tale of "How hit
all come about." For Sally went back into the family
history of the Teasleys, and the Caswells, and the Merlins,
and the Farwells, until Betty forgot the flight of time
and the bishop called her. Then she went in to see David.

He had worked his right hand free from its bandages
and was able to lift it a little. She took it in hers, and
looked brightly down at him.

"\\Tiy, Doctor Thryng, you look better than when you
were in Farington ! Doesn't he, James ? Aunt Sally
gave me to understand you were nearly dead."

David laughed happily. "I was, but I am very much
alive now. I am to be married, Mrs. Towers ; our wed-
ding is to be quite comme il faut. It is to be at high
noon, and the ceremony performed by a bishop."

"James!" Betty dropped into a chair and looked
helplessly at her husband. "You haven't your vest-
ments here ! "

"I have all I need, dear. You know. Doctor, from
Mr. Belew's telegram we were led to expect — "

"A death instead of a wedding.''" David finished.

Betty turned to him. "Why didn't you tell us when
you were down ? You never gave the slightest hint of
your state of mind, and there I was with my heart aching
for Cassandra, when you — you stood ready to save her.
I'm so glad for Cassandra ; I could hug you. Doctor
Thryng." Suddenly she turned on her husband. "James !
Have you thought of everything — all the consequences ?
What will his mother — and the family over in England
say.?>"

James threw up his hand and laughed.

"Don't laugh, James. Have you thought this all out,
Doctor ? Are you sure you can make them understand
over there ? Won't they think this awfully irregular ?
Will they ever be reconciled ? I know how they are.
My father was English."

"They never need be reconciled. It's our affair, and
there's nothing to call me back there to live. What I do,
or whom I make my wife, is nothing to them. I may
visit my mother, of course, but for the rest, they gave me

192 The Mountain Girl

up years ago, when I had no use for the life they mapped
out for me. I have nothing to inherit there. It would
go to my older brother, anyway. I may follow my own
inclination — thank God ! And as for it's being irregu-
lar — on the contrary — we are distinguished enough to
have a bishop perform the ceremony. That will be con-
sidered a great thing at home — when they do come to
hear of it."

*'But it is very sudden. Doctor; I suppose that's why
I said irregular." Betty Towers paused a moment with
a little frown, then laughed outright. "Does Cassandra
know she is to be married to-day ^ "

"She learned the fact yesterday — incidentally — bless
her ! and her only objection was a most feminine one.
She had no propgr dress. She said she was wearing her
best when she found me and — but — I told her the
trousseau was to come later."

Betty rose with impulsive importance. "Well, James,
we've so little time, I must go and help her prepare.
And you'll rest now, won't you. Doctor ? You stay up
here with him, James, and I'll find some way of sending
your things up."

"Thar's Hoyle; he kin he'p a heap. He kin ride the
mule an' tote anything ye like ; and Slarthy, I reckon ye
kin git her up here on my horse — hit's thar at her place,"
said Sally, who had been standing in the doorway, keenly
interested.

When they were alone she said to David: "Hit's a
right quare way o' doin' things — gitt'n married in bed,
but if Bishop Towahs do hit, hit sure must be all right —
leastways Cassandry'll think so."

David took the superintendence of the arrangement
of his cabin upon himself, and Hoke Belew, with the
bishop's aid, carried out his directions. One side of his
canvas room was rolled to the top, leaving the place open
to the hills and the beauty without. His bed was placed
so that he might face the open space, and that Cassandra
could kneel at his right side. His writing-table, draped
with a white cloth and covered with green hemlock boughs,
formed the altar. It was all very quickly and simply
done, and then David lay quiet, with closed eyes, listening
to his musicians in the tree-tops, fluting their own glad-

An Eventful Day 193

ness, while Hoke Belew went down below, and the bishop
sat out on the rock and meditated.

Cassandra came up to the cabin alone and sat with
David, while the bishop donned his priestly vestments,
and the wedding procession wound slowly up the trail
from the Fall Place, decorously and gravely, clad in their
best. Azalea and Betty came, side by side, the mother rode
Sally's speckled white horse, and little Hoyle ran on
ahead; Hoke carried his baby in his arms. Behind them
all rode Uncle Jerry Carew, full of the liveliest interest
and curiosity.

Said David: "This is May-day. I know what they're
doing at home now, if the weather will let them. They're
having gay times with out-of-door fetes. The country
girls are wearing their prettiest gowns, and the men are
wearing sprigs of May in their buttonholes. Where did
you get your roses ? "

"Azalie brought them."

*'And who put them in your hair.'*"

"Mrs. Towahs did that. Do vou like me this way,

"You are the loveliest being my ej^es ever rested on."

"This was my best dress last year. I did it up and
mended it this morning. It's home-woven like the one I
— like the other one you said you liked."

David smiled, looking up into the gray eyes with the
green lights and blue depths in them. How serene and
poised her manner was, on the verge of the momentous
step she was about to take, while his own heart was beat-
ing high. He wondered if she really comprehended the
change it was to make in her life, that she showed no appre-
hension or fear.

"Cassandra, do you realize that in fifteen minutes you
will be my wife ? It will be a great change for you, dearest.
In spite of all I can do, you may be sad sometimes, and I
may ask of you things you don't want to do."

"I've been sad already in my life, and done things I
didn't want to do. I don't guess you could change that —
only God could."

" And you don't feel in the least disturbed .^ Your
heart doesn't beat any harder nor your breath come
quicker? Tell me how you feel."

194 The Mountain Girl

She smiled and drew a long breath. **I don't know how
it is. Everything is right peaceful and sweet outside —
the sky and the hills and all the birds — even the wind is
still in the trees, like everything was waiting for some-
thing good to happen."

"In your heart it is sweet and peaceful, too, and waiting
for something good to happen ?"

"Yes, David."

"God forgive me if ever I fail you," he said, drawing her
down to him. "God make me worthy of you."

Then the bishop entered, and the little procession fol-
lowed, and gathered about while the solemn words of the
service were uttered. Cassandra knelt at David's side,
as together they partook of the bread and wine, and with
the worn circlet of gold which had been tied to her father's
little Greek books, they were pronounced man and wife.
Then, rising from her knees, she bent and kissed David,
the long first kiss of the wedded pair, and turned her
gravely happy face to the bishop, who admitted to Betty
afterward that he had never kissed a bride, other than his
own, with such unalloyed satisfaction.

It was all over quickly, and Cassandra was standing in
a new world. Her eyes shone w^ith the love-light no
longer held back and veiled. She accompanied them all
to the door and parted from them, even her mother and
little Hoyle, as a hostess parting from her guests. She
would not allow any one to stay behind, for the wedding
feast had been spread in her mother's house, and thither
they repaired to eat, and talk everything over.

"Mother felt right bad to leave us alone. She meant
to bring everything up and all eat together here, but I
thought it would be better, just we two, and me to set
things out for you. Lie quiet and close your eyes, David,
and make out like you are sleeping while I do it."

With perfect contentment he obeyed, and lay w^atching
her through half-closed lids. It was always the same
vision. She moved between him and a halo of light that
seemed to be a part of her and to go with her,, now at his
bedside, now bending before the fireplace. At last the
small pine table, which had served as an altar, was set
with their first meal. The home A^as established.

He opened his eyes and looked on the feast she had set

An Eventful Day 195

before him. The pink rose was still in her hair, and one
at her throat, and two perfect ones were in a glass near his
plate. The table was drawn close to his bedside, and
strawberries w'ere upon it, and a glass pitcher of cream.
There were white beaten biscuit, and tea — as he had
made it for her so long ago on her first and only visit
to his cabin when he was at home, so she had made it
for him now. There were chicken and green peas,
also.

"How quickly everything has happened ! How perfect
it all is ! How did you get all these things together V

So she told him where everything came from. "Mother
churned the butter to have it right fresh, and she left it
without salt for you, like you said you used to have it in
England. Uncle Jerry brought the peas from his garden,
and he shelled them himself. I made the biscuit this
morning, and Aunt Sally fried the chicken when she came
down, and Azalie prepared the peas, and we kept them all
hot in the fireplace, theirs down there, and ours up here."
Cassandra laughed merrily. "I reckon it looked funny.
Every one carried something when they came up. Hoyle
had the peas in a tin pail, and mother rode Aunt Sally's
Speckle and carried the biscuit in a pan on front. Shut
your eyes and you can see them come that waj% David,
while I sit here with you, talking and feeling that happy.
Don't try to use your right hand that way ; I can see it
hurts you. Let me go on feeding you like I am. Don't
I do it right .? "

"Perfectly, but I want you to bring that cushion over
here and put it under my pillow so you won't have to lift
my head. That's right. Now I want to see you eat.
You can't feed me and yourself at the same time. You
won't ? Then we'll take it turn about."

"How have you managed these daj^s ? Did Aunt Sally
feed you ? Oh, I don't believe you ate anything. You
couldn't, could you .^"

She spoke so sadly, he laughed. "It's a lucky thing
you sent for the bishop instead of the doctor, or I would
have had no wife and would have starved to death. I
couldn't have survived another dav."

Again she laughed out, as she seemed so suddenly to have
learned to do. "And I would have stayed away and let

196 The Mountain Girl

you starve to death ? You must open your mouth, David,
and not try to talk now."

"Ah, no, that's enough. WeVe a thousand things to
say and plans to make. You eat while I talk. When I
am up, we must find some one to stay with your mother.
She should not be left alone." Cassandra paled a little.
He was watching her face. "You will be staying up here
with me, you know, all the time."

"Yes — I know." Her throat seemed to tighten, and
she looked off toward the hills, as her way was.

"Don't you like the thought of staying up here with me ?
Make your confession, dearest one." He drew her down
to look in his eyes. "It's done. We are man and wife."

Her eyes swam with tears, but her lips smiled. "I do.
I do want to bide with you. All the way before me now
looks like a long path of light — like what I have dreamed
sometimes when the moon shines long down the mists at
night. Only one place — I can't quite see — is it shadow
or not. Perhaps it's only the thought of mother down
there alone."

She spoke dreamily and with the same look of seeing
things beyond, except that now she fixed her eyes, not on
the mountain top, but on his own.

"Is it in my eyes you see the long path of light ? Are
we together in it ? I see you always with the light about
you. I saw you so first in your own home before the blaz-
ing fire — such a hearth fire as I had never seen before.
You have appeared to me in my dreams with light about
you ever since, and in my visions when I have been riding
over these hills alone. What are you seeing now ? "

"You, as you helped me that first time, there in the
snow. You looked so ill, but your way was strong, and I
thought — all at once, in a flash — like it came from — "

"Goon."

"Like it came from my father: *One will come for
you.' " She hid her face in his bosom, and her words came
smothered and brokenly, "All the ride home I put them
away, but they would come back, his words: *0n the
mountain top, one will come for you ' ; but we were in such
trouble — I thought it was just the thought of my father.
It's always strongest when trouble comes, like he would
comfort me."

An Eventful Day 197

*' Don't you have it also when happiness comes to you,
as on this morning while we waited together ?'*

**No great happiness Hke this ever came before. I have
been glad, like when mother said I might go to Farington
to school ; and when I knelt and was confirmed, I was
glad then. The first gladness I can remember was when
my father used to carry me in his arms up and down his
path and repeat strange poetry to me. When you are
well, we will go there, won't we.'^"

"Yes, dearest ; but didn't the remembrance come to you
just now, when you saw the long path of light before us .f^"

"I think no, David. I'm afraid I forgot every one but
you then, when you asked would I like to bide here with
you ; and the long path of light was our love — for it
reaches up to heaven, doesn't it, David ? "

'*It reaches to heaven, Cassandra."

Then they were silent, for there was no more to say.

CHAPTER XXI

IN WHICH THE SUMMER PASSES

MiDSUAOiER arrived, and David, healed of his wounds,
pronounced himself as "strong as a cricketer." What
he meant by that Hoyle could only conjecture, and, after
much pondering, decided that his strength was now so
great that should he desire to do so, he could leap into the
air or jump long distances after the manner of crickets.

"You reckon you could jump as fer in one jump now
as from here to t'other side the water trough yandah ? "
he asked one day, as they sat on the porch steps together.

"No, I don't reckon so," said David, laughing.

"Well, could you jump ovah this here house and the
loom shed in one jump ?*^

"I don't reckon so."

"Be sensible, honey son. You mustn't 'low him to
ax ye fool questions, Doctah. You knows they hain't
nobody kin do such as that, Hoyle," called his mother from
within.

"He has some idea in his head. What is it, brother
Hoyle.?"

"I heered you tellin' Cass 'at you was gettin' strong as
one o' these here cricket bugs, an' I had one t'other day ;
he could jump as fer as cl'ar acrost the po'ch — and he
was only 'bout a inch long — er less 'n a inch. I thought
if brothah David was that strong, he could jump a heap."

David had comforted Hoyle for the loss of Cassandra
from the home by explaining that they were now become
brothers for the rest of their lives, and in order to give
this assurance appreciable significance, he had taken the
small chap to the circus and had treated him to pink
lemonade and a toy balloon.

They had remained over until the next day, and Doctor
Bartlett and David had examined him all over at the old
physician's office and then had gone into a little room
by themselves and stayed a long time, leaving him outside.

198

The Summer Passes 199

Then, to compensate for such gross neglect, David had
taken him to a clothing store and bought him a complete
suit of store clothing, very neat and pretty. Hoyle would
have been in the seventh heaven over all this, were it not,
alas ! that there the child for the first time in his life
looked into a mirror that revealed him to himself from head
to foot, little wry neck, hunched back and all.

David, not realizing this was a revelation to the little
man, wondered, as they walked away, that all his enthu-
siasm and exuberance of spirits had left him, and that he
walked at his side wearily and sadly silent. His pathetic
little legs spindled down from the smart new trousers,
and his hands dangled weakly from his thin wrists, albeit
his fingers clung tightly to his toy balloon.

"We're going back to the bishop's now, and we'll have
a good dinner, and then you'll have a whole hour to
play with Dorothy before we leave for home," said David,
cheeringly. The child made no response other than to slip
his hand into David's. "What are you thinking about,
brother Hoyle .? "

"Jest nothin'. I war a-wonderin'."

"Oh, there is a difference .^ W'hat were you wonder-
mg?

"Maw told me if you war that good to take me to a
circus, I mustn't bothah you with a heap o' questions 'at
wa'n't no good."

"That's all right. I'm questioning you now."

"What war you an' that old man feelin' me all ovah for ?
War you tryin' to make out hu' come my hade is sot like
this-a-way .^ Reckon you r'aly could set hit straight an'
get this 'er lump off'n my back V

"Don't worry about your head and your back. You
have a very good head. That's more than some can say.'*

"I nevah see nary othah boy like I be. You reckon
that li'l' girl, she thought I war quare "^ "

|] What little girl .^';^

"Mrs. Towahs's liT girl. She said 'turn roun', ' an'
when I done hit, she said ' turn roun' agin.' Then she said,
'Whyn't you hoi' your hade like I do ?'"

"What did you say ?"

"Didn't say nothin.' Jes' axed her whyn't she hoi'
her head like I did .^ an' she said, 'Don't want to.' So

200 The Mountain Girl

I said, 'Don't want to.'" He twisted his head about to
look up in David's face, and his lips smiled, but in his
eyes was a suspicion of tears. His heart heavy for the
child, David praised him for a brave Httle chap, comforting
him as best he could.

"You reckon she'd like me if I war to give her this here
balloon.?"

"No, you take that home to sister. The little girl
can get one when the circus comes again." But after
dinner, David did not send Hoyle off to play the hour with
Dorothy. He took her on his knee and entertained them
both with tales and mimicry until he had them in gales of
laughter, and for the time being Hoyle forgot his troubles.

As the days passed, David became more and more inter-
ested in his patch of ground and the growing things in his
garden. Never had he labored with his hands in this
fashion, and each night he lay down to sleep physically
weary, in contentment of spirit. Steadily he progressed
toward the desired goal of health. In his young wife, also,
he found a rich satisfaction, watching her unfold and
blossom into the gracious wifehood and ladyhood he had
dreamed of for her.

Together they used to stroll to the little farm, where
she told him all she knew about the crops — what was best
for the animals, and what would be needed for themselves.
Long before David was able to oversee the work himself,
she had set Elwine Timms to sowing cow-peas and planting
corn.

"Behold your heritage !" David said to her one morn-
ing, as they strolled thus among the thrifty greenness and
patches of vetch where the cow was contentedly feeding.
He laughed joyously and drew his wife's arm through his.
She looked up at him wistfully. He thought she sighed,
and bent his head to listen. "What was that little
sound ? "

"I was only thinking."

"We'll sit here where we sat that morning when we both
put our hands to the plough, and you tell me what you were
thinking."

"I ought not to stop now, David. I've left all for
mother to do. I was that busy at the cabin I didn't get
down to her this morning."

The Summer Passes 201

"You can't keep two homes going with only your own
two dear hands, Cassandra. It must be stopped. We'll
find some one to live with your mother and take your
place." She gave a little gasp, then sat silently, her hands
dropped passively in her lap, and he thought she seemed
sad. He took her face between his hands and made her
look into his eyes. "Don't be worried, sweetheart; we'll
make a few changes. You're mine now, you know — not
only to serve me and labor for me as you have been doing
all these weeks, but — "

"But I like it, David. I like doing for you. I hope
it may always be so I can do for you."

"Would you like me to become an invalid again so you
could keep on in the way you began ?"

"Not that — but sometimes I think what if you
shouldn't really need me ! " She hid her face on his
breast. "I — I want you to need me — David!" It
was almost like a cry for help, as she said it.

"Dear heart, dear heart ! What are you thinking and
fearing ? Can't you understand ? You are mine now, to
be cared for and loved and held very near and dear to my
heart. We are no more twain, we are one."

"Yes, but — but — David, I — I want you to need
me," she sobbed, and he knew some thought was stirring
in her heart which she could not yet put into words. He
comforted her and soothed her, explaining certain plans
which later he put into execution, so that her duties at
the Fall Place were brought to an end and he could have
her always with him.

A daughter of her Uncle Cotton, who had gone down
into South Carolina to live, was induced to come and stay
with the widow, and the girl's brother came with her and
helped David on the farm.

Then David made changes in and about his cabin.
He built on another room and put therein a cook stove.
He could not bear to see his young wife bending at the
hearth preparing their meals, and when she demurred, he
explained that he wished to keep her as she was and not
see her growing old and wrinkled before her time, with the
burning heat of the open fire in her face, like many of the
mountain women.

One evening, — they had eaten their supper out under

202 The Mountain Girl

the trees, — she proposed they should walk up to her
father's path, as she called the spot toward which she so
often lifted her eyes, and David was well pleased to go
with her. As they set out, she asked him to wait a moment
while she went back for something, and quickly returned,
bringing his flute.

"I've often wished father could have heard you play on
this," she said, as he took it from her hand.

They crossed the little river that tumbled and rushed
among great moss-covered boulders on its way to the fall,
and followed its wayward course toward its head, where
the w^ay was untrodden and wild, as if no human foot had
ever climbed along its banks. After a little they turned
off toward a tremendous rock of solid granite that had been
cleft smoothly in twain by some gigantic force of nature,
and, walking between the towering walls of stone, came
out on the farther side upon a small level space, where
immense ferns and flags grew thickly in the rich soil, held
in place and kept damp by the great cool masses of stone.

Above this little dell the hill rose steeply, and Cassandra
led him to a narrow opening in the dense shrubbery sur-
rounding the spot from which a beaten path wound up-
ward, overarched with thickly interlacing branches of
birch wood and hemlocks. Along this winding trail they
climbed, until they reached a cluster of enormous cedars
which made the dark place on the mountain Cassandra
had pointed out to him from below. Here the path wid-
ened so they could walk side by side, and continued along
a level line at the foot of the dark mass of trees.

"Here father used to walk up and down reading in his
little books ; seems like I can hear his voice now. Some-
times he would look off over the valley below us there
and repeat parts by heart. Isn't it beautiful here,
David.?"

"Heavenly beautiful !"
I'm glad we never came here before."
Why, dearest?"

Because." She hesitated with parted lips, and cheeks
flushed from the climb. David stood with bared head.
He felt as if he were in a cathedral.

"And why because ?'' he asked again.

"For now we bring just happiness with us. We're not

<< T>-

ii

The Summer Passes 203

troubled or wondering about anything. No sorrow comes
with us. In our hearts we are sure — sure — '* She
paused again and lifted her eyes to his.

"Sure that all is right when we belong to each other —
this way ? "

"Yes, sure! Oh, David, sure — sure!" She threw

'her arms about his neck and drew his face down to hers.

"It's even a greater happiness than when he used to carry

me in his arms here. There's no sorrow near us. It's

all far awav."

Thus, sometimes she would throw off all the habitual
reserve of her manner and open her heart to him, following
the rich impulses of her nature to their glorious revelation.

"Now, David, sit here and play ; play your flute as you
did that first time when I learned who made the music that
I thought must be the 'Voices,' that time I climbed up to
see."

They sat under the great cedars on a bank of moss, and
David took the flute from her hand, smiling as he thought
of that moment when he had stood among the blossoming
laurel and watched her as she moved about his cabin,
the day before his hurt, and how she had kissed it.

"I used to sit here like this." She bent forward and
rested her head on his knee. She had a way of putting her
two hands together as a child is taught to hold them in
prayer and placing them beneath her cheek; and so she
waited while David paused, his hand on her hair, and his
eyes fixed on the sea of hilltops where they melted into
the sky, — a mysterious, undulating line of the faintest
blue, seen through the arching branches above, and the
swaying hemlocks on either side, and over the tops of a
hundred varieties of pines and deciduous trees beneath
them, all down the long slope up which they had climbed.

Thus they waited, until she lifted her head and looked
into his eyes questioningly. He bent forward and kissed
her lips and then lifted the flute to his own — but again
paused.

"What are you thinking now, David .f^" she asked.

"So you really thought it was the 'Voices' '^. What was
their message, Cassandra ? "

"I couldn't make it out then, but I thought of this place
and of father, and it was all at once like as if he would

204 The Mountain Girl

make me know something, and I prayed God would he
lead me to understand was it a message or not. So that
was the way I kept on following — until I — "

"You came to me, dear ?"

"Yes.'*

"And what did you think the interpretation was then ?''

"Yes, it was you — you, David. It was love — and
hope — and gladness — everything, everything — "

"Goon."

"Everything good and beautiful — but — sometimes it
comes again — "

" What comes .?^"

"Play, David, play. I'll tell you another time in an-
other place, not here. No, no."

So he played for her until the dusk deepened around
and below them, and they had to make their way back
stumblingly. When they came to the wild, untrodden
bank of the little river, David resigned the choosing of their
path entirely to her and followed close, holding her hand
where she led. When at last they reached their cabin,
they did not light candles, but sat long in the doorway
conversing on the deep things of their souls.

It still seemed to David as if she held something back
from him, and now he begged her for a more perfect self-
revealing.

"It is no longer as if we were separate, dearest; can't
you remember and feel that we are one ?"

"In a way I do. It is very sweet."

"You say in a way. In what way ?"

"Why, David ?"^

"I want your point of view."

"I see. We're not really one until we see from each
other's hilltop, are we ? "

"No, and you never take me into the secret places of
your heart and let me look off from your own hilltop."

"Didn't I this very evening, David ?'*

"We stood on the same spot of earth and looked off on
the same distance, yet in my soul I know I did not see what
you saw."

"Pictures come to me very suddenly and just float by,
hardly understood by myself. I didn't w^ant you to see
all I saw, David. I don't know how comes it, but all the

The Summer Passes 205

time, even in the midst of our great gladness — right when
it is most beautiful — far before me, right across our way,
is a place that is dim. It seems 'most like the shadows
that fall on the hills when those great piles of clouds pass
through the sky, when it is deep blue all around them and
the sun shines everywhere else.'*

"Your soul is still an undiscovered country to me,
Cassandra."

*'I should think you'd like that. Don't men love to
go discovering ? And if you could get into the secret
chambers, as you call them, you wouldn't find much.
Then you'd be sorry."

"Cassandra, what are you covering and holding back ?"

"I don't know, David. It's like it was when I couldn't
understand the message of the 'Voices' ! When it comes
clear and strong, I'll tell you."

"Then there is something.'^"
les.

With a little sigh, she rose and entered the cabin. He
sat in silence as she had left him, but soon she returned.
Standing behind him in the darkness, she put her inter-
laced fingers under his chin and drew his face backward
until she could see it, white in the dusk, beneath her eyes.

"You have come back to explain ?'*

"If I can, David. It's hard for me to put in words what
is so dim — what I see. It's all just love for you, David.
The love burns and blazes up in me like the fire when it's
fiercest on the hearth, when the day is cold outside.
You've seen it so. In the little books my father used to
read, there was a tale of a woman who had my name.
She foretold the sorrows to come. Perhaps she saw as I
see things in the dim pictures, only more clearly, and
wisdom was given her to interpret them.

"Often and often I've felt that in me — that strange
seeing and knowing before, and I don't like it. Only
once it made me feel glad — when it led me to you and
Frale that terrible moment. But it wasn't a picture that
time; it was a feeling that pulled me and made me go.
I would have gone that time if I had died for it."

He took her two hands and covered them \\ath kisses,
there in the darkness. "I told you you were my priestess
of all that is good."

206 The Mountain Girl

**But I don't want to be always seeing the shadows and
foreboding. I want to be all happy — happy 7— the
way you are."

"I believe you are one of the blessed ones of God who
have * the gift ' ; but you are right to feel as you do. Your
life will be more normal and wholesome not to try to probe
into the future. I'll not attempt to take my coarser hu-
manity into your holy places, dear."

He led her into their canvas sleeping chamber, and there
she was soon calmly slumbering at his side ; but he lay
long pondering and trying to see his way out of a certain
dilemma of unrest that had been creeping into his veins
and prodding him forward ever since his reestablished
health had become an assured fact. He recognized it
as no more than the proper impulse of his manhood not
to stagnate and slumber in a lotus dream, even as delicious
a dream as this. Ah, it was inevitable. His world must
become her world.

Herein lay the dilemma. This unsullied, beautiful
being must enter that sordid old world, that had so pressed
upon him and broken him down. This idyl might go on
for perhaps a year longer — but not for always — not for
always.

He slept at last, and dreamed that they were being driven
along a dark, cold river, wide and swift; that they had
entered it where it was only a narrow, rushing stream,
sparkling and tumbling over rocks, and winding in intricate
turnings on itself ; that they had laughed as they followed
it, plashing among the stones where she led him by the
hand, until it grew wider and deeper and colder, and they
were lifted from their feet and were tossed and swirled
about, and she cried and clung to him, and even as he
clasped her and held her, he knew her to be slipping from
him. Then in terror he aw^oke, and, reaching out in the
darkness, drew her into his embrace and slept again.

CHAPTER XXn

IN WHICH DAVID TAKES LITTLE HOYLE TO CANADA

"David," said his wife next day, as he came whistling
up to his cabin from the farm below, "do you mind if I
give mother a little help with the weaving ? Mattie can't
do it. She's right nigh spoiled the counterpane we had
on when she came, and since mother's hurt, she can't work
the treadles, so now the hotel's open Miss Mayhew may
come and find them not half done."

"Do I mind .^ AMiy should I mind, if you don't 'right
nigh' spoil your back and wear yourself out ?"

"Then I'll go down with you after dinner and see can I
patch up Mattie's mistakes. It takes so much patience

— a loom does, to understand it."

Mattie was the cousin David had imported from the low
countrv to relieve Cassandra from the burden of the work
in the home below. Although a disappointment to them,
she still did her work after her own fashion, clumsily and
slowly, but her Aunt 'Marthy'was never at rest, prodding
the dull nature forward, trying to make her take the inter-
est Cassandra had done.

David had wisely persuaded his wife to leave them to
themselves, to work out the problem of adjustment to the
new conditions as best they might, and his persuasions
had been of a more peremptory nature than he realized.
To Cassandra they had been as commands, but now —
when the weaving on which the widow had counted so
much was likely to be ruined by Mattie's unskilled hands

— the old mother had declared she could not bear to see
her niece around and should "pack her off whar she come
from."

Therefore Cassandra had made her timid request — the
first evidence of shrinking from her husband she had ever
given. WTiy was it ? he asked himself. ^Yhat had he
ever said or done to make her prefer a request in that way ?

207

208 The Mountain Girl

But it was over in an instant, and her own poised manner
returned as they ate and chatted together.

Little Hoyle came running up to eat with them. He
had conceived a disUke to the home below since the incum-
bent had come to take his sister's place, and evaded thus,
as often as possible, his mother's vigilance. David did not
mind the intrusion, but suffered the adoring little chap
to sit at his side, ever twisting his small body about to fix
his great eyes on David's face, while he plied him with
questions and hung on his words too intent to attend to
his own eating unless admonished thereto by his sister.

"If you don't eat, son, I'll send you back to mother,"
she threatened.

"I won't go," he rebelled joyously. "I'll jes' set here
'longside brothah David."

"No, you won't, young man. You'll do whatever sister
says. That's what I do." He put his hand on th^ boy's
tousled head and turned him about to his plate, well filled
with food still untouched, but he noticed that the child ate
listlessly, more as an act of obedience than from a normal
desire. He glanced up at his wife and saw that she also
noticed Hoyle's languor. They finished the meal in a
silence only broken by Hoyle's questions and David's
replies, now serious, now teasing and bantering.

"You are so full of interrogation points you have no
room for your dinner. Here — (Ji'ink this milk — slowly ;
don't gulp it."

"I know what they be. They go this-a-way." The
boy set down his glass to illustrate with his slender little
hand the form of the question mark. Then he laughed
out gayly. "You know hu' come I got filled up with them
things ? I done swallered that thar catechism Cass b'en
teachin' me Sundays."

"No, I'm thinking you just are one yourself."

"'Cause I'm crooked like this-a-way.'^" He twisted
about and looked up at David gravely.

"No, no, son. Doctor didn't mean that," said his
sister.

"Finish your milk," said David. "We'll have some fun
with the microscope." And once again the child essayed
to eat and drink a little.

But the languor and pallor grew in spite of all David

David takes Hoyle to Canada 209

could do for him, and as the weeks passed his large eyes
burned more brilliantly and his thin form grew more
meagre. Cassandra got in the way of keeping him up at
the cabin with her, and when she went down to weave,
he went also and used to lie on the bundles of cotton, poring
over the books which David procured for him from time
to time.

"What he gets in that way won't hurt him. It's not
like having set tasks to learn, and he's not burdened with
any 'ought ' or 'ought not ' about it. Let him vege-
tate until cooler weather. Then, if he doesn't improve,
we'll see what can be done. Something radical, I imagine."

The fall arrived in a splendor that was truly oriental
m its gorgeousness. The changing colors of the foliage
surpassed in brilliancy anything David had ever seen
or imagined possible. The mantle of deepest green which
had clothed the mountain sides all summer, became trans-
muted, until all the world was glorified and glowing as if
the heat of the summer sun had been stored up during the
drowsy days to burst forth thus in warmest reds and golds.

"The hills look as if they had clothed themselves in
Turkish rugs, ancient and fine," said David one evening,
as he sat on his rock, watching them burn in the afterglow
of the setting sun.

"How much there is for me to learn and know," Cas-
sandra replied in a low voice. " I never saw a Turkish rug.
You often speak of things I know nothing about."

David laughed and turned upon her happy eyes. " Why
so sad for that ? Did you think I loved you and married
you for your worldly knowledge ? " She smiled back at him
and was silent. Presently he continued. "Now, while
Hoyle is not here, I wish to talk to you a little about him."

"Yes, David." Her heart fluttered with a nameless
fear, but she betrayed no sign of emotion.

"You've seen, of course. It's not necessary to tell you."

"No, David — only — does it mean death ? " She put
her hand out to him, and he took it in his and stroked it.

"Not surely. We'll make a fight for him, won't we,
dear.?"

"Oh, David ! What can we do ?'' she moaned.

"There's a thing to do that I've been reserving as a last

no The Mountain Girl

resort. I think the time has come to try it. This curva-
ture presses on some vital part, and the action of his heart
is uncertain. He needs the tonic of the cold, — the ice
and snow. Would you trust him to me, dear ? I'll take
him to Doctor Hoyle. You know very well everything
kindness and skill can do will be done for him there."

"Yes, yes, David. You are so good to him always!
Would — would you go — alone with him ? " She drew
closer to him, her head on his shoulder and her hand in his,
but he could not see her face.

"You mean without you, dearest ? "

"Yes."

"That may be as you say. Would you prefer to go
with us?"

She drew a long breath, slowly, like an indrawn sigh, and
something trembled to pass her heart, but suddenly the
old habit of reserve sealed her lips and she remained silent.

"Wliat do you say .?" he urged.

"Tell me first — do you want me to go .^^ "

He was silent, and they sat waiting for each other. Then
he said, "I do want you to go — and yet I don't want
you to go — yet. Sometime, of course, we must go where
I may find wider scope for my activities." He felt her
quiver of anxiety. "Not until you are quite ready your-
self, dear, always remember that." Still she was silent,
and he continued: "I can't say that I'm quite ready
myself. I would prefer one more year here, but Hoyle
must be removed without delay. We may have waited
too long as it is. Will your mother consent ? She must,
if she cares to see him live."

" Oh, David ! Go, go. Take him and go to-morrow.
Leave me here and go — but — come back to me, David,
soon — very soon. I — I shall need you, I — Can you
leave Hoyle there and come back, David ? Or must you
bide there, too ? " Suddenly she bowed her face in her
hands. " Oh, I'm so wicked and selfish to think of leaving
him there without you or me or mother — one. David,
what can we do ? He might die there, and you — you
must come back for the winter ; what would save him,
might kill you. Oh, David ! Take me with you, and
leave me there with him, and you come back. Doctor
Hoyle will take care of him — of us — once we are there."

David takes Hoyle to Canada 211

**Now, now, now ! hold your dear heart in peace. Why,
I'm well. To stay another winter would only be to es-
tablish myself in a more rugged condition of body — not
that I must do so. We'll talk with your mother to-mor-
row. It may be hard to persuade her.'*

But he found the mother most reasonable and practical.
He even tried to abate her perfect trust in him and his
ability to bring the child back to her quite well and strong.

"This isn't a trouble that is ever really cured, you know.
When taken young enough, it may be helped, and I've
known people who have lived long and useful lives in spite
of it. That's all we may hope for."

"Waal, I 'low ye can't git him no younger'n he be now,
an' he's that peart, I reckon he's worth hit — leastways
to we-uns."

"Of course he's worth it."

"You are right good to keer fer him like you have. I'd
do a heap fer you ef I could. All I have is jest this here
farm, an' hit's fer you an' Cass. On'y ef ye'd 'low me an*
leetle Hoyle to bide on here whilst we live — "

David was touched. "Do you realize I've found here
the two greatest things in the world, love and health ?
All I want is for you to know and remember that if I can't
succeed in doing all I would like for the boy, at least I
tried my very best. I may not succeed, you know, but
this is the only thing to do now — the only thing."

David parted from his young wife, leaving her standing
in the door of their cabin, clad in her white homespun
frock, smiling, yet tearful and pale. He was to walk
down to the Fall Place, where Jerry Carew waited with
the wagon in which he had arrived, and where his baggage
had been brought the day before. When he came to the
steepest part of the descent, he looked back and saw
Cassandra still standing as if in a trance, gazing after
him. He felt his heart lean towards her, and, turning
sharply, walked swiftly to her and took her once more
in his arms and looked down into those deep springs —
her sweet gray eyes. Thus for a long moment he held
her to his heart with never a word. Then she entered
the little home, and he walked away, looking back no
more.

CHAPTER XXIII

IN WHICH DOCTOR HOYLE SPEAKS HIS MIND

Doctor Hoyle sat in his office staring straight before
him, not as if he were looking at David Thryng, who sat
in range of his vision, but as if seeing beyond him into
some other time and place. David had been speaking,
but now they both were silent, and the young man won-
dered if his old friend had really been paying attention
to his words or not.

"Well, Doctor," he said at last.

"Well, David."

"You don't seem satisfied. Is it with my condition?'*

"Your condition .f^ No, no, no! It's not your con-
dition. Yes, yes — fine, fine. I never saw such a mar-
vellous change in my life, never !"

David smiled over the old doctor's stammer of enthu-
siasm. It was as if his thoughts, fertile and vehement,
and the feelings of his great, warm heart welled up within
him, and, trying to burst forth all at once, tumbled over
themselves, unable to secure words rapidly enough in
which to give themselves utterance.

"Then why so silent and dubious.^"

"Why — why — y — ^young man, I wasn't thinking any-
thing about you just then." And again David laughed,
while his wiry old friend jumped up and walked rapidly
and restlessly about the small apartment and laughed in
sympathy. "It's not — not — "

"I know." David grew instantly sober again. "Of
course the little chap's case is serious — very — or I would
not have brought him to you."

"Oh, no, no, I'm not thinking of Adam, bless you, no."
The doctor always called his little namesake Adam.
"I'm thinking of her — the little girl you left behind you.
Yes — yes. Of her."

212

Doctor Hoyle speaks his Mind 213

"She's not so little now, Doctor ; she's tall — tall enough
to be beautiful."

"I remember her, — slight — slight little creature,
all eyes and hair, all soul and mind. Now what are you
going to do with her, eh.^^"

" AVhat is she going to do with me, rather ! I'll go back
to her as soon as I dare leave the boy."

"But, man alive! what — what are — you can't
live down there all your days. It's to be life and work
for you, sir, and what are you going to do with her, I
say?"

"I'll bring her here with me. She'll come."

"Of course you'll bring her here with you, and you —
you'll have plenty of friends. Maybe they'll appreciate
her, and maybe they won't ; maybe they won't, I say ;
Understand ? And she'll c — come. Oh, yes, she'll come !
she'll do whatever you say, and presently she'll break
her heart and die for you. She'll never say a word, but
that's what she'll do."

"Why, Doctor!" cried David, appalled. "I love her
as my own life — my very soul."

"Of — of course. That goes without saying. We
all do, we men, but we — damn it all ! Do you sup-
pose I've lived all these years and not seen ? Why — w^e
think of ourselves first every time. D — don't we, though ?
Rather!"

"But selfish as we are, we can love — a man can, if he
sets himself to it honestly, — love a woman and make her
happy, even without the appreciation of others, in spite
of environment, — everything. It's the destiny of women
to love us, thank God. She would have been doomed
surely to die if she had married the one who wanted her
first — or to live a life for her worse than death."

"Oh, Lord bless you, boy, yes. It's a woman's destiny.
I'm an old fool. There — there's my own little girl, she's
m — married and gone — gone to live in England. They
will do it — the women will. Come, we'll go see Adam."

The doctor sprang up, brushed his hand across his eyes,
and caught up a battered silk hat. He turned it about
and looked at it ruefully, with a quizzical smile playing
about the corners of his eyes. "Remember that hat.'^"
he asked.

214 The Mountain Girl

"Well do I remember it. You've driven many a mile
in many a rainstorm by my side under that hat ! When
you're done with it, leave it to me in your will. I have a
fancy for it. Will you ? "

"Here, take it — take it. I'm done with it. Mary
scolds me every day about it. No p — peace in life because
of it. Here's a new one I bought the other day — good
one — good enough."

He lifted a box which had fallen from his cluttered office
table, and took from it a new hat which had evidently not
been unpacked before. He tried it on his head, turned it
about and about, took it off and gazed at it within and
without, then hastily tossed it aside and, snatching his
old one from David put it on his head, and they started
off.

Hoyle had been placed in a small ward where were only
two other little beds, both occupied, with one nurse to
attend on the three patients. One of them had broken
his leg and had to lie in a cast, and the other was convalesc-
ing from fever, but both were well enough to be compan-
ionable with the lonely little Southerner. Hoyle's face
beamed upon David as he bent over him.

"I kin make pi'chers whilst I'm a-lyin' here," he cried
ecstatically. "That thar lady, she 'lows me to make
'em. She 'lows mine're good uns." David glanced at
the young woman indicated. She was pleasant-faced
and rosy, and looked practical and good.

"He's such an odd little chap," she said.

"W^hat be that — odd .^ Does hit mean this 'er lump
on my back .5^" He pulled David down and w^hispered
the question in his ear.

"No, no. She only means that you're a dear, queer
little chap."

"Whatbelquarefer?"

"What are all these drawings.^ Tell us what they
mean."

"This'n, hit's the ocean, an' that thar, hit's a steamship
sailin' on th' ocean, like you done tol' me about. An'
this'n, hit's our house an' here's whar ol' Pete bides at;
an' this'n's ol' Pete kickin' out like he hated somethin' like
he does when we give Frale's colt his corn first." The
other small boys from their beds laughed out merrily and

Doctor Hoyle speaks his Mind 215

strained their necks to see. "These're theirn. I made
this'n fer him an' this'n fer him."

He tossed the pictures feebly toward them, and they
fluttered to the floor. David gathered them up and gave
them to their respective owners. The old doctor stood
beside the cot and looked down on the Uttle artist. His
lips twitched and his eyes twinkled.

"Which one is y — yours .'^" he asked.

"I keep this'n with the sea — an' — here, I made this'n
fer you." He paused, and selected carefully among the
pile of papers under his hand. "You reckon you kin tell
what 'tis ^ "

The doctor took the paper and regarded it gravely a
moment, then lifted his eyebrows and made grimaces of
wonderment until the three patients in the three little
beds were in gales of laughter. At last he said : —

"It's a pile of s — sausages."

"Hit hain't no sausages. Hit's jest a straight, cl'ar
pi'cher of a house, an' hit's your house, too, whar brothah
David lives at. See ? Thar's the winder, an' the other
winder hit's on t'othah side whar you can't see hit."

The doctor turned the paper over and regarded it a
moment. "Show me the window. I — I see no window
on the other side."

Again the three little invalids laughed uproariously at
their visitor. David smilingly looked on. How often
had he seen the delightful old man amuse himself thus
with the children ! He would contort his mobile face into
all the varying expressions of wonder and dismay, of terror
or stupefaction, and his entrance to the children's ward
was always greeted with outcries of delight, when the little
ones were well enough to allow of such freedom.

"Haven't you one to send to your sister ? " asked David,
stooping low to the child and speaking quietly. The boy's
face lighted with a radiant smile that caused the old man
to stand regarding him more intently.

"We'll sen' her this'n of the sea. You reckon hit looks
like the ocean whar the ships go a-sailin' to t'othah side
o' the world V^ He held it in his slender fingers and eyed
it critically.

"How did j^ou come to try to make a picture of the sea
when you never saw it .^ "

216 The Mountain Girl

"Do' know. I feel like I done seed th' ocean when I'm
settin' thar on the rock an' them white, big clouds go
a-sailin' far — far, like they're goin' to anothah world
an' hain't quite touchin' this'n."

"I wondered why you had your ship so high above the
sea."

"I don't guess hit's a very good'n," said the child,
ruefully, clinging to the scrap of paper with reluctant
grasp. "You reckon she'd keer fer this'n.^"

"I reckon she'd care for anything you made. Give it to
me, and I'll send it to her."

"She tol' me the sea, hit war blue, an' I can't make hit
right blue an' soft like she said. That thar blue pencil,
hit's too slick. I can't make hit stay on the papah."

"What are these mounds here on either side of the
sea.''

"Them's mountains."

"But why did you put mountains in the sea?" The
boy looked with wide eyes dreamily past the two men
so attentively regarding him.

"I — I reckon I jes' put 'em thar fer to look like the sea
hit war on the world. I don't guess the'd be no ocean nor
no world 'thout the' war mountains fer to hold everything
whar hit belongs at."

"I shall bring you a box of paints to-morrow if the nurse
will allow you to have them. I'll provide an oilcloth to
spread around so he won't throw paint over your nice
clean bed," he said to the pleasant-faced young woman.

"That's all right, Doctor," she said.

"Then you can make the blue stay on, and you can make
the ocean with real water, and real blue for the sky and
the sea."

The child's eyes glowed. He pulled David down and
held him with his arm about his neck, and whispered in
his ear, and what he said was : —

"When they're a-pullin' on me to git my hade straight
an' my back right, I jes' think 'bout the far — far-away sea,
with the ships a-sailin' an' how hit look, an' hit don't hurt
so much. I kin b'ar hit a heap bettah. When you comin'
back, brothah David ? "

"Does itjburt you very much, Hoyle.'^"

"I reckon hit have to hurt," said the child, with fatalis-

Doctor Hoyle speaks his Mind 217

tic resignation. "I don't guess he'd hurt me 'thoiit he
had to." He released David slowly, then pulled him
down again. "Don't tell him I 'lowed hit hurted me. I
reckon he'd ruthah hurt hisself if he could do me right
that-a-way. You guess I — I'm goin' to git shet o' the
misery some day ? "

"That's what we're trying for, my brave little brother,'*
and the two physicians bade the small patients good-by
and walked out upon the street.

CHAPTER XXIV

IN WHICH DAVID THRYNG HAS NEWS FROM ENGLAND

As they passed down the street, David shivered and
buttoned his light overcoat closer about him.

"Cold ?" said the older man.

"Your air is a bit keen here already. I hope it will be
the needed tonic for that little chap."

"What were his s — secrets?" David told him.

"He's imaginative — yes — yes. I really would rather
hurt myself. He may come on — he may. I've known

— I've known — curious, but — Why — Hello — hello !
Why — where — " and Doctor Hoyle suddenly darted
forward and shook hands with another old gentleman,
who was alertly stepping toward them, also thin and wiry,
but with a face as impassive as the doctor's was mobile
and expressive. "Mr. Stretton, why — why! David

— Mr. Stretton, David Thryng— "

"Ah, Mr. Thryng. I am most happy to find you here."

"Doctor Thryng — over here on this side, you know."

"Ah, yes. I had really forgotten. But speaking of

titles — I must give this young man his correctly. Lord

Thryng — allow me to congratulate you, my lord."

"I fear you mistake me for my cousin, sir," said David,
smiling. "I hope you have no ill news from my good
uncle; but I am not the David who inherits. I think
he is in South Africa — or was by the latest home letters."
Mr. Stretton did not reply directly, but continued
smiling, as his manner was, and turned toward David's
companion.

"Shall we go to my hotel ? I have a great deal to talk
over — business which concerns — ahem — ahem — your
lordship, on behalf of your mother, having come ex-
pressly— " he turned again to David. "Ah, now don't
be at all alarmed, I beg of you. I see I have disturbed you.
She is quite well, or was a week or more ago. Doctor

218

News from England 219

Hoyle, you'll accompany us ? At my request. Undoubt-
edly you are interested in your young friend."

Mechanically David walked with the two older men,
filled with a strange sinking of the heart, and at the same
time with a vague elation. Was he called home by his
mother to help her sustain a new calamity ^ Had the
impossible happened .? Mr. Stretton's manner continued
to be mysteriously deferential toward him, and something
in his air reminded David of England and the atmosphere
of his uncle's stately home. Had he ever seen the man
before ? He really did not know.

They reached the hotel shortly and were conducted
to Mr. Stretton's private apartment, where wine was
ordered, and promptly served. For years thereafter,
David never heard the clinking of glasses and bottles
borne on a tray without an instant's sickening sinking
of the heart, and the foreboding that seemed to drench
him with dismay as the glasses were placed on the stand
at Mr. Stretton's elbow. When that gentleman, after
seeing the waiter disappear, and placing certain papers
before him, began speaking, David sat dazedly listening.

What was it all — what was it ^ The glasses seemed
to quiver and shake, throwing dancing flecks of light;
and the vane in them — why did it make him think of
blood ? Were they dead then — all three — his two
cousins and his brother — dead ^ Shot ! Killed in a
bloody and useless war ! He was confounded, and bowing
his head in his hands sat thus — his elbows on his knees
— waiting, hearing, but not comprehending.

He could think only of his mother. He saw her face,
aged and grief-stricken. He knew how she loved the boy
she had lost, above all, and now she must turn to himself.
He sat thus while the lawyer read a lengthy document,
and at the end personally addressed him. Then he
lifted his head.

"What is this? My uncle .'^ My uncle gone, too.f*
Do you mean dead .? My uncle dead, and I — I his
heir .? "

The lawyer replied formally, "You are now the head
of a most ancient and honorable house. You will have
the dignity of the old name to maintain, and are called
upon to return to your fatherland and occupy the

220 The Mountain Girl

home of your ancestors." He took up one of the papers
and adjusted his monocle.

For a time David did not speak. At last he rose and,
with head erect, extended his hand to the lawyer. "I
thank you, sir, for your trouble, — but now. Doctor,
shall we return to your house ? I must take a little time
to adjust my mind to these terrible events. It is like
being overtaken with an avalanche at the moment when
all is most smiling and perfect."

The lawyer began a few congratulatory remarks, but
David stopped him, with uplifted hand.

**It is calamitous. It is too terrible," he said sadly.
"And what it brings may be far more of a burden than a

joy."

"But the name, my lord, — the ancient and honor-
able lineage ! "

"That last was already mine, and for the title — I have
never coveted it, far less all that it entails. I must think
it over."

"But, my lord, it is yours ! You can't help your-
self, you know ; a — the — the position is yours, and you
will a — fill it with dignity, and — a — let me hope will
follow the conservative policy of your honored uncle."

"And I say I must think it over. May I not have a day
— a single day — in which to mourn the loss of my splen-
did brother ? Would God he had lived to fill this place ! "
he said desperately.

The lawyer bowed deferentially, and Doctor Hoyle
took David's arm and led him away as if he were his son.
Not a word was spoken by either of them until they were
again in the doctor's office. There lay the new silk hat,
as he had tossed it one side. He took it up and turned it
about in his hand.

"You see, David, an old hat is like an old friend, and
it takes some time to get wonted to a new one." He
gravely laid the old one within easy reach of his arm and
restored the new one to its box. Then he sat himself
near David and placed his hand kindly on his knee.
"You — you have your work laid out for you, my young
friend. It's the way in Old England. The stability of
our society — our national life demands it."

"I know."

News from England 221

"You must go to your mother."
Yes, I must go to her."

Of course, of course, and without delay. Well, I'll
take care of the Httle chap."

*'I know you will, better than I could." David lifted
his eyes to his old friend's, then turned them away. "I
feel him to be a sacred trust." Again he paused. "It
— would take a — long time to go to her first ? "

"To — her.'^" For the instant the old man had for-
gotten Cassandra. Not so David.

"My wife. It will be desperately hard — for her."

"Yes, yes. But your uncle, you know, died of grief,
and your m — mother — "

"I know — so the lawyer said. Now at last we'll read
mother's letter. He wondered, I suppose, that I didn't
look at it when he gave it to me, but I felt conscience-
stricken. I've been so filled with my life down there —
the peace, the blessed peace and happiness — that I have
neglected her — my own mother. I couldn't open and
read it with that man's eyes on me. No, no. Stay
here, I beg of you, stay. You are different. I want you."

He opened his mother's letter and slowly read it, then
passed it to his friend and, rising, walked to the window
and stood gazing down into the square. Autumn leaves
were being tossed and swirled in dancing flights, like
flocks of brown and yellow birds along the street. The
sky was overcast, with thin hurrying clouds, and the
feeling of autumn was in the air, but David's eyes were
blurred, and he saw nothing before him. The doctor's
voice broke the silence with sudden impulse.

"In this she speaks as if she knew nothing about your
marriage."

"I told you I had neglected her," cried David, con-
tritely.

" But, m — man alive ! why — why in the name of all the
gods — "

"All England is filled with fools," cried the younger
man, desperately. "I could never in the world make
them understand me or my motives. I gave it up long
ago. I've not told my mother, to save her from a need-
less sorrow that would be inflicted on her by her friends.
They would all flock to her and pester her with their

222 The Mountain Girl

outcry of * How very extraordinary ! ' I can hear them
and see them now. I tell you, if a man steps out of the
beaten track over there — if he attempts to order his
own life, marry to please himself, or cut his coat after
any pattern other than the ordinary conventional lines,

— even the boys on the street will fling stones at him.
Her patronizing friends would, at the very least, politely
raise their eyebrows. She is proud and sensitive, and any
fling at her sons is a blow to her."

"But what — "

*'I say I couldn't tell her. I tell you I have been drink-
ing from the cup of happiness. I have drained it to the last
drop. My wife is mine. She does not belong to those
people over there, to be talked over, and dined over, and
all her beauty and fineness overlooked through their mon-
ocles — brutes ! My mountain flower in her homespun
dress — only poets could understand and appreciate her."

"B — but what were you going to do about it .f* "

**Do about it.^ I meant to keep her to myself until
the right time came. Perhaps in another year bring
her here and begin life in a modest way, and let my
mother visit us and see for herself. I was planning it
out, slowly — but this — You see. Doctor, their ideas
are all warped over there. They accept all that cus-
tom decrees and have but the one point of view. The
true values of life are lost sight of. They have no hill-
tops like Cassandra's. Only the poets have."

A quizzical smile played about the old man's mouth.
He came and laid his arm across David's shoulders, and
the act softened the slight sting of his words. "And

— you call yourself a poet ? "

"Not that," said the young man, humbly, "but I
have been learning. I would have scorned to be called
a poet until I learned of this girl and her father. I thought
I had ideals, and felt my superiority in consequence, until
I came down to the beginnings of things with them."

"Her — her father ? Why — he's dead — he — "

"And yet through her I have learned of him. I believe
he was a man who walked witk God, and at Cassandra's
side I have trod in his secret places."

"That's right. I'm satisfied now, about her. You're
all right, but — but — your mother,"

News from England 223

David turned and walked to the table and sat with his
head bowed on his arms. Had he been alone, he would
have wept. As it was, he spoke brokenly of his old home,
and the responsibilities now so ruthlessly thrust upon him.
Of his mother's grief and his own, and of this inherit-
ance that he had never dreamed would be his, and
therefore had never desired, now given him by so
cruel a blow. He would not shrink from whatever duty
or obligation might rest upon him, but how could he
adjust his changed circumstances to the conditions he
had made for himself by his sudden marriage. At last
it was decided that he should sail for England without
delay, taking the passage already provisionally engaged
for him by Mr. Stretton.

"I can write to Cassandra. She will understand more
easily than my mother. She sees into the heart of things.
Her thoughts go to the truth like arrows of light. She
will see that I must go, but she must never know — I
must save her from it if I have to do so at the expense of
my own soul — that the reason I cannot take her with
me now is that our great friends over there are too small
to understand her nature and might despise her. I
must go to my mother first and feel my way — see what
can be done. Neither of them must be made to suffer.'*

*' That's right, perfectly — but don't wait too long.
Just have it out with your mother — all of them ; the
sooner the simpler, the sooner the simpler."

CHAPTER XXV

IN WHICH DAVID THRYNG VISITS HIS MOTHER

How wise was the advice of the old doctor to make
short work of the confession to his mother, and to
face the matter of his marriage bravely with his august
friends and connections, David little knew. If his marriage
had been rash in its haste, nothing in the future should be
done rashly. Possibly he might be obliged to return to
America before he made a full revelation that a wife
awaited him in that far and but dimly appreciated land.
In his mind the matter resolved itself into a question of
time and careful adjustment.

Slowly as the boat ploughed through the never rest-
ing waters, — slowly as the western land with its dreams
and realities drifted farther into the vapors that blended
the line of the land and the sea, — so slowly the future un-
veiled itself and drew him on, into its new dreams, re-
vealing, with the inevitable progression of the hours,
a life heretofore shrouded and only vaguely imagined, as a
glowing reality filled with opportunity and power.

He felt his whole nature expand and become imbued
with intoxicating ambitions, as if hereafter he would be
swept onward to ride through life triumphant, even as
the boat was riding the sea, surmounting its mysterious
depths and taking its unerring way in spite of buffeting
of winds and beating of waves.

Still young, with renewed vitality, his hopes turned to
the future, recognizing the tremendous scope for his ener-
gies which his own particular prospects presented. Often
he stood alone in the prow, among the coils of rope, and
watched the distance unroll before him, while the salt
breeze played with his clustering hair and filled his lungs.
He loved the long sweep of the prow, as it divided the
water and cast it foaming on either side, in opaline and
turquoise tints, shifting and falling into the indigo depths
of the vastness around.

224

David visits his Mother 225

In thought he spanned the wide spaces and leaped
still toward the future ; before him the gray-haired mother
who trembled to hold him once more in her arms, behind
him the young wife waiting his return, enclosing him se-
renely and adoringly in her heart.

Each day while on shipboard, David wrote to Cas-
sandra, voluminously. He found it a pleasant way of
passing the hours. He described his surroundings and
unfolded such of his anticipations as he felt she could
best understand and with which she could sympathize,
trying to explain to her what the years to come might
hold for them both, and telling her always to wait with pa-
tience for his return. This could not be known definitely
until he had looked into the state of his uncle's affairs —
which would hereafter be his own.

Sometimes his- letter contained only a review of some
of the happiest hours they had spent together, as if he
were placing his thoughts of those blessed days on paper,
that they might be for their mutual communing. Some-
times he discoursed of the calamity he had suffered, the
uselessness of his brother's death, and the cruelty and
wastefulness of war. At such times he was minded to
write her of the opportunity now given him to serve his
country, and the power he might some day attain to pro-
mote peace and avert rash legislation.

Never once did he allow an inadvertent word to slip
from his pen, whereby she could suspect that she, as his
wife, might be a cause of embarrassment to him, or a clog
in the wheel of the chariot which from now on was to bear
him triumphantly among his social friends or political
enemies. Never would he disturb the sweet serenity that
encompassed her. Yet well he knew what an incongruity
she would appear should he present her now — as she had
stood by her loom, or in the ploughed field at his side — to
the company he would find in his mother's home.

Simple and direct as she was, she would walk over their
conventions and proprieties, and never know it. How
strange many of those customs of theirs would appear to
her, and how unnecessary ! He feared for her most in
her utter ignorance of everything pertaining to the daily
existence of the over-civilized circle to which the changed
conditions of his life would bring her.

£26 The Mountain Girl

Much, he knew, would pass unseen by her, but soon she
would begin to understand, and to wince under their
exclamations of "How extraordinary!" The masklike
expression would steal over her face, her pride would en-
case her spirit in the deep reserve he himself had found so
hard to penetrate, and he could see her withdrawing more
and more from all, until at last — Ah ! it must not be.
He must manage very carefully, lest Doctor Hoyle's
prophecy indeed be fulfilled.

At last the lifting of the veil to the eastward revealed
the bold promontory of Land's End, and soon, beyond,
the fair green slopes of his own beautiful Old England.
For all of the captious criticism he had fallen in the way of
bestowing upon her, how he loved her ! He felt as if he
must throw up his arms and shout for joy. Suddenly
she had become his, with a sense of possession new to him,
and sweet to feel. The orderliness and stereotyped lines
of her social system against which he had rebelled, and
the iron bars of her customs which his soul had abhorred
in the past, — against which his spirit had bruised and
beaten itself, — now lured him on as a security for things
stable and fine. In subtile ways as yet unrealized, he was
being drawn back into the cage from which he had fled for
freedom and life.

How quickly he had become accustomed to the air of
deference in Mr. Stretton's continual use of his newly
acquired title — "my lord." Why not .^^ It was his
right. The same laws which had held him subservient be-
fore, now gave him this, and he who a few months earlier
had been proudly ploughing his first furrows in his little
leased farm on a mountain meadow, now walked with
lifted head, "to the manor born," along the platform, and
entered the first-class compartment with Mr. Stretton,
where a few rich Americans had already installed them-
selves.

David noticed, with inward amusement, their surrepti-
tious glances, when the lawyer addressed him ; how they
plumed themselves, yet tried to appear nonchalant and
indifferent to the fact that they were riding in the same
compartment with a lord. In time he would cease to
notice even such incongruities as this tacit homage from
a professedly title-scorning people.

David visits his Mother 227

David's mother had moved into the town house, whither
his uncle had sent for her, when, stricken with grief, he
had lain down for his last brief illness. The old servants
had all been retained, and David was ushered to his
mother's own sitting-room by the same household digni-
tary who was wont to preside there when, as a lad, he had
been allowed rare visits to his cousins in the city.

How well he remembered his fine, punctilious old uncle,
and the feeling of awe tempered by anticipation with
which he used to enter those halls. He was overwhelmed
with a sense of loss and disaster as he glanced up the
great stairway where his cousins were wont to come bound-
ing down to him, handsome, hearty, romping lads.

It had been a man's household, for his aunt had been
dead many years — a man's household characterized by a
man's sense of heavy order without the many touches of
feminine occupation and arrangement which tend to soften
a man's half military reign. As he was being led through
the halls, he ndticed a subtile change which warmed his
quick senses. Was it the presence of his mother and
Laura ? His entrance interrupted an animated conversa-
tion which was being held between the two as the man-
servant announced his name, and, in another instant, his
mother was in his arms.

"Dear little mother! Dear little mother!" But she
was not small. She was tall and dignified, and David
had to stoop but little to bring his eyes level with hers.

"David, I'm here, too." A hand was laid on his arm,
and he released his mother to turn and look into two warm
brown eyes.

"And so the little sister is grown up," he said, embrac-
ing her, then holding her off at arm's-length. "Five years !
When I look at you, mother, they don't seem so long —
but Laura here !"

"You didn't expect me to stay a little girl all my life,
did you, David ?"

"No, no." He took her by the shoulder and shook her
a little and pinched her cheeks. "What roses ! Why, sis,
I say, you know, I'm proud of you. What have you been
up to, anyway .^ " He flung himself on the sofa and pulled
her down beside him. "Give an account of yourself."

"I've gone in for athletics,'*

228 The Mountain Girl

"Right."

"And — Oh ! lots of things. You give an account of
yourself."

David glanced at his mother. She was seated opposite
them, regarding him with brimming eyes. No, he could
not give an account of himself yet. He would wait until
he and his mother were alone. He lifted Laura's heavy
hair, which, confined only by a great bow of black ribbon,
hung streaming down her back, in a dark mass that gave
her a tousled, unkempt look, and which, taken together
with her dead black dress, and her dark tanned skin,
roughened by exposure to wind and sun, greatly marred
her beauty, in spite of her roses and the warmth of her
large dark eyes.

As David surveyed his sister, he thought of Cassandra,
and was minded then and there to describe her — to
attempt to unveil the events of the past year, and make
them see and know, as far as possible, what his life had
been. He held this thought a moment, poised ready for
utterance — a moment of hesitation as to how to begin,
and then forever lost, as his mother began speaking.

"Laura hasn't come out yet. As events have turned,
it is just as well, for her chances, naturally, will be much
better now than they would have been if we had had her
coming out last year."

"I don't see how, mamma, with all this heavy black.
I can't come out until I leave it off, and it will be so long
to wait." Laura pouted a little, discontentedly, then
flushed a disfiguring flush of shame under her dark skin,
as she caught the look in her brother's eyes. "Not but
what I shall keep on mourning for Bob, as long as I live

— he was such a dear," she added, her eyes filling with
quick, impulsive tears. "But how you make out my
chances will be better now, mamma, I can't see, really,

— I look such a fright."

"Chances for what V asked David, dryly.

"For matrimony — naturally," his sister flung out
defiantly, half smiling through her tears. "Don't you
know that's all a girl of my age lives for — matrimony
and a kennel ^ I mean to have one, now we will have our
own preserves. It will be ripping, you know."

"Certainly, our own preserves," said David, still dryly,

David visits his Mother 229

thinking how Cassandra would wonder what preserves
were, and what she would say if told that in preserves, wild
harmless animals were kept from being killed by the
common people for food, in order that those of his own
class might chase them down and kill them for their
amusement.

"Oh, David, I remember how you used to be always
putting on a look like that, and thinking a lot of nasty
things under your breath. I hoped you would come home
vastly improved. Was it what I said about matrimony ?
Mamma knows it's true."

"Hardly as you put it, my child ; there is much besides
for a girl to think about."

"You said 'chances' yourself, mamma."

"Certainly, but that is for me to consider. You must
remember that it was you who refused to have your coming
out last year."

"I didn't want my good times cut short then, mamma,
and have to take up proprieties — or at least I would
have had to be dreadfully proper for a while, anyway —
and now — why I have to be naturally ; and here I am
unable to come out for another year yet and my hair
streaming down my back all the time. I'm sure I can't
see how my chances are in the least improved by it all;
and by that time I shall be so old."

"Oh, you will be quite young enough," said David.

"You occupy a far different position now, child. To
make your debut as Lady Laura will give you quite an-
other place in the world. Your headstrong postpone-
ment, fortunately, will do no harm. It will make your
introduction to the circle where you are eventually to
move, much simpler."

Laura lifted her eyebrows and glanced from her mother
to her brother. "Very well, mamma, but one thing you
might as well know now. I shan't drop some of my
friends — if being Lady Laura lifts me above them as high
as the moon. I like them, and I don't care."

She whistled, and a beautiful, silken-haired setter crept
from under the sofa whereon she had been sitting, and
wriggled about after the manner of guilty dogs.

"Laura, dear !"
'Yes, mamma, I've been hiding him with my skirts by

<<'

230 The Mountain Girl

sitting there. He was bad and followed me in. We've
been out riding together." She stroked his silken coat
with her riding crop. *' Mamma won't allow him in here,
and he jolly well knows it. Bad Zip, bad, sir ! Look at
him. Isn't he clever ? I must go and dress for dinner.
Mamma wants you to herself, I know, and Mr. Stretton
will be, here soon. You can't think, David, how glad I
am we have you back ! You couldn't think it from my
way — but I am — rather ! It's been awful here —
simply awful, since the boys all left."

Again her eyes filled with quick tears, and she dashed
out with the dog bounding about her and leaping up to
thrust his great tongue in her face. "You are too big for
the house. Zip. Down, sir!" In an instant she was
back, putting her tousled head in at the door.

*' David, when mamma is finished with you, come out
and see my dogs. I have five already, and Nancy is going
to litter soon. Calkins is to take them into the country
to-morrow, for they are just cooped up here." She with-
drew, and David heard her heavy-soled shoes clatter down
the long halls. He and his mother smiled as they listened,
looking into each other's eyes.

"She is a dear child, but life means only a good time to
her as yet."

"Well, let it. She has splendid stuff in her and is
bound to make a splendid woman."

"She's right, David, It has been awful since your
brother left." David sat beside her and placed his hand
on hers. Again it was in his mind to tell her of Cassandra,
and again he was stopped by the tenor of her next remark.
"You see how it is, my son; Laura can't understand, but
you will."

"I'm not sure that I do. Open your heart to me, mother ;
tell me what you mean.'*

"My dear son. I don't like to begin with worries. It
is so sweet to have you back in the home. May you
always stay with us."

"I don't mind the worries, mother," he said tenderly;
"I am here to help you. What is it ?"

"It is only that, although we have inherited the title
and estates, we are not there. We will be received, of
course, but at first only by those who have axes to grind.

David visits his Mother 231

There are so many such, and it is hard to protect one's
self from them. For instance, there is Lady WiUisbeck.
Her own set have cut her completely for — certain reasons
— there is no need to retail unpleasant gossip, — but she was
one of the first to call. Her daughter, Lady Isabel, gave
Laura that dog, — but all the more because Laura and Lady
Isabel were in school together, and were on the same hockey
team, they will have that excuse for clinging to us like burs.

" Lady WiUisbeck would like very much now, for her
daughter's sake, to win back her place in society, although
she did not seem to value it for herself. Long before her
mother's life became common talk, — because slj^e was in-
fatuated with your cousin Lyon, Lady Isabel chose Laura
for her chum, and the two have worked up a very romantic
situation out of the affair. You see I have cause for
anxiety, David, since the title is only mine and Laura's by
courtesy, we must not presume upon it."

He still held her hand, looking kindly in her face. " Is
Lady Isabel the right sort ? " he asked.

" What do you mean by ' the right sort,' David ? She
isn't like her mother, naturally, or I would have been more
decided ; but she is not the right sort for us. Lady Willis-
beck is ostracized, and it is a grave matter. Her daughter
will be ostracized with her, unless she can find a chaperone
of quality to champion her — to — to — well, you under-
stand that Laura can't afford to make her debut handi-
capped with such a friendship. Not now."

" I fail to see until I know more of her friend."

" But, David, we can't be visionary now. We must be
practical and face the difiiculties of our situation. We
are honorably entitled to all that the inheritance implies,
but it is another thing to avail ourselves of it. Your
uncle led a most secluded life. He had no visitors, and
was known only among men, and politically as a close
conservative. His seat in the House meant onlv that.
So now we enter a circle in which we never moved before,
and we are not rf it. For the present, our deep mourning
is prohibitory, but it is also Laura's protection, although
she does not know it." His mother paused. She was
not regarding him. She seemed to be looking into the
future, and a little line, which had formed during the
years of David's absence, deepened in her forehead.

232 The Mountain Girl

"Be a little more explicit, mother. Protection from
what ? "

"From undesirable people, dear. We are very con-
spicuous ; to be frank, we are new. My own family con-
nections are all good, but they will not be the slightest
help to Laura in maintaining her position. We have
always lived in the country, and know no one."

"You have refinement and good taste, mother."

"I know it; that and this inheritance and the title."

"Isn't that 'protection' enough ? I really fail to see —
Whatever would please you would be right. You may
have what friendships you — "

"Not at all, David. Everything is iron-bound.
They are simply watching lest we bring a lot of common
people in our train. Things grow worse and worse in
that way. There are so many rich tradespeople who are
struggling to get in, and clinging desperately to the skirts
of the poorer nobility. Of course, it all goes to show what
a tremendous thing good birth is, and the iron laws of
custom are, after all, a proper safeguard and should be
respected. Nevertheless we, who are so new, must not
allow ourselves to become stepping-stones. It is per-
fectly right.

"That is why I said this period of mourning is Laura's
protection. She will have time to know what friendships
are best, and an opportunity to avoid undesirable ones.
You have been away so long, David, where the class lines
are not so rigidly drawn, that you forget — or never knew.
It is my duty, without any foolish sentiment, to guard
Laura and see to it that her coming out is what it should be.
For one thing, she is so very plain. If she were a beauty,
it would help, but her plainness must be compensated for
in other ways. She will have a large settlement, Mr.
Stretton thinks, if your uncle's interests are not too much
jeopardized in South Africa by this terrible war. That
is something you will have to look into before you take
your seat in the House."

"Oh, mother, mother ! I can't — "

"My dear boy, your brother died for his countr3^ and
can you not give a little of your life for it ? I can rely on
you to be practically inclined, now that you are placed at
the head of such a family ? I'm glad now you never

David visits his Mother 233

cared for Muriel Hunt. She could never have filled the
position as her ladyship, your uncle's wife, did. She
was Lady Thomasia Harcourt Glendyne of Wales. Be-
side her, Muriel would appear silly. It is most fortunate
you have no such entanglement now."

"Mother, mother! I am astounded! I never dreamed
my dear, beautiful mother could descend to such worldli-
ness. You are changed, mother. There is something fun-
damentally wrong in all this."

She looked up at him, aghast at his vehemence.

'*My son, my son ! Let us have only love between us

— only love. I am not changed. I was content as I was,
nor ever tried to enter a sphere above me. Now that
this comes to me — forced on me by right of English law

— I take it thankfully, with all it brings. I will fill the
place as it should be filled, and Laura shall do the same,
and you also, my son. As for Muriel Hunt, I will make
concessions if — if your happiness demands it."

David groaned inwardly. "No, mother, no. It goes
deeper than Muriel; it goes deeper." They had both
risen. She placed her hands on his shoulders and looked
levelly in his eyes, and her own lightened, through tears
held bravely back.

"It may well go deeper than Muriel, and still not go
very deep."

" And yet the time was when Muriel Hunt was thought
quite deep enough," he said sadly, still looking in his
mother's eyes — but she only continued : —

" Never doubt for a moment, dear, that Laura's welfare
and yours are dearer to me than life. You are very
weary; I see it in your eyes. Have you been to your
apartment ? Clark will show you." She kissed his brow
and departed.

CHAPTER XXVI

IN WHICH DAVID THRYNG ADJUSTS HIS LIFE TO NEW

CONDITIONS

David stood where his mother had left him, dazed,
hurt, sad. He was desperately minded to leave all and
flee back to the hills — back to the life he had left in
Canada. He saw the clear, true look of Cassandra's eyes
meeting his. His heart called for her; his soul cried out
within him. He felt like one launched on an irresistible
current which was sweeping him ever nearer to a mael-
strom wherein he was inevitably to be swallowed up.

He perceived that to his mother the established order
of things there in her little island was sacred — an arrange-
ment to be still further upheld and solidified. She had
suddenly become a part of a great system, intrusted
with a care for its maintenance and stability, as one of its
guardians. Before, it had mattered little to her, for she
was not of it. Now it was very different.

Slowly David followed Clark to his own apartments.
He had been given those of the old lord, his uncle. Every-
thing about him was dark, massive, and rich, but without
grace. His bags and boxes had been unpacked and his
dinner suit laid in readiness, and Clark stood stiffly await-
ing orders.

"Will you have a shave, my lord ?"

The man's manner jarred on him. It was obsequious,
and he hated it. Yet it was only the custom. Clark was
simple-hearted and kindly, filling his little place in the
upholding of the system of which he was a part ; had his
manner been different, a shade more familiar, David would
have resented it and ordered him out, — but of this David
was not conscious. In spite of his scruples, he was born
and bred an aristocrat.

"No — a — I'll shave myself." Still the man waited,
and, taking up David's coat, flicked a particle of dust
from the collar. " I don't want anything. You may go."

234

New Conditions 235

"Thank you." Clark melted quietly out of the apart-
ment.

"Thanks me for being rude to him," thought David,
irritably ; "I shall take pleasure in being rude to him. My
God ! What a farce life is over here ! The whole thing is
a farce."

He shaved himself and cut his chin, and when he ap-
peared later with a patch of court-plaster thereon, Clark
commented to himself on "his lordship's" inability to do
the shaving properly.

As David thought over his mother's words — her out-
look on life — his sister's idle aims — the companionships
she must have and the kind of talk to which she must
listen — he grew more and more annoyed. He contrasted
it all with the past. His mother, who had been so noble
and fine, seemed to have lost individuality, to have become
only a segment of a circle which it was henceforth to be
her highest care to keep intact. Laura must become a
part of the same sacred ring, and he, too, must join hands
with those who formed it and make it his duty to keep
others out.

There were also other circles guarded and protected by
this one — circles within circles — each smaller and more
exclusive than the last. The object of the huge game of
life over here seemed to be to keep the great mass of those
whom they regarded as commonalty out of any one of the
circles, while striving individually each to climb into the
one next above, and more contracted. The most madden-
ing thing of all was to find his grave, dignified mother
drawn in and made a partaker in this meaningless strife.

Still essentially an outsider, David could look with
larger vision — the far-seeing vision of the western land,
the hilltops and the dividing sea, — and to him now the
circles seemed verily the concentric rings of the maelstrom
into which events were hurrying him. Would he be able
to rise from the swirling flotsam and ride free ?

The deeper philosophy underlying it all he as yet but
vaguely understood ; that the highest good for all could
only be maintained by stability in the commonwealth;
as the tremendous rock foundations of the earth are a
support for the growth thereon of all perfection, all grace
and beauty ; that the concentric rings, when rightly

236 The Mountain Girl

understood, should become a means of purification — of
reward for true worth — of power for noblest service, and
not for personal ambition and the unmolested gratification
of vicious tastes.

David did not as yet know that his clear-seeing wife
could help him to the attainment of his greatest possibili-
ties, right here where he feared to bring her — the wife of
whom he dare not tell his mother. Blinded by the world's
estimates which he still had sense enough to despise, he
did not know that the key to its deepest secrets lay in her
heart, nor that of the two, her heritage of the large spirit
and the inward-seeing eye direct to the Creator's meanings
was the greater heritage.

Lady Thryng found it possible to have a few words with
the lawyer before David appeared, and impressed upon
him the necessity of interesting her son in this new field
by showing him avenues for power and work.

"I don't quite understand the boy," she said. "After
seeing the world and going his own way, I really thought
he would outgrow that sort of moody sentimentalism, but
it seems to be returning. He is quixotic enough to turn
away from everything here and go back to Canada, unless
you can awaken his interest."

"I see, I see," said the lawyer.

"Mere personal ambition will not satisfy him," added
his mother, proudly. "He must see opportunities for
service. He must understand that he is needed."

"I see. I understand. He must be dealt with along
the line of his nobler impulses — ahem — ahem — " and
David appeared.

His mother rose and took his arm to walk out to dinner,
while Laura, who should have gone with Mr. Stretton,
did not see his proffered arm, but, provokingly indifferent,
strolled out by herself.

David, absorbed in his own thoughts, did not notice his
sister's careless mien, but the mother observed the inde-
pendent and boyish swing of her daughter's shoulders, and
resented it with a slightly reproving glance after they were
seated.

Laura lifted her eyebrows and one shoulder with an irri-
tating half shrug. "What is it, mamma V she asked, but
Ladv Thryng allowed the question to go unheeded, and

New Conditions 237

turned her attention to the two gentlemen during the rest
of the meal.

All through dinner David was haunted by Cassandra's
talk with him, the night he dreamed she was being swept
out of his arms forever by a swift, cold current which, from
a little purling stream high up on a mountain top, had
become a dark, relentless flood, overwhelming them utterly.
What was she doing now ? Did she know she was in that
terrible flood ? Was she really being swept from him ?
Ah, never, never ! He would not allow it, if he must
break all hearts but hers.

The meal progressed sombrely and heavily, with much
ceremony, although they were so few. Was his mother
practising for the future that she kept such rigid state ? He
suspected as much, and that Laura was being trained to the
right way of carrying herself, but that and the real sorrow
of the family over their bereavement made a most oppres-
sive atmosphere. Might this be the shadow Cassandra
had seen lying across their future ? Only a passing cloud
— a vapor ; it must be only that.

Laura and her mother withdrew early, leaving David
and the lawyer together, when Mr. Stretton immediately
launched into talk of David's prospects and resources.
In spite of himself, the gloom of the dinner hour slipped
from him, and soon he was taking the liveliest interest in
what might be possible for him here and now.

Although not one to be easily turned from a chosen path
by outside influence, David yet had that almost fatal gift
of the imaginative mind of seeing things from many sides,
until at times they took on a kaleidoscopic reversibility.
Now this unlooked-for development of his life opened to
him a vista — new — and yet old, old as England herself.

While digging deep into the causes of his former dis-
content, he had come to strike his spade upon the rock
foundations whereon all this complicated superstructure of
English society and national life was builded. He saw
that every nobleman inherited with his title and his lands
a responsibility for the welfare of the whole people, from
the poorest laborer in the ditch or the coal m^ne, to the
head wearing the crown ; and that it was the blindness of
individuals like himself or his uncle before him, their misuse
or unscrupulous indifference to and abuse of power, which

238 The Mountain Girl

had brought about those conditions under which the
masses were writhing, and against which they were crying
out. He saw that it was only by the earnest efforts of the
few who did understand — the few who were not indiffer-
ent — that the stabihty of EngHsh government was still
her glory.

At last he rose and lifted his arms high above his head,
then dropped them to his side. "I see.'* He held up
his head and looked off as he had done when he stood on
the prow of the steamship, with the salt breeze tossing his
hair. "A little of this came to me as I crossed the ocean,
when I saw the green slopes of England again. I knew I
loved her, and the old feeling of impotence that hounded
me in the past, when I could do nothing but rebel, slipped
from me. I felt what it might be to have power — to
become effective instead of being obliged to chafe under the
yoke of an imposed submission to things which are wrong
— things which those who are in power might set right
if they would. I believe, for a moment, Mr. Stretton, I
felt it all."

He paused and bowed his head. All at once in the midst
of his exaltation, he saw Cassandra standing white and
still, as he had seen her on the hilltop before their little
cabin, looking after him when he bade her good-by ; and
just as he then turned and went swiftly back to her, so
now in his soul he turned to her yearningly and took her
to his breast. Still penetrating the sweet, white halo of
this vision, he heard the voice of Mr. Stretton deferen-
tially droning on.

"And with your resources — the wealth which, with a
little care and thought just now at this crucial moment,
will be yours — "

Still David stood with bowed head.

"It is as if you were predestined, my lord, to step in at
a critical time of your country's need — with brains,
education, conscience, and wealth — with every obstacle
swept away."

Still before him stood Cassandra, white and silent; he
could see only her.

"Every obstacle swept away," repeated the lawyer.

"And Cassandra, God help her and me." David slowly
turned, lifted a glass of wine from the table, and drank it.

New Conditions 239

"Well, so be it, so be it," he said aloud. ** We'll join
mother and Laura." At the door he paused, "You spoke
of education — the learning of a physician is but little in
the line of statesmanship. How soon will I be expected
to take my seat .^"

"If you ask my advice, my lord, I would say better
wait a year. It will be advisable for you to go yourself
to South Africa and look into your uncle's investments
there — as a private individual, of course, not as a public
servant. Two-thirds of the receipts have fallen off since
the war ; learn what may be saved from the wreckage, or if
there be a wreckage. I'm inclined to think not all, for
the investments were varied. Your uncle may have been
a silent member, but he was certainly a man of good busi-
ness judgment — " Mr. Stretton paused and coughed a
little apologetically before adding: "Not an inherited
talent, only — ah — cultivated — cultivated — you know.
Good business judgment is not a trait inherent in our peer-
age, as a rule."

David was amused and entered the drawing-room with a
smile on his face. His mother was pleased and rose in-
stantly, coming forward with both hands extended to take
his. He understood it as a welcome back to the family
circle, the quiet talks and the evening lamp, less formal
than the oppressive dinner had been. He held her hands
thus offered and kissed the little anxious line on her brow,
then playfully smoothed it with his finger.

"We mustn't let it become permanent, you know,
mother."

"No, David. It will go now you are at home."

He did not know that his mother and Laura had been
having a liveh^ discussion apropos of the silent tilt at the
dinner-table, his sister pleading for a return to the old
ways, and a release from such state and ceremony. "At
least while we are by ourselves, mamma. Anyway, I
know David will just hate it, and I don't see what good a
title is if we must become perfect slaves to it."

David crossed the room and sat down before the piano.
"How strange this old place seems without the others —
Bob, and the cousins, and uncle himself ! We weren't
admitted often — but — "

"Sh — sh — " said Laura, who had followed him and

240 The Mountain Girl

stood at his side. "Don't remind mamma. She remem-
bers too much — all the time. Play the ' King's Hunting
Jig,' David. Remember how you used to play it for me
every evening after dinner, when I was a girl ?"

*'Do I remember ? Rather ! I have done nothing with
the piano since then — when you were a girl. I'll play it
for you now, while you are a girl."

"But I really am grown up now, David. It's quite
absurd for me to go about like this. It's only because
mamma chooses to have it so. She even keeps a governess
for me still."

"To her you are a child, and to me you are still a girl,
and a mighty fine one."

"It's so good to have you back, David ! You haven't
forgotten the Jig ! Where's your flute ? Get it, and I'll
accompany you. I can drum a little now — after a
fashion. We'll let them talk."

So they amused themselves for the rest of the evening
with music, and Lady Thryng's face lost the strained and
harassed expression it had worn all during dinner, and
took on a look of contentment. After this the days were
spent by David in going over his uncle's large mass of
papers and correspondence, with the aid of Mr. Stretton
and a secretary. A colossal task it proved to be.

No one, even his lawyer, who had his confidence more
than any one else, knew in what the old Lord Thryng's
wealth really consisted, although Mr. Stretton surmised
much of his surplus income of late years had been placed
in Africa. As his papers had not been set in order or
tabulated for years, every note, land loan, mortgage, and
rental had to be unearthed slowly and laboriously from
among a mass of written matter and figures, more or less
worthless ; for the old lord had a habit of saving every
scrap of paper — the backs of notes and letters — for
summing up accounts and jotting down memoranda and
dates.

Certain hours of each day David devoted to this labor,
collecting his papers in a small room opening off from the
law chambers of Mr. Stretton, where for years his uncle
had kept a private safe. Conscientiously he toiled at the
monotonous task, until weeks, then months, slipped by,
hardly noticed, ignoring all social life. When his mother

New Conditions 241

or Laura broached the subject, he would say : " * Sufficient
unto the day is the evil thereof, ' and this must be done
first."

He was not unmindful of his wife during this interval,
but wrote frequently, and, to guard against any danger of
her being left without resources should something unfore-
seen befall him, he placed in Bishop Towers's hands the
residue of money remaining to him in Canada, for Cas-
sandra. He wrote her to use it as occasion required, and
not to spare it, that it was hers without restriction. He
sent her the names of books he wished she would read —
that she should write the publishers for them. He begged
her to do no more weaving for money — but only for her
own amusement, and above all to trust and be happy, not
to be sorrowful for this long delay, which he would cut as
short as he could.

Much of his occupation he could not explain to her, and
of ttimes it was hard to find matter for his letters ; then he
would revert to reminiscence. These were the letters she
loved best and sometimes wept over, and these were the
letters that often left him dreamy and sad, and sometimes
made him distraught when his mother and Laura talked
over their affairs, so utterly alien to his thoughts and long-
ings.

Cassandra's replies were for the most part short, but
they were sent with unfailing regularity, and always they
seemed to bring with them a breath from her own moun-
tain top — naive — tender — absolutely trusting — often
quaintly worded, and telling of the simple, innocent things
of her life. He could see that she held herself in reserve,
even as her nature was ; a psychologic something was held
back. He could not dream what it might be, but reasoned
with himself that it was only that she found it harder to
unveil her thoughts by means of the pen than in speech.

One day, as he rode alone in the park, he noticed that the
leaf buds were swelling. What ! Was spring upon them ?
A white fog was lifting, and every twig and stem held its
tiny pearl of wetness. All the earth glistened and was
clean and looked as if greenness was returning. He
regarded the artificial effects around him, the long lines of
trees and set clumps of shrubbery, and was seized with a
desire well-nigh irresistible for the wild roads and rugged

242 The Mountain Girl

steeps — the wandering streams and sound of falling
waters.

He saw it all again, the blossoming spring where Cas-
sandra sat waiting for him, and he resolved to start with-
out delay — to go to her and bring her back with him. All
this sordid calculation of the amount of his fortune — his
mother's and sister's shares — the annuities of poor de-
pendents — stocks to be bought — interest to be invested
— the government, and his future part therein, pah ! It
must wait ! He would have his own. His heritage should
not be his curse.

He returned in haste that day, only to learn that certain
facts had been unearthed which necessitated a journey
into Wales, where interests of the former Lady Thryng's
estates^ were concerned. His uncle had inherited all from
her with the exception of certain bequests to relatives with
which he had been intrusted. Some of the records had
been lost, and whether the beneficiaries were dead or not,
none knew, but now and then letters came pleading for a
continuance of former favors, and recalling obligations.

Mr. Stretton had been ill for a week, and now that the
records were found, David must go, and go at once. The
lawyer had many subjects for investigation to deliver to
David. There was the death-bed request of an old nurse
of his aunt, who had an annuity, that it be extended to
her crippled granddaughter. She lived among the Cornish
hills. Would he hunt the family up and learn if they were
worthy or impostors ? His uncle had been endlessly
plagued with such importunities — and so on — and so on.

Yes, certainly David would go. He made a mental
reservation that he would sail, without returning to London,
and then make a clean breast of his affairs by letter to his
mother. She had improved in health during the winter,
and he thought his information would be received by her
with more equanimity than it would have been earlier.
Moreover, she had broached the subject of marriage to
him more than once, but always in one of her most worldly
moods, when he shrank from hearing Cassandra spoken of
as he knew she would be — when he could not hear her
discussed, nor reply with calmness to such questions as he
knew must ensue.

David had little time to brood over his peculiar difficulty.

New Conditions 243

as his short journey was full of business interest and new
experiences. Yet the Cornish hills awoke in him a still
greater eagerness for the mountains of his dreams, and,
after securing his passage, he went to his hotel to prepare
the letter to his mother.

It is marvellous what trivial events alter destinies. In
this instance it was the yapping of a small dog which
changed David's plans, and finally sent him to South
Africa instead of America. While paying his bill at the
hotel, a telegram was handed him, which he tore open as
the clerk was counting out his change. He still held in
his hand the letter to his mother which he was on the point
of dropping in the letter-box at his elbow. Instead, he
thrust it in his pocket, along Avith the crushed telegram,
and, taking a cab, hastened to the steamship offices to
cancel his date for sailing.

The message read: "Return with all speed to London.
Mr. Stretton lying in the hospital with a fractured skull."
Thus it was that Lady Tredwell's pet spaniel, old and vi-
cious, yapping at the heels of Mr. Stretton's restive horse,
while my lady's maid — who should have been leading
him out for an airing — was absorbed in listening to the
compliments of one of the park guards, played so dire a
part in the affairs of David Thryng.

CHAPTER XXVII

IN WHICH THE OLD DOCTOR AND LITTLE HOYLE COME

BACK TO THE MOUNTAINS

Cassandra, seated on the great hanging rock before
her cabin, watched the sunrise where David had so often
stood and waited for the dawn during his winter there
alone. This morning the mists obscured the valleys and
the base of the mountains, while the sky and the whole
earth glowed with warm rose color.

Presently she rose and walked with lifted head into the
cabin, and prepared to light a fire on the hearth. In the
canvas room the bed was made smoothly, as she had made
it the morning David left. No one had slept in it since,
although Cassandra spent most of her days there. Every-
thing he had used was carefully kept as he had left it. His
microscope, covered from dust, stood with the last speci-
men still under the lens. A book they were reading to-
gether lay on the corner shelf, with the mark still in the
place where they had read last.

After lighting the fire, she sat near it, watching the
flames steal up from the small pile of fat pine chips under-
neath, sending up red tongues of fire, until the great logs
were wrapped in the hot embrace of the flames, trembling,
quivering, and leaping high in their mad joy, transmuting
all they touched.

"It's like love," she murmured, and smiled. "Only it's
quicker. It does in one hour what love takes a lifetime
to do. Those logs might have lain on the ground and
rotted if they'd been left alone, but now the fire just holds
them and caresses them like, and they grow warm and
glow like the sun, and give all they can while they last,
until they're almost too bright to look at. I reckon God
has been right good to me net to let me lie and rot my life
away. He sent David to set my heart on fire, and I guess
I can wait for him to come back to me in God's own time.'*

She rose and brought from the canvas room a basket of

244

Back to the Mountains 245

willow, woven in open-work pattern. It was a gift from
Azalea, who had learned from her mother the art of bas-
ket weaving. Some said Azalea's grandmother was half
Indian, and that it was from her they had learned their
quaint patterns and shapes, and that she, and her Indian
mother before her, had been famous basket weavers.

This pretty basket was filled with very delicate work of
fine muslin, much finer than anything Cassandra had ever
worked upon before. Her hands no longer showed signs
of having been employed in rough, coarse tasks ; they were
soft and white. She placed the basket of dainty sewing on
the same table which had served as an altar when she knelt
beside David and w^as made his wife. It was serving as an
altar still, bearing that basket of delicate work.

She had become absorbed in a book — not one of those
David had suggested. It is doubtful, had he been there,
whether he would have really liked to see her reading this
one, although it was written by Thackeray, dear to all
English hearts. It is more than probable that he would
have thought his young wife hardly need be enlightened
upon just the sort of things with which Vanity Fair enriches
the understanding.

Be it how it may, Cassandra was reading Vanity Fair,
which she found in the box of books David had opened so
long before. While she read she worked with her fingers,
incessantly, at a piece of narrow lace, with a shuttle and
very fine thread. This she did so mechanically that she
could easily read at the same time by propping the book
open on the table before her. For a long time she sat
thus, growing more and more interested, until the fire
burned low, and she rose to replenish it.

The logs w^ere piled beside the door of the small kitchen
David had built for her, and where he had placed the cook
stove. She had come up early this morning, because she
was sad over his last letter, in which he had told her of his
disappointment in having to cancel his passage to America.
Hopeful and cheery though the letter was, it had struck
dismay to her heart ; it was her way when sad, and
longing for her husband, to go up to her little cabin — her
own home — and think it all over alone and thus regain
her equanimity.

Here she read and thought things out by herself. What

246 The Mountain Girl

strange people they were over there ! Or perhaps that was
so long ago — they might have changed by this time.
Surely they must have changed, or David would have said
something about it. He never would become a lord, to
be one of such people — never — never ! It was not at all
li^e David.

A figure appeared in the doorway. "Cassandra!
What are you doing here all by yourself "^ "

It was Betty Towers. Cassandra ran joyfully forward
and clasped the little woman in her arms. Almost carrying
her in, she sat her by the pleasant open fire. Then, seeing
Betty's eyes regarding her questioningly, she suddenly
dropped into her ovn\ chair by the table, leaned her head
upon her arms, and began to weep, silently.

In an instant Betty was kneeling by her side, holding
the lovely head to her breast. "Dearest ! You shan't
cry. You shan't cry like that. Tell me all about it.
Why on earth doesn't Doctor Thryng come home ^ "

Cassandra lifted her head and dried her tears. "He
was coming. The last letter but one said he was to sail
next day. Then last night came another saying the only
man who could look after very important business for
him had been thrown from his horse and hurt so bad he
may die, and David had to give up his passage and go
back to London. He may have to go to Africa. He felt
right bad — but — "

"Goodness me, child! ^Tiy, he has no business now
more important than you ! What a chump ! "

Cassandra stiffened proudly and drew away, taking up
her shuttle and beginning her work calmly as if nothing
had happened to destroy her composure.

"I've not written David — anything to disturb him —
or make him hurry home."

"Oh, Cassandra, Cassandra! You're not treating
either him or yourself fairly."

"For him — I can't help it; and for me, I don't care.
Other women have got along as best they could in these
mountains, and I can bear what they have borne."

"But why on earth haven't you told him V*

Cassandra bent her head lower over her bit of lace and
was silent. Betty drew her chair nearer and put her arms
about the drooping girl.

Back to the Mountains 247

"Can't you tell me all about it, dear?'*

**Not if you are going to blame David."

"I won't, you lovely thing ! I can't, since he doesn't
know — but why — "

"At first I couldn't speak. I tried, but I couldn't.
Then he had to take Hoyle North, and I thought he would
see for himself when he came back — or I could tell him
by that time. Then came that dreadful news — you
know — four, all dead. His brother and his two cousins
all killed, and his uncle dying of grief ; and he had to go to
his mother or she might die, too, and then he found so
much to do. Now, you know he has to be a — "

She was going to say "a lord," but, happening to glance
down at her open book, the name of "Lord Steyne"
caught her eye, and it seemed to her a title of disgrace.
She must talk with David before she allowed him to be
known as "a lord," so she ended hurriedly : "He has to be
a different kind of a man, now — not a doctor. He has
a great many things to do and look after. If I told him,
he would leave everything and come to me, even if he
ought not, and if he couldn't come, he would be troubled
and unhappy. \Miy should I make him unhappy ? When
he does come home, he'll be glad — oh, so glad ! Why
need he know when the knowing will do no good, and when
he will come to me as soon as he can, anyway ?''

"You strange girl, Cassandra ! You brave old dear !
But he must come, that's all. It is his right to know and
to come. I can tell him. Let me."

"No, no. Please, Mrs. Towers, you must not. He will
come back as soon as he can ; and now — now — he will
be too late, since he — he did not sail when he meant to."

Betty rose with a set look about the mouth. "Unless
we cable him, Cassandra. Would there be time in that
case ? Come, vou must tell me."

"No, no," wailed the girl. "And now he must not
know until he comes. It would be cruel. I will not let
you write him or cable him either."

"Then what will you do ?"

"Oh, I don't know. I'll think out a way. You'll
help me think, but you must promise me not to write to
David. I send him a letter every day, but I never tell
him anything that would make him uneasy, because he

248 The Mountain Girl

has very important business there for his mother and
sister, even more than for himself. You see how bad I
would be to write troubling things to him when he
couldn't help me or come to me. " A light broke over
Betty Towers's face.

"I can think out a way, dear, of course I can. Just
leave matters to me."

Thus it was that Doctor Hoyle received a letter in
Betty's own impassioned and impulsive style, begging
him, for love's sake, to leave all and come back to the
mountains and his own little cabin, where Cassandra
needed him.

"Never mind Doctor Thryng or anything surprising
about his being absent ; just come if you possibly can and
hear what Cassandra has to say about it before you judge
him. She is quaint and queer and wholly lovely. If you
can bring little Hoyle with you, do so, for I fear his mother
is grieving to see him. She wrote me a most peculiar
and pathetic letter, saying her daughter was so silent about
her affairs that she herself * war nigh about dead fer
worryin', and would I please come and see could I make
Cass talk a lee tie,' so you may be sure there is need of you.
The winter is glorious in the mountains this year. Your
appearance will set everything right at the Fall Place,
and Cassandra w^ill be safe."

Old Time, the unfailing, who always marches apace,
bringing with him changes for good or evil, brought the
dear old doctor back to the Fall Place — brought the small
Adam Hoyle, with his queer little twisted neck and
hunched back, drawn by harness and plaster into a much
improved condition, although not straight yet — brought
many letters from David filled with postponements and
regrets therefor — and brought also a little son for Cas-
sandra to hold to her bosom and dream and pray over.

And the dreams and the prayers travelled far — far, to
the sunny-haired Englishman wrapped in the intricate
affairs of a great estate. How much money would accrue ?
How should it be spent ? "WTiat improvements should be
made in their country home ? WTien Laura's coming
out should be ? How many of her old companions might
she retain ? How many might she call friends ? How

Back to the Mountains 249

many were to be hereafter thrust out as quite impossible ?
Should she be allowed a kennel, or should her sporting
tendencies be discouraged ?

All these things were forced upon David's consideration ;
how then could he return to his young wife, especially
when he could not yet bring himself to say to his world
that he had a young wife. Impatient he might be, nervous,
and even irritable, but still what could he do ? While
there in the far-away hills sat Cassandra, loving him,
brooding over him with serene and peaceful longing, hold-
ing his baby to her white breast, holding his baby's hand to
her lips, full of courage, strong in her faith, patient in
spirit, until as days and weeks passed she grew well and
strong in body.

Being sadly in need of rest, the old doctor lingered on
in the mountains until spring was well adv^anced. Slight
of body, but vigorous and wiry, and as full of scientific
enthusiasm as when he was thirty years younger, he
tramped the hills, taking long walks and climbs alone, or
shorter ones w4th Hoyle at his heels like a devoted dog,
shrilling questions as he ran to keep up. These the good
doctor answered according to his own code, or passed
over as beyond possibility of reply with quizzical counter-
questioning.

They sat together one day, eating their luncheon in the
shelter of a great wall of rock, and below them lay a pool
of clear water which trickled from a spring higher up.
Now and then a bullfrog would sound his deep bass note,
and all the time the high piping of the peepers made
shrill accompaniment to their voices as they conversed.

The doctor had made an aquarium for Hoj^e, using a
great glass jar which he obtained from a druggist in Faring-
ton. They had come to-day on a quest for snails to eat
the green growth, which had so covered the sides of the
jar as to hide the interesting water world within from the
boy's eyes. Many things had already occurred in that
small world to set the boy thinking.

"Doctah Hoyle, you remembeh that thar quare bunch
of leetle sticks an' stones you put in my 'quar'um first day
you fixed hit up fer me ? "

"Yes, yes."

"Well, the' is a right quare thing with a big hade come

250 The Mountain Girl

outen hit, an' he done eat up some o' the lectle black bugs.
I seed him jump quicker'n Hghtnin' at that leetHst fish
only so long, an' try to bite a piece outen his fin — his
lowest fin. What did he do that fer.^^"

"Why — why — he was hungry. He made his dinner
off the little black bugs, and he wanted the fin for his
dessert."

"I don't like that kind of a beast. Oncet he was a
worm in a kind of a hole-box, an' then he turned into a
leetle beast-crittah ; an' what'll he be next ? "

"Next — why, next he'll be a fly — a — a beautiful fly
with four wings all blue and gold and green — "

*'I seen them things flyin' round in the summeh. Hit's
quare how things gits therselves changed that-a-way into
somethin' else — from a w^orm into that beast-crittah
an' then into one o' these here devil flies. You reckon
hit '11 eveh git changed into something diff 'ent — some
kind er a bird ? "

"A bird .f^ No, no. Wlien he becomes af — fly, he's
finished and done for."

"P'r'aps ther is some folks that-a-way, too. You
reckon that's what ails me ?"

"You ? Why, — why what ails you ? "

"You reckon p'r'aps I mount git changed some way
outen this here quare back I got, so't I can hoi' my hade
like otheh folks ? Jes' go to sleep like, an' wake up straight
likeFrale.?"

The old doctor turned and looked down a moment on
the child sitting hunched at his side. His mouth w^orked
as he meditated a reply.

"What would you do if you could c — arry your head
straight like Frale ? If you had been like him, you would
be running a * still' pretty soon. You never would have
come to me to set you straight, and so you would n — never
have seen all the pictures and the great cities. You are
going to be a man before you know it, and — "

"And I'll do a heap o' things when I'm a man, too —
but I wisht — I wisht — These here snails we b'en
hunt'n', you reckon they're done growed to ther shells so
they can't get out ? What did God make 'em that-a-way
fer?"

It's all in the order of things. Everything has its

a '

Back to the Mountains ^51

place in the world and its work to do. They don't want
to get out. They like to carry their bones on the out-
side of their bodies. They're made so. Yes, yes, all
in the order of things. They like it."

"You reckon you can tell me hu' come God 'lowed me
to have this-er lump on my back ? Hit hain't in no ordeh
o' things fer humans to be like I be."

The sceptical old man looked down on the child quiz-
zically, yet sadly. His flexible mouth twitched to reply,
but he was silent. Hoyle looked back into the old doctor's
eyes with grave, direct gaze, and turned away. "You
reckon why he done hit ? "

"See here. Suppose — just suppose you were given
your choice this minute to change places with Frale —
Lord knows where he is now, or what he's doing — or be
as you are and live your own life ; which would you be ?
Think it over ; think it out."

"Ef I had 'a' been straight, brother David never would
'a' took me up to you ?"

" No — no — no. You would have been a — "

"You mean if a magic man should come by here an' just
touch me so, an' change me into Frale, would I 'low him
to do hit?"

"That's what I mean."

"I don't guess Frale, he'd like to be done that-a-way."
The loving little chap nestled closer to the doctor's side.
"I like you a heap, Doctah Hoyle. Frale, he fit brothah
David — an' nigh about killed him. I reckon I rutheh
be like I be, an' bide nigh Cass an' th' baby — an' have the
'quar'um — an' see maw — an' go with you. You reckon
I can go back with you ? "

"Go back ? Of course — go back."

"Be I heap o' trouble to you ? You reckon God 'lowed
me to have this er hump, so't I could get to go an' bide
whar you were at, like I done ? "

A suspicious moisture gathered in the doctor's eyes,
and he sprang up and went to examine earnestly a thorny
shrub some paces away, while the child continued to pipe
his questions, for the most part unanswerable. "You
reckon God just gin my neck er twist so't brothah David
would take me to Canada to you, an' so't maw'd 'low
me to go ? You reckon if I'm right good, He'll 'low me

252 The Mountain Girl

to make a picture o' th' ocean some day, like the one we
seed in that big house ? You reckon if I tried right hard
I could paint a picture o' th' mountain, yandah — an'
th* sea — an' — all the — all the — ships ? "

The doctor laughed heartily and merrily. "Come,
come. We must go home now to Cassandra and the baby.
Paint ? Of — of course you could paint ! You could paint
p — pictures enough to fill a house."

"We don't want no magic man, do we, Doctah Hoyle?
I cried a heap after I seed myself in the big lookin'-
glass down in Farington whar brothah David took me.
I cried when hit war dark an' maw war sleepin'. Next
time I reckon I bettah tell God much obleeged fer twistin'
my hade 'roun' 'stead er cry in' an' takin' on like I been
doin'. You reckon so, Doctah Hoyle?"

"Yes — yes — yes. I reckon so," said the doctor, medi-
tatively, as they descended the trail. From that day the
child's strength increased. Sunny and buoyant, he shook
off the thought of his deformity, and his beauty-loving
soul ceased introspective brooding and found delight in
searching out beauty, and in his creative faculty.

CHAPTER XXVIII

IN WHICH FRALE RETURNS TO THE MOUNTAINS

Doctor Hoyle lingered until the last of the laurel bloom
was gone, and the widow had become so absorbed in her
grandchild as to make the parting much easier. Then
he took the small Adam and departed for the North.
Never did the kind old man dream that his frail and twisted
little namesake would one day be the pride of his life and
the comfort of his declining years.

'* Hoyle sure do look a heap bettah'n when Doctah
David took him off that day. Hit did seem like I'd nevah
see him again. Don't you guess 'at he's beginnin' to grow
some ? Seems like he do."

The widow was seated on her little porch with the
doctor, the evening before they left, and Cassandra, who,
since the birth of the heir, had been living again in her own
little cabin, had brought the baby down. He lay on his
grandmother's lap quietly sleeping, while his mother
gathered Hoyle's treasures, and packed his diminutive
trunk. The boy foUow^ed her, chattering happily as she
worked. She also had noticed the change in him, and
suggested that perhaps, as he had gained such a start
toward health, he need not return, but would do quite well
at home.

"He's a care to you. Doctor, although you're that kind
and patient, — I don't see how ever we can thank you
enough for all you've done !" Then Hoyle, to their utter
astonishment, threw himself on the ground at the doctor's
feet and burst into bitter weeping.

"Why, son, are ye cryin' that-a-way so's you can get
to go off an' leave maw here 'lone ? " But he continued to
weep, and at last explained to them that the "Lord done
crooked him up that-a-way so't he could git to go an' learn
to be a painter an' make a house full of pictures," and that

253

254 The Mountain Girl

the doctor had said he might. Doctor Hoyle lifted him
to his knees with many assurances that he would keep his
word, but for a long time the child sobbed hysterically,
his face pressed against the old man's sleeve.

"What's that you sayin', child, 'bouts the Lord twistin'
yer neck ? Bettah lay sech as that to the devil, more'n
likely."

x\t the mention of that sinister individual, the babe
wakened and stretched out his plump, bare arms, with little
pink fists tightly closed. He yawned a prodigious yawn
for so small a countenance, and gazed vacantly in his
grandmother's face. Then a look of intelligence crept
into his eyes, and he smiled one of those sweet, evanescent
smiles of infancy.

"Look at him now, laughin' at me that-a-way. He
be the peartest I eveh did see. Cass, she sure be mean
not to tell his fathah 'at he have a son, she sure be."

Cassandra came and tenderly took the babe in her arms
and held him to her breast. "There, there. Sleep,
honey son, sleep again," she cooed, swaying her body to
the rhythm of her speech. "Sleep, honey son, sleep again."

"Don't you reckon she be mean to Doctah David,
nevah to let on 'at he have a son, and he a-growin' that
fast ? You a-doin' his fathah mean, Cassandry." Still
Cassandra swayed and sang.

"Sleep, honey son, sleep again."

"He nevah will forgive you when he finds out how you
have done him. I can't make out what-all ails ye, no-
how."

"Hush, mother. I'm just leaving his heart in peace.
He'll come when he can, and then he'll forgive me." .

As the doctor walked slowly at her side that evening,
carrying the sleeping child back to her cabin, he also ven-
tured a remonstrance, but without avail.

"It's hardly fair to his father — such a fine little chap.
You — you have a monopoly of him this way, you know."

She flushed at the implication of selfishness, but said
nothing.

"How — how is that? Don't you think so?" he per-
sisted kindly.

"I reckon you can't feel what I feel, Doctor. Why
should I make his heart troubled when he must stay there ?

Frale again Returns 255

David knows I hate it to bide so long without him. He — ■
he knows. If he could get to come back, don't you guess
he'd come right quick, anyway ? Would he come any
sooner for his son than for me.'^" It was the doctor's
turn for silence. She asked again, this time with a tremor
in her voice. "You reckon he would, Doctor?"

"No ! Of — of course not," he cried.

"Then what would be the use of telling him, only to
trouble him .^"

"He — he might like to think about him — you know

— might like it."

"He said he must go to Africa in May, so now he must
have started — and our wedding was on May-day. Now
it's the last of May ; he must be there. He might be
obliged to bide in that country a whole month — maybe
two. It's so far away, and his letters take so long to come !
Doctor, are they fighting there now ? Sometimes I wake
in the night and think what if he should die away off there
in that far place — "

"No, no. That's done. Not fighting, thank God.
Rest your heart in peace. Now, after I'm gone, don't stay
up here alone too much. I'm a physician, and I know
what's best for you."

She took the now soundly sleeping child from the
doctor's arms and laid him on the bed in the canvas room.
The day had been warm, and the fire was out in the great
fireplace; the evening wind, light and cool, laden with
sweet odors, swept through the cabin.

They talked late that night of Hoyle and his future, but
never a word more of David, The old man thought he
now understood her feeling, and respected it. She cer-
tainly had a right to one small weakness, this strong fair
creature of the hills. Her husband must release himself
from his absorbing cares and return simply for love of her

— not at the call of his baby's wail.

So the doctor and his diminutive namesake drove con-
tentedly away next morning in the great covered wagon,
and Cassandra, standing by her mother's door, smiled and
lifted her baby for one last embrace from his loving little
uncle.

"I'm goin' to grow a big man, an' I'll teach him to make
pictures — big ones," he called back.

^56 The Mountain Girl

"Yas, you'll do a heap. You bettah watch out to be
right good and peart ; that's what you bettah do."

David, not unmindful of affairs on the far-away moun-
tain side, made it quite worth the while of the two cousins
to stay on with the widow and run the small farm under
Cassandra's directions, and she found herself fully occu-
pied. She wrote David all the details : when and where
things were planted — how the vines he had set on the
hill slope were growing — how the pink rose he had brought
from Hoke Belew's and planted by their threshold had
grown to the top of the door, and had three sweet blossoms.
She had shaken the petals of one between the pages of her
letter on May-day, and sent it to remind him, she said.

Nearly a month later than he had intended to sail,
David left England, overwhelmed with many small matters
which seemed so great to his mother and sister, and bur-
dened with duties imposed upon him by the realization
that he had come into the possession of enormous wealth,
more than he could comprehendingly estimate; and that
he was now setting out to secure and prevent the loss of
possibly double what he already possessed.

People gathered about him and presented him with
worthy and unworthy opportunities for its disposal.
They flocked to him in herds, with importunities and
flatteries. The tower which he had built up with his
ideals, and in which he had intrenched himself, was in
danger of being undermined and toppled into ruins, bury-
ing his soul beneath the debris. When seated on the deck,
the rose petals dropped into his hand as he tore open
Cassandra's letter. Some, ere he could catch them, were
caught up and blown away into the sea.

He held them and inhaled their sweetness, and every-
thing seemed to find its true value and proportion and to
fall into its right place. Again on the mountain top, with
Cassandra at his side, he viewed in a perspective of varying
gradations his life, his aims, and his possessions.

The personality of his young wife, of late a vague thing
to him, distant and fair, and haloed about with sweet
memories dimly discerned like a dream that is past, pre-
sented itself to him all at once vivid and clear, as if he held
her in his arms with her head on his breast.

Frale again Returns 257

He heard again her voice with its quaint inflections and
lingering tones. Their love for each other loomed large,
and became for him at once the one truly vital thing in all
his share of the universe. Had his body been endowed
with the wings of his soul, he would have left all and gone
to her ; but, alas for the restrictions of matter ! he was
gliding rapidly away and away, farther from the immediate
attainment. Yet was his tower strengthened wherein he
had intrenched himself with his ideals. The withered rose
petals had brought him exaltation of purpose.

In the mountains, July came with unusually sultry heat,
yet the rich pocket of soil, watered by its never failing
stream, suffered little from the drought. AVeeds grew
apace, and Cassandra had much ado to hold her cousin
Cotton Caswell, easy-going and thriftless, to his task of
keeping the small farm in order.

For a long time now, Cassandra had avoided those
moments of far-seeing and brooding. Had not David said
he feared them for her ? In these days of waiting, she
dreaded lest they show her something to which she would
rather remain blind. In the evenings, looking over the
hilltops from her rock, visions came to her out of the
changing mists, but she put them from her and calmed her
breast with the babe on her bosom, and solaced her long-
ing by keeping all in readiness for David's return. Per-
haps at any moment, with wind-lifted hair and buoyant
smile, he might come up the laurel path.

For this reason she preferred living in her own cabin
home, and, that she might not be alone at night, Martha
Caswell or her brother slept on a cot in the large cabin
room, but Cassandra cared little for their company.
They might come or not as they chose. She was never
afraid now that she was strong again and baby was well.

One evening sitting thus, her babe lying asleep on her
knees and her heart over the sea, something caused her
to start from her revery and look away from the blue dis-
tance, toward the cabin. There, a few paces away,
regarding her intently, stalwart and dark, handsome and
eager, stood Frale. Much older he seemed, more reckless
he appeared, yet still a youth in his undisciplined impulse.
She sat pale as death, unable to move, in breathless amaze-
ment.

258 The Mountain Girl

He smiled upon her out of the gathering dusk. For
some minutes he had been regarding her, and the tumult
within him had become riotous with long restraint. He
came swiftly forward and, ere she could turn her head,
his arms were about her, and his lips upon hers, and she felt
herself pinioned in her chair — nor, for guarding her baby
unhurt by his vehemence, could she use her hands to hold
him from her ; nor for the suffocating beating of her heart
could she cry out ; neither would her cry have availed, for
there were none near to hear her.

"Stop, Frale ! I am not yours; stop, Frale," she
implored.

'*Yas, you are mine," he said, in his low drawl, lifting
his head to gaze in her face. "You gin me your promise.
That doctah man, he done gone an' lef you all alone, and
he ain't nevah goin' to come back to these here mountins."

She snatched her hands from the child on her knees, and,
with sudden movement, pushed him violently ; but he only
held her closer, and it was as if she struggled against mus-
cles of iron.

"Naw, you don't ! I have you now, an' I won't nevah
leave you go again." He had not been drinking, yet he
was like one drunken, so long had he brooded and waited.

Rapidly she tried to think how she might gain control
over him, when, wakened by the struggle, the babe wailed
out and he started to his feet, his hands clutching into his
hair as if he were struck with sudden fear. He had not
noticed or given heed to what lay upon her knees, and the
cry penetrated his heart like a knife.

A child ! His child — that doctor's child ? He hated
the thought of it, and the old impulse to strike down any-
thing or any creature that stood in his way seized him —
the impulse that, unchecked, had made him a murderer.
He could kill, kill ! Cassandra gathered the little body
to her heart and, standing still before him, looked into his
eyes. Instinctively she knew that only calmness and
faith in his right action would give her the mastery now,
and with a prayer in her heart she spoke quietly.

"How came you here, Frale ? You wrote mother you'd
gone to Texas." His figure relaxed, and his arms dropped,
but still he bent forward and gazed eagerly into her
eyes.

Frale again Returns 259

"I come back when I heered he war gone. I come back
right soon. Gate Irwin's wife writ me 'at he war gone ;
an' now she done tol' me he ain't nevah goin' to come back
to these here mountins. Ev'ybody on the mountins
knows that. He jes' have fooled you-all that-a-way,
makin' out to marry you whilst he w^ar in bed, like he
couldn' stand on his feet, an' then gittin' up an' goin' off
this-a-way, an' bidin' nigh on to a year. We don't 'low
our women to be done that-a-way, like they war pore
white trash. I come back fer you like I promised, an'
you done gin me your promise, too. I reckon you w^on't
go back on that now." He stepped nearer, and she clasped
the babe closer, but did not flinch.

"Yes, Frale, you promised, and I — I — promised —
to save you from yourself — to be a good man ; but you
broke yours. You didn't repent, and you went on drink-
ing, and — then you tried to kill an innocent man when
he was alone and unarmed; like a coward you shot him.
I called back my words from God; I gave them to the
man I loved — promise for promise, Frale."

"Yas, and curse for curse. You cursed me, Gass."
He made one more step forward, but she stood her ground
and lifted one hand above her head, the gesture he so well
remembered.

"Keep back, Frale. I did not curse you. I let you go
free, and no one followed you. Go l^ack — farther —
farther — or I will do it now — Oh, God — " He
cowered, his arm before his eyes, and moved backward.

"Don't, Gass," he cried. For a moment she stood
regally before him, her babe resting easily in the hollow
of her arm. Then she slowly lowered her hand and spoke
again, in quiet, distinct tones.

"Now, for that lie they have told you, I am going to
my husband. I start to-morrow. He has sent me money
to come to him. You tell that word all up and down the
mountain side, wherever there bides one to hear."

She lifted her baby, pressing his little face to her cheek,
and turning, walked slowly toward her cabin door.

"Gass," he called.

She paused. " Well, Frale ? "
Gass, you hev cursed me."
'No, Frale, it is the curse of Cain that rests on your

260 The Mountain Girl

soul. You brought it on you by your own hand. If
you will live right and repent, Christ will take it off."

"Will you ask him for me, Cass ? I sure hev lost you
now — forever, Cass ! "

"Yes, Frale. I'll ask him to cover up all this year out
of your life. It has been full of mad badness. Be like
you used to be, Frale, and leave off thinking on me this
way. It is sin. Go marry somebody who can love you
and care for you like you need, and come back here and
do for mother like you used to. Giles Teasley can't
pester you. He's half dead with his badness — drinking
his own liquor."

She came to him, and, taking his hand, led him toward
the laurel path. "Go down to mother now, Frale, and
have supper and sleep in your own bed, like no evil had
ever come into your heart," she pleaded. "The good is
in you, Frale. God sees it, and I see it. Heed to me,
Frale. Good-night."

Slowly, with bent head, he walked away.

Trembling, Cassandra laid her baby in the cradle Hoke
Belew had made her, and, kneeling beside the rude little
bed, she bowed her head over it and wept scalding, bitter
tears. She felt herself shamed before the whole mountain
side. Oh, why — why need David have left her so long
— so long ! The first reproach against him entered her
heart, and at the same time she reasoned with herself.

He could not help it — surely he could not. He was
good and true, and they should all know it if she had to
lie for it. When she had sobbed herself into a measure
of calmness, she heard a step cross the cabin floor. Quickly
drying her tears, she rose and stood in the doorway of
the canvas room, with dilated eyes and indrawn breath,
peering into the dusk, barring the way. It was only her
mother.

Why, mothah !" she cried, relieved and overjoyed.
Have you seen Frale ?"

Yes, mothah. He was here. Sit down and get your
breath. You have climbed too fast."

Her mother dropped into a chair and placed a small
bundle on the table at her side.

"What-all is this Frale say you have told him.? Have
David writ fer you like Frale say ? W^hat-all have Frale

if

Frale again Returns 261

been up to now ? He come down creepin' like he a half-
dade man — that soft an' quiet."

"I'm going to David, mother. You know he sent me
money to use any w^ay I choose, and I'm going." She
caught her breath and faltered.

The mother rose and took her in her arms, and, drawing
her head down to her wrinkled cheek, patted her softly.

"Thar, honey, thar. I reckon your ol' maw knows a
heap more'n you think. You keep mighty still, but you
can't fool her."

Cassandra drew herself together. "Why didn't Martha
come up this evening ^ "

"She war makin' ready, in her triflin' slow way, an'
then Frale come down an' said that word, an' I knew right
quick 'at ther war somethin' behind — his way war that
quare — so I told Marthy to set him out a good suppah,
an' I'd stop up here myself this night. She war right glad
to do hit. Fool, she be ! I could see how she went plumb
silly ovah Frale all to onc't."

"Mothah, you know right well what they're saying about
David and me. Is it true, that word Frale said, that
everyone says he nevah will come back.^^" The mother
was silent. "That's all right, mothah. We'll pack up
to-night, and I'll go down to Farington to-morrow. Mrs.
Towahs will help me to start right."

She lighted candles and began to lay out her baby's
wardrobe. "I haven't anything to put these in, but I can
carry everything I need down there in baskets, and she
will help me. They've always been that good to me —
all my life."

"Cass, Cass, don't go," wailed her mother. "I'm
afraid somethin'll happen you if you go that far away. If
you could leave baby with me, Cass ! Give hit up. Be ye
'feared o' Frale, honey ? "

"No, mother, the man doesn't live that I'm afraid of."
She paused, holding the candle in her hand, lighting her
face that shone whitely out of the darkness. Her eyes
glowed, and she held her head high. Then she turned
again to her work, gathering her few small treasures and
placing them on one of the highest shelves of the chimney
cupboard. As she worked, she tried to say comforting
things to her mother.

262 The Mountain Girl

a ■

I'll write to you every day, like David does me, mother.
See ? I've kept all his letters. They're in this box.
I don't want to burn them because I love them ; and
I don't want any one else to read them ; and I don't want
to carry them with me because I'll have him there. Will
you lock them in your box, mother, and if, anything hap-
pens to me, will you sure — sure burn them ? " She laid
them on the table at her mother's elbow. "You promise,
mothah ?"

'Yas, Cass, yas."
What's in that bundle, mothah .f^'*

With trembling fingers the widow opened her parcel
and displayed the silver teapot, from which the spout had
been melted to be moulded into silver bullets.

"Thar," she said, holding it out by the handle, "hit's
yourn. Farwell, he done that one day whilst I war gone,
an' the last bullet war the one Frale used when he nigh
killed your man. No, I reckon you nevah did see hit
before, fer I've kept hit hid good. I knowed ther were
somethin' to come outen hit some day. Hit do show your
fathah come from some fine high fambly somewhar. I
done showed hit to Doctah David, fer I 'lowed he mount
know was hit wuth anything, but he seemed to set more
by them two leetle books. He has them books yet, I
reckon."

"Yes, he has them."^

"When Frale told me you war a-goin' to David, I
guessed 'at thar war somethin' 'at I'd ought to know, an'
I clum up here right quick, fer if he war a-lyin', I meant
to find out the reason why." She looked keenly in her
daughter's face, which remained passive under the scrutiny.
Has Frale been a-pesterin' you ? "
He did — some — at first ; but I sent him away."

"I reckoned so. Now heark. You tell me straight,
did David send fer ye, er didn't he .f*"

In silence Cassandra turned to her work, until it seemed
as if the room were filled with the suspense of the unan-
swered question. Then she tried evasion.

"Why do you ask in that way, mothah ?"

"Because if he sont fer ye, I'll help ye all I can; but
if he didn't, I'll hinder ye, and ye'll bide right whar
ye be."

Frale again Returns 263

"You won't do that, mothah."

"I sure will. If David haven't sont fer ye, an' ye go,
ye'll have to walk ovah me to get thar, hear ?"

The mother's voice was raised to a higher pitch than was
her wont, and the little silver pot shook in her hand.
Cassandra took it and regarded it without interest, ab-
sorbed in other thoughts. Then, throwing off her abstrac-
tion, she began questioning her mother about it, and why
she had brought it to her now. The widow told all she
knew, as she had told David, and pointed out the half
obliterated coat of arms on the side.

"I've heered your paw say 'at ther war more pleces'n
this, oncet, but this'n come straight to him from his grand-
paw, an' now hit's yourn. If he have sont fer ye, take
hit with ye. Hit may be wuth more'n you think fer now.
I been told they do think a heap o' fambly ovah thar, jest
like we do here in the mountins. Leastways, hit's all we
do have — some of us. My fambly war all good stock,
capable and peart ; an' now heark to me. Wharevah you
go, just you hold your hade up. The' hain't nothin'
more despisable than a body 'at goes meachin' around
like some old sheep-stealin' houn' dog. Now if he sure
'nough have sont fer ye, go, an' I'll help ye, but if he
haven't, bide whar ye be."

Cassandra drew in her breath sharply, no longer able to
evade the question, with her mother's keen eyes searching
her face. All her reasons for going flashed through her
mind in a moment's space of time. The book she had been
reading — what were English people really like "^ And
David — her David — her boy's father — what shameful
things were they saying of him all over the mountain that
Frale should dare come to her as he had done ^ She
could not stay now ; she would not. Her cheeks flamed,
and she walked silently into the canvas room and stood
by her baby's cradle. Her mother began wrapping up
the silver pot.

"I guess I'll take this back an' lock hit up again. You
sure hain't to go if ye can't give me that word."

Cassandra went quickly and took it from her mother's
hand. "No, mother, give it to me. I told Frale David
had sent for me, and I'm going."
'And he have sont fer ye?'*

((

£64 The Mountain Girl

"Yes, mothah." Her reply was low as she turned again
to her work.

"Waal, now, why couldn't you have give me that word
first off ? Hit's his right to have ye, an' I'll he'p ye.
You'd ought to go to him if he can't come to you."

Instantly up and alert, putting bravely aside her own
feelings at the thought of parting, the mother began
helping her daughter; but long after they were finished
and settled for the night, she lay wakeful and dreading the
coming day.

Cassandra slept less, and lay quietly thinking, sorrowful
that she must leave her home, and not a little anxious
over what might be her future and what might be her fate
in that strange land.

When at last she slept, she dreamed of the people she
had met in Vanity Fairy with David strangely mixed up
among them, and Frale ever alert and watchful, moving
wherever she moved, silently lingering near and never
taking his eyes from her face.

In the morning, mother and daughter were up betimes,
but no word was spoken between them to betoken hesita-
tion or fear. Cassandra walked in a sort of dumb wonder
at herself, and smouldering deep beneath the surface was
a fierce resentment against those who, having known her
from childhood, and receiving many favors and kindnesses
from her, should now presume to so speak against her
husband as to make Frale dare to approach her as he had.
Oh, the burning shame of those kisses ! The shame of
the thought against David that pervaded her beloved
mountains ! For the sake of his good name, she would
put away her pride and go to him.

CHAPTER XXIX

IN WHICH CASSANDRA VISITS DAVID THRYNG*S ANCESTORS

It was a pleasant morning in London, with as clear a
sky as is ever permitted to that great city. Cassandra
had placed her little son in the middle of a huge bed which
nearly filled the small room she had been given in a hotel,
recommended to her by Betty Towers as one where '*nice
ladies travelling alone" could stop.

The child was dressed in a fresh white coat, and Cas-
sandra had much ado to keep him clean. She heaped
him about with pillows and bedclothing to make a nest
for him, and gave him a spoon and a drinking cup for
entertainment, while she arranged her own toilet before
a cloudy mirror by a slant ray of daylight that managed
to sift through the heavy draperies and lace curtains that
obscured the one high, narrow window of her room.

She had tried to put them one side that she might look
out when she awoke, but she could see only chimney-pots
and grimy, irregularly tiled roofs. A narrow opening at
the top of the window let in a little air ; still she felt
smothered, and tried to raise the lower sash, but could not
move it. She thought of the books she had read about
great cities, and how some people had to live in places
like this always ; and her heart filled with a large pity
for them. Here only a small triangle of blue sky could
be seen — not a tree, not a bit of earth — and in the small
room all those heavy furnishings closed around her, dark
red, stuffy, and greasy with London smoke. She could
not touch them without blackening her hands, nor let her
baby sit on the floor for the dirt he wiped up on his cloth-
ing as he rolled and kicked about.

The room seemed to sway and tip as the ship had done,
and there was a continuous sound as of thunder, a strange
undercurrent that seemed to her strained nerves like the

265

266 The Mountain Girl

moaning of the lost souls of all the ages, who had lived and
toiled and smothered in this monstrous and terrible city.

Ah, she must get out of it. She must hurry — hurry
and find David. He would be glad to see his little son.
He would take him in his arms. He would hold them
both to his heart. She would see him smile again and look
in his eyes, and all this foreboding would cease, and the
woful sounds die out of the air and become only the
natural roar of the activities and traflfic of a great city.
She must get used to all this, and not expect to find all the
world like her own sunny mountains.

The bishop's careful little wife had tried to explain to
her how to meet her new experiences. She was to go
nowhere alone, without taking a cab, and never start out
on foot, carrying her baby in her arms, as she might do at
home. She had given her written instructions how to
conduct herself under all ordinary circumstances, at her
hotel or on the street — how to ring for a servant, order
her meals, or call a cab.

Now, standing before her mirror, Cassandra essayed to
arrange her hair as she had seen other young women
wear theirs, but she thought the new way looked untidy,
and she took it all down and rearranged it as she was used
to wear it. David would not mind if she did not do her hair
as others did, he would be so glad to see her and his little
son. Ah, the comfort of that little son ! She leaned over
the bed, half dressed as she was, and murmured pretty coo-
ing phrases, kissing and cuddling him to contented laughter.

Betty Towers had procured clothing for her — a modest
supply — using her own good taste, and not disguising Cas-
sandra's natural grace and dignity by a too-close adherence
to the prevailing mode. There w^ere a blue travelling gown
and jacket, and a toque of the same color with a white
wing; a soft clinging black silk, made with girlish sim-
plicity which admirably became her, and a wide, flexible
brimmed hat with a single heavy plume taken from
Betty's own hat of the last winter. Cassandra stood a
long moment before the two gowns. She desired to don
the silk, but Betty had told her always to wear the blue in
the morning, so at last she obeyed her kind adviser.

While waiting with her baby in her arms for the hotel
boy to call her cab, she observed another lady, young and

David's Ancestors 267

graceful, enter a cab, and a maid following her wearing a
pretty cap> and carrying a child. Eager, for David's sake,
to draw no adverse comment upon herself, she took note
of everything. Ought she then to arrive attended by a
maid, carrying her baby ? But David would know she
did not need one ; bringing him his little son in her own
arms, what would he care for anything more ? So the
address was given the cabman, and they were rattled aw^ay
over the rough paving, a long, lonely ride through the
wonderful city — so many miles of houses and splendid
buildings, of gardens and monuments.

Strangely, the people of Vanity Fair leaped out of the
book she had read, and walked the streets or dashed by
her in cabs — albeit in modern dress. The soldiers — the
guardsmen — the liveried lackeys — the errand boys —
all were there, and the ladies in fine carriages. There were
the nursemaids — the babies — the beggars — the ragged
urchins and the venders of the street, with their raucous
cries rending the air. Her brain whirled, and a new feel-
ing to which she had hitherto been blessedly a stranger
crept over her, a feeling of fear.

As the great two-story coaches and trams thundered
by, she clasped her baby closer, until he looked up in her
face with round-eyed wonder and put up his lip in pitiful
protest. She soothed and comforted him until her panic
passed, and when, at last, they stopped before a great
house built in on either side by other houses, with wide
steps of stone descending directly upon the street, she had
regained a measure of composure. She was assured by the
cabman, leaning respectfully down to her with his cap in
his hand, that this was "the 'ouse, ma'm," and should he
wait ?

"Oh, yes. Wait," cried Cassandra. What if David
were not there ! And of course, he might be out. Then
they were swallowed up in the dark interior. She was
admitted to a hall that seemed to her empty and vast, by
a little old man in livery. For a moment, bewildered, she
could hardly understand what he was saying to her. " 'Er
ladyship's at 'er country 'ome and the 'ouse closed."

Although dazed and baffled, Cassandra betrayed no
sign of the tumult within, and the little old man stood
before her hesitating, his curiosity piqued into a determi-

268 The Mountain Girl

nation to discover her business and identity. Her gravity
and silence gave her a poise and dignity that allayed sus-
picion, but he and his old wife liked diversion, and a spice
of gossip lightened the monotony of their lives, so he
waited, then coughed behind his hand.

"Yes, 'er ladyship and Lady Laura are at their country
'ome now, ma'm. Maybe you came to see the 'ouse,
ma'm.?"

"No, it was not the house — it was — " Again she
waited, not knowing how to introduce her husband's
name.

A mystery ! A visitor at this hour, and seemingly a
lady, yet with a baby in her arms, and alone, and not to
see the house. Again he coughed behind his hand.

*' A many do come to see the 'ouse, ma'm, with a permit
from 'is lordship, ma'm. 'E's not 'ere now, but strangers
are halways welcome — to the gallery, ma'm."

"Yes, I'm a stranger.' She caught at the word.
Seized by an inward terror of the small eyes fixed curiously
on her, she intuitively shrank from betraying her identity,
and the old servant had told her what she needed to know.
Of course her husband was "his lordship," over here.
"I am from America, and I would like to see the gallery."
She must do so to give a pretext for having come to visit
an empty house. David must not be compromised be-
fore the old servant, but a great lump filled her throat,
and tears were burning unshed beneath her eyes.

For all of the warm August sun shining without, a chill
struck to her bones as they passed through the vast,
closed rooms. She held her now sleeping baby close to
her breast as she followed the old man about from picture
to picture.

"Yes, a many do come 'ere — especially hartists — to
see this gallery. They say as 'ow 'is lordship wouldn't
take a thousand pounds for this one, ma'm. We'll let in
a little more light. A Vandyke — and worth it's weight
in gold."

Cassandra watched him cross the floor, his short bow
legs reflected grotesquely in its shining surface as he
walked, then turned and gazed again at the life-size, half-
length portrait of a young man with sunny hair like David's
and warm brown eyes.

David's Ancestors 269

"There, you see, it's more than a Vandyke to the family,
ma'm, for it's a hancestor, and my wife says it's as like as
two peas to 'is young lordship, who has just come into the
title, ma'm. And that's strange, isn't it, for 'im to look so
like, being as 'e belonged to the younger branch who
'aven't 'eld the title for four generations ; but come to
dress 'im in velvet and gold lace, and the likeness would be
nigh as perfect as if 'e 'ad stood for it."

Cassandra gazed so long sil^^ntly at this picture that
again the little man coughed his deprecatory cough and
essayed to lead her on ; but she was seeing visions and did
not heed him. When at last she turned, her-gray eyes had
deepened, and a clearly defined spot of delicate red burned
on one pale cheek. She drew a deep breath and looked
down the length of the long gallery. Everything was
being impressed upon her mind as upon sensitized paper.

She followed slowly in the old man's wake, never open-
ing her lips until they had made the circuit and were again
standing before the portrait of the fair-haired youth.
Then, roused suddenly by a direct question, she responded.

The old servant was saying: "You 'aven't 'appened
to meet a Samuel Cutter in America, 'ave you "^ 'E's our
son. England was too slow for 'im. Young men aren't
like old ones ; they wants hadventure, and they gets it.
That's 'ow so many of 'em joins the harmy and gets
killed like 'is lordship's two sons, and young Lord
Thryng's brother as would 'ave been 'is lordship, if 'e' ad
lived. You 'aven't 'appened to know a Samuel Cutter
over there ? 'E went to Canada. "

*'No, I never met any one by that name. I live a long
way from Canada."

''About 'ow far do you think, ma'm.^*"

Cassandra had no idea of the distance, but she knew
how long David and Hoyle were journeying there, so she
answered as best she could. "It takes three or four days
to get there from my home."

The old man's eyes opened wide, and his jaw dropped.
"It's a big country — America is. England may be a
small place, but she 'as tremendous big possessions." He
felt it all belonged to England, and spoke with swelling
pride as his short legs carried him toward the door. There
again he paused. He had learned nothing of this young

270 The Mountain Girl

woman to tell his old wife, except that she came from
America, and had never met Samuel Cutter. The mystery
was still unsolved.

"Yes, 'is young lordship do look amazing like that pic-
ture. If you'd ever seen 'im, you'd think 'e'd dressed up
in velvet and lace and stood for it. 'E's lived in America
five years, but if you never were in Canada and never met
our Sammy, it's more likely you never saw 'im either."

"Is he at their country home also?" Cassandra asked.
She had seated herself in the hall, for her heart throbbed
chokingly, and the lump was heavy in her throat. It
was as she had dreamed sometimes, when her feet seemed
to cling to the earth, and would not lift her weight up some
steep hill.

"'Is lordship is still in Hafrica, mam. 'E 'ave been a
great traveller, but 'e can't stay much longer now, for
Lady Laura is to 'ave a grand coming out, and 'is lordship
is to be married. Her ladyship's 'eart is set on it, and on
'is marrying 'igh, too. That's gossip, you know."

Cassandra rose and stood suddenly poised for flight.
She must get out of that house and hear no more. She
had a silver shilling in her hand, for Betty Towers had told
her all servants expected a tip, and this was intended for
the cabman. Had she followed her impulse, she would
have darted by with her fingers in her ears, but instead,
she dropped the shilling in the old man's hand, and quietly
turned toward the door.

"Thank you," his fingers closed over the shilling. Her
pallor struck him then, even as the red spot on her cheek
deepened, and he held out his arms for the child.

"Let me carry 'im for you, ma'm. Is it a boy.^^"

But her arms closed tighter about her baby. "He is
my little son." It was almost a cry, as she said it, but
again she forced herself to calmness, and, walking slowly
out, added, with a quiet smile: "I always keep him
myself. We do in America."

In a moment she was gone. The warm sunlight burst
in on them and flooded the cold hall as the old man stood
in the doorway looking after the retreating cab, and down
at the silver shilling.

Darker, dingier, stuffier, seemed the box of a room, as
she walked into it and laid her still sleeping babe on the

David's Ancestors 271

bed. She felt herself moving In an unreal world. David
— her David — she had not come to him after all ; she
had come to an empty place. She knelt and threw her
arms about her little son, encircling his head and his feet.
She neither wept nor prayed ; and the red spot burned
against the creamy whiteness of her skin. She was not
thinking, only looking, seeing into the past and down the
long vista of her future.

Pictures came to her — pictures of her girlhood — her
dim aspirations — her melancholy-eyed father — his
hilltop — and beloved, sunlit mountains. In the radi-
ance of the spring, she saw them, and in the glory of the
autumn ; she breathed the fragrance of the pines in winter
and heard the soft patter of summer rains on widespread-
ing leaves. She saw David walking at her side, and
heard his laugh, sun-bright and glorious he seemed, her
Phoebus Apollo — the father of her little son.

She saw the terrible sea which she had crossec^to come
to him — the white-crested waves, with turquoise lights
and indigo depths, shifting and sliding unceasingly where
all the world seemed swallowed in space, and the huge
steamship so small a thing in the vast and perilous deep;
and now — now she was here. What was she ? What
was life ?

She had tried to find him, her David, and had been
shown the dead, and the glory of the dead — all past and
gone — her David's glory. Shown that long,^ empty
gallery resounding with those aged footsteps, and the pic-
tures — pictures — pictures — of men and women who
had once been babes like her little son and David's, now
dead and gone — not one soul among them all to greet
her. Proud lords and dames in frames of gold ; young
men and maidens in costly silks and velvets of marvellous
dyes, red-cheeked, red-lipped, and soullessly silent; and
she, alone and undefended in their midst, holding in her
arms their last descendant. All those painted fingers
seemed lifted to point at her ; those silent red lips parted
to cry out at her, "Look at this stranger claiming to be
one of us ; send her away."

And David — her David — was one of these ! What
they had felt — what they had thought and striven for —
was it all intensified and concentrated in him? Oh, if

272 The Mountain Girl

her soul could only reach to him, wherever he was, and
penetrate this impalpable veil that stretched between
them ! If her hands could only touch him, her eyes look
into his and see what lay in their depths for her !

Then her babe stirred and tossed up his pretty hands,
waking her from her sad, vision-seeing trance. He opened
his large, clear eyes, and suddenly it seemed that her wish
was granted, — that the veil was rent and she was look-
ing into David's eyes and seeing his soul free, no longer
chained by invisible links to those dead and gone beings,
and their traditions. This had been all a dream — a
dream.

She gathered the child in her arms and held him with
his sweet, warm lips pressed to her breast and his soft little
hand thrust in her bosom. David's little son — David's
little son ! Surely all was good and well with the world !
Did not the old man say it was only gossip ? Had not
evil things been said of David even on her own mountain ?
It was the trail of the serpent of ill report. He had not
confided his sacred secret to these people, and they had
thought what they pleased. Surely he had told his
mother about his wife. She would go to his mother and
wait for his return, and there she would bring her precious
gift — David's little son.

Quickly she packed her few belongings and rang for a
messenger, and as she stood an instant waiting for an an-
swer to her ring, the white-capped nurse she had noticed
in the morning passed by with the baby in her arms. Yes,
surely women of David's state did not travel about alone.
Had she not read in Vanity Fair how Becky Sharp always
had her maid ? And now she was in "Vanity Fair," and
must be wise and not go to David's mother unattended.
Then, too, if only she had some one with her to whom she
could speak now and then, it would be better. There-
fore, without further consideration, she walked swiftly
down the corridor after the tidy nurse.

"Will you tell me, please, have you a sister .f^" she said.
The young woman stood still in astonishment. "Or —
any friend like yourself ? I — I am a stranger from
America." The look of surprise changed to one of curi^
osity. "And it is right hard to go about alone with my
baby, so I thought I would ask you if you have a sister."

David's Ancestors 273

"Is it to the country you wish to go, ma'm?" The
baby in her arms stirred, and the nurse swayed gently back
and forth to hush it.

"Yes."

"I couldn't go with you myself, ma'm — but — "

"Oh, no ! I didn't mean you. I only thought if you
had a sister — or a friend, maybe, who could help me for
a little while."

" I saw you this morning, ma'm, as you went out. I'll
see what I can do. What number is your room ? and
what name ? I mustn't talk here. Mrs. Darling is very
particular."

"Oh, never mind, then." Cassandra turned away in
sudden shame lest she had not done the right thing. The
nurse watched her return to her room as swiftly as she had
left it, and took note of the number.

"How very odd !" said the young woman to herself.

Cassandra felt more abashed under the round-eyed gaze
of the maid than if she had encountered the queen. Her
ring for a messenger had not been answered, and she did
not know how to find her husband's country-seat. She
felt faint and weary, but did not think of hunger, nor that
it was long past the dinner-hour, and that she had eaten
nothing since her early breakfast. She only thought that
she must be brave and try — try to think how to reach
David's people.

Resolutely she closed her door, and dressed her baby
carefully ; then she arrayed herself in the soft silk gown,
and the wide hat with the heavy plume, and then — could
David have seen her with her courageous eyes and lifted
head, and the faint color from excitement in her cheeks —
he would no longer have feared to take her by the hand
and lead her to his mother and say, "She is my wife,
and the loveliest lady in the land."

People looked at her as she passed, and turned to look
again. Down wade, carpeted stairs she went, until she
came to a broad landing with recessed windows, where were
round polished tables and people seated, sipping tea and
eating thin bread and butter and muffins. Then Cassandra
knew that she was hungry and sat herself in one of the
windows apart, before a table. Presently a young man
came and bent down to her as if listening. She looked up

274 The Mountain Girl

at him in bewilderment, but at the same instant, seeing
another young man similarly dressed bearing a tray of
muffins and tea to a lady and gentleman near by, she said : —

*'I would like tea, please."

"Wot kind, ma'm ?" She did not care what kind, nor
know for what to ask, only to have something soon, so she
said : — «

"I will take what they have."

"Yes, ma'm. Muffins, ma'm?"

"Yes," she replied wearily, and turned to gaze out of
the window. Cabs and carriages were rushing up and
down the street below them. She placed her little son
on the seat beside her and held him with sheltering arm,
while he watched the moving vehicles and looked from
them to his mother's face.

"What a perfectly lovely child !" said a pleasant voice.
"Is it a boy.? How old is he.?"

Cassandra looked up to see a rosy-cheeked girl, a little
too stout and florid, with a great mop of dark hair tied
with a wide black ribbon. A gray-haired lady followed,
and paused beside her.

"Yes," said Cassandra, faintly. "He is almost six
months old."

The girl reached over and patted his cheek. "How
perfectly dear. See him, mamma. Isn't he, though ? "

"Babies are always dear," said the mother, with a
smile. "Come, Laura, we can't wait, you know," and
they passed on. As Cassandra looked up in the mother's
face, something stirred vaguely in her heart. Had she
seen her before ? Possibly, so many had paused to speak
to her in this casual way since she left home.

Then her tea and crisp, hot muffins were brought.
The young girl's pleasant words had warmed her heart,
and the refreshment gave her more courage. She made
her way to the office and inquired how she might find
Lord Thryng's country home. The clerk wrote the
address promptly on a card, but the keen look of interest
with which he handed it to her caused her to shrink in-
wardly. Why, what was it to him what place she asked
for ? She lifted her head proudly. She must not falter.

"I wish to go there. Will you tell me how, please.?"

But the surprise of the clerk was quite natural, as she

r

David's Ancestors 275

had signed the hotel register the evening before with her
whole name, giving no thought to it; and now he won-
dered what relation she might be to the family so lately
come into the title, since she bore the name, yet seemed to
know so little about them. He explained to her cour-
teously — almost deferentially.

*'Will you go to Daneshead Castle itself, ma'm, or stop
in Queensderry ?'* As she had no idea what the question
involved, she replied at hazard.

'*I will stop in Queensderry." And her bags were
brought down, and she was despatched to the right sta-
tion without more delay.

CHAPTER XXX

IN WHICH CASSANDRA GOES TO QUEENSDERRY AND TAKES
A DRIVE IN A PONY CARRIAGE

Glad to be borne away from the city and out through
fresh green fields and past pretty church-spired villages,
alone in the compartment, Cassandra comforted herself
with her baby, playing with him until he dropped to sleep,
when she made a bed for him on the car seat with rugs,
and, taking out her purse, began to count her remaining
resources. Her bill at the hotel had appalled her. So
much to pay to stay only a night ! What would David
say ? But he had told her to use the money as she liked,
and now she was here, there was nothing else to do.

Laboriously she computed the amount in English money,
and, reckoned thus, her dollars and cents seemed to shrink
and vanish. Still, more than half remained of what she
had brought with her, and she viewed the matter calmly.

The shadows fell long over the smooth greensward as
she arrived in the village of Queensderry and was driven
to a small inn, the only house of entertainment in the
place. She was given a pleasant room overlooking fields
and orchards and bright gardens, and the sight rested her
eyes, and still further calmed her troubled heart. She
would rest to-night, and to-morrow all would be well.

Never had food tasted better to her than the supper
served in her pretty room, — toast in a silver rack, and
fresh butter, such as David loved, and curds and whey,
and gingerbread, and a small jar of marmalade. She ate,
seated in the window, looking out over the sweet English
landscape in the warm twilight — the breeze stirring the
white curtains — her little son in her lap gurgling and
smiling up at her — and her heart with David, wherever he
might be.

Slowly the dusk veiled all, and one star glimmered above
the slender church spire. A pretty maid brought candles

276

Cassandra at Queensderry 277

and a book in which she was asked to write her name.
She was the landlady's daughter and looked wholesome
and bright. Cassandra glanced in her face as she set the
candles down, and took up the pen mechanically.

*' Mother says will you sign here, please.'^"

"Yes." Cassandra turned the leaves slowly and read
other names and addresses — many of them. She wrote
"Cassandra Merlin — " and paused; then, making a long
dash, added simply, "America,'* and, handing back the
book and pen, turned again to the window.

"Thank you. Is that all ?'' said the maid, lingering.

"Yes," said Cassandra again ; then she laid her baby on
the bed and began taking his night clothing from her bag.

"How pretty he is ! Shan't I help you unpack, ma'm ? "

Cassandra paused, looking dreamily before her as if
scarcely comprehending, then she said : "Not to-night,
thank you. Perhaps to-morrow." The maid deftly
piled the supper dishes and, taking them and the book
with her, departed with a pleasant "Good night, ma'm."

In spite of her calmness, Cassandra lay wakeful and
patient, and when at last she did sleep, it seemed to her
she stood with her husband on her father's path, looking
out under overarching boughs, upon blue distances of
heaped-up mountain tops, and David's flute notes, silvery
sweet, were raining down upon her. She awoke to discover
day was breaking, and a pealing of bells from some distant
church tower was announcing the fact.

She gathered her babe to her throbbing heart and
thought, to-day she was to go out and meet her husband's
people. How should she go ? How should she conduct
herself ? Should she go at once, or wait until the after-
noon ? Why had she not written her name fully in the
travellers' book ? What mysterious foreboding had caught
her fingers and stayed them at her maiden name ? Was
she afraid ? TNTien she arose, she found herself trembling
from head to foot, and called for her breakfast, before
bathing and dressing her little son.

The same pretty maid brought it, and came again, while
Cassandra bathed and nursed her baby, to set the room
to rights.

" Shan't I unpack your box for you now, ma'm ? '* And,
without waiting for a reply, she took out Cassandra's

278 The Mountain Girl

clothing, pausing now and then to admire and pet the
lovely boy. Her simple friendliness pleased Cassandra,
who was minded to ask some of the questions which were
burdening her.

"When do people make visits here, in the morning or
afternoon "^ "

"That depends, ma'm."

"How do you mean ? I'm a stranger in England, you
know."

"Yes, ma'm. If they make polite visits, they go about
tea time, ma'm. But if it's parish visits, or on business,
or on people they know very well, they may go in the
morning, ma'm."

"And when is tea time here?"

"Why, ma'm, everybody has their tea in the afternoon
along four or thereabouts, and sees their friends."

"Can I get a carriage here, do you know.'^"

"I can get a pony carriage, ma'm. We hires it when we
need it, only we must speak for it early, or it may be
taken."

" Oh ! Then will you please speak for it soon ? I would
like to have it."

"Yes, ma'm. Will you drive yourself, ma'm, or shall
I ask for a boy ? "

Oh! I don't know. I can drive — but — "
They are gentle ponies, ma'm. Any one can drive
them."

"Yes, but I don't know the way."

"Yes, ma'm. Where would you like to go, ma'm?"

"To Daneshead Castle."

The bright-cheeked maid opened her round eyes wider
and looked at Cassandra with new interest. "But, ma'm,
— that is quite far, though the ponies are smart, too."

"How far is it?"

"It's quite a bit away from here, ma'm ; you'd have to
start at two or thereabouts. I could take you myself if
mother would let me, and tell you all the interesting places,
but " — the girl looked at her shrewdly, a quickly with-
drawn glance — " that depends on how well acquainted you
are there, ma'm. Maybe you'd like better to have a man
drive, and just let me go along to mind the baby for you."

"Yes, I would," said Cassandra, gladly.

Cassandra at Queensderry 279

"Thank you. I'll run for the ponies now, ma'm.**

Cassandra heard her boots clatter rapidly down the
wooden stairs at the back of the house, and presently saw
her dashing across the inn yard, bareheaded and with her
bare arms rolled in her apron.

The girl's manner of receiving the statement that she
wished to drive to the castle was not lost on Cassandra's
sensitive spirit. She sat a moment, thoughtful and sad,
then rose and set herself to prepare carefully for the visit.
In the afternoon ! Then she might wear the silk gown
and lovely hat. Once more she tried to arrange her hair
as she saw other young women wear theirs, and again
swept its heavy masses back loosely from her brow and
coiled it low as her custom was.

The landlady's daughter chattered happily as they
drove. She held the baby on her knee, and he played
with the blue beads she wore about her neck, while Cas-
sandra sat with hands dropped passively in her lap, her
body leaning a little forward, straight and poised as if to
move more rapidly along, her red lips parted as if
listening and waiting, and her eyes courteously turning
toward the places and objects pointed out to her, yet
neither seeing nor hearing, except vaguely.

Presently becoming aware that the chatter was
about the family at Daneshead Castle, her interest
suddenly awoke. About the old lord — how vast his
possessions — how ancient the family — how neglected the
castle had been ever since Lady Thryng's death, — every-
thing allowed to run down, even though they were so vastly
rich — how different everything was now the parsimonious
old lord was dead and the new lord had come in, and there
were once more ladies in the family — what a time since
there had been a Lady Thryng at Daneshead — how much
Lady Laura was like her cousin Lyon — how reckless she
would be if her mother did not hold her with a firm hand
— and so the chatter ran on.

The girl enjoyed the distinction of knowing all about the
great family and enlightening this stranger from America,
whose silent attention and occasional monosyllablic replies
were sufficient to inspire her friendly efforts to entertain.
Moreover, her curiosity concerning Cassandra and her
errand, where she was evidently neither expected nor known,

280 The Mountain Girl

was piqued and lively, and she threw out many tentative
remarks to probe if possible the stranger lady's thoughts.

"Have you ever seen Lord Thryng — the new lord, I
mean, ma'm ? "

"Yes," said Cassandra, simply, a chill striking to her
heart to hear him mentioned thus.

"He's been out here directing the repairs himself, and
getting the place ready for his mother and Lady Laura;
but I never saw him. They say he's perfectly stunning.
Quite the lord. Is he so very handsome, do you think ? "

"Yes." Cassandra looked away from the girl's search-
ing eyes.

"They say he never has married, and that is fortunate
too ; for he has lived so long in America, and never expecting
to come into the title, he might have married somebody
his own set over here never could have received, and that
would have been bad, wouldn't it.^^"

Cassandra turned and looked gravely at the girl. She
wished to stop her, but could not think hov/ to do it. She
could not bear to hear her husband talked over in this way.

"They are tremendous swells. Lady Thryng looks
high for him, and well she may, for mother says he's
worthy of a princess, he's that rich and high bred, too, for
all that he was only a doctor over in America. Mother
says it's very fortunate he never married some common
sort over there. They say Lady Thryng wants him to
marry Lady Geraldine Temple's daughter. She is a great
beauty, and has a pretty fortune in her own right, too.
They'll be rich enough to entertain the king ! And they
may do it, too, some day."

Cassandra sat still and cold. She could not stop the
girl now. "Lady Laura's coming out is to be next week,
so his lordship must be home soon. They say it will be
a very grand affair ! And I am to see it all, for mother
says she will have a maid, and I may go out there to serve,
and I shall see all the decorations and the fine dresses.
That will be fine, won't it, baby ? "

She untied the blue beads and dangled them before the
baby's eyes, and he caught at them and gurgled in baby
glee. Cassandra sat silent, rigid, and cold, unheeding the
child or the girl, only vaguely hearing the chatter.

"And that will be grand, won't it, baby ? But he is a

Cassandra at Queensderry ^81

love, this boy ! There is Daneshead Castle now, ma'm.
You see it through the trees, but the grounds are so large
we have to drive a good bit before we are there."

The driver turned the ponies' heads, and they scampered
through a high stone gateway and along a smooth road
which wound through a dense wood, with green open
spaces interspersed, where deer were browsing. All was
very beautiful and quiet and sweet, but Cassandra, sitting
with wide-open eyes, gravely beautiful, did not see it.

To the girl everything was delightful. She had not the
slightest doubt that the American lady was very rich. That
she travelled so simply and alone was nothing. They all
did queer things — the Americans. She was obtusely
unconscious that she had been speaking slightingly of them
to one of themselves, and she talked on after the romantic
manner of girls the world over, giving the gossip of
the inn parlors as she listened to it evening after evening,
where the affairs of the nobility were freely discussed and
enlarged and commented upon with eager interest.

What was spoken in her ladyship's chamber and Lady
Laura's boudoir — their half -formed plans and aspira-
tions — carelessly dropped words and unfinished sentences

— quickly travelled to the housekeeper's parlor — to the
servant's table — to the haunts of grooms and stable boys

— to the farmer's daughters — and to the public rooms
of the Queensderry Inn.

Thus it was Cassandra heard tales of the brother and
sister and mother of her David, and of him also. How it
was said that once he was engaged to a rich tradesman's
daughter but had broken it off and gone to America against
the wishes of all his family, and had become a common
practitioner there to the disgust of all his relatives ; and
again Cassandra felt that she had left a sweet and lovely
world behind her to step into "Vanity Fair."

She tried to hold fast her faith in goodness and high
purpose. She was sure — sure — David had been moved
by noble motives ; why should she not trust him now ?
Did this girl know him better than she — his wife .? Yet,
in spite of her valiant spirit, two facts fell like leaden
weights upon her heart. David had not told his people
that he had a wife, and they would be offended that he had
"tied himself to a common sort over there." This David

282 The Mountain Girl

whom she loved was so high above her in the eyes of all
his relatives and perhaps even in his own. What — ah,
what could she do ! Might she still hold him in her heart ?
She could not walk in upon them now and betray him —
never — never.

Her lips grew pale, and her head swam, but she sat still,
leaning a little forward in the moving phaeton, her hands
tightly clasped in her lap and her babe unheeded at her
side, until the red returned to her lips and again burned
in a clearly defined spot against the pallor of her cheek.
She did not know that a strange, unearthly beauty was
hers. A carriage met them filled with gay people. She
did not notice them, but they gazed at her and turned to
look again as they passed.

"I say, you know ! " said one of the men, as they whirled
by.

"There, that was Lady Geraldine Temple in that car-
riage, and the young man who stared so hard is her son.
They've been paying a visit, or maybe they've brought
Lady Clara to stay a bit. They say both families are keen
for the match — and why shouldn't they be ? Oh, they'll
entertain the king here some day, and then there'll be high
times at Daneshead !"

An automobile flashed by them, and then another.
"There must be a party here to-day, or likely it's visitors
dropping in, now it's getting toward tea time. It's all
right, ma'm," she added, as Cassandra stirred uneasily.
"It must be only visitors, or I would have heard of it.
They're keeping open house now, though they don't go
anywhere themselves yet. You see it's a year since the
deaths, so they could mourn them all at once, and not spin
it along. They had to wait a year before Lady Laura's
coming out — rightly. Let the ponies walk now, driver.
I beg pardon, ma'm." The girl had so taken possession
of Cassandra, the baby, and the whole expedition, that
she gave the order unthinkingly.

"Yes, let them walk," said Cassandra, and drew a long
breath. She heard gay laughter, and caught sight through
the trees of light dresses and wide, plumed hats. Some
one sat on the terrace at a table whereon was shining
silver.

There, I said so ! That's Lady Clara pouring tea.

{(I

Cassandra at Queensderry 283

I say, but she's a beauty ! Isn't she ? No, no. Go to
the front, driver. American ladies don't call at the side."

"There's a hautomobile there, ma'm."

"Then wait a moment. Don't be a stupid."

Thus, aided by the innkeeper's clever daughter, Cas-
sandra at last made her entrance properly and was guided
to the presence of David's mother, who had not joined her
guests, having but just closed an interview with Mr. Stret-
ton. As she saw Cassandra standing in the drawing-room
waiting her. Lady Thryng came graciously forward. The
lovely August weather had tempted every one out of doors,
and the great room was left empty save for these two,
David's mother and his mfe.

The beauty of other-worldliness which had infused
Cassandra's whole being as she fought her silent battle
during the long drive, still enveloped her. If she could
have followed her impulses, she would have held out both
hands and cried : "Take me and love me. I am David's
wife." But she would not — she must not. Her heritage
of faith in goodness — both of God and man — kept her
heart open, and gave her power to think and act rightly
in this her hour of terrible trial ; even as a little child,
being behind the veil which separates the soul from God,
may, in its innocent prattle, utter words of superhuman
wisdom.

"I am sorry if I have interrupted you when you have
company," she said slowly. "I am a stranger — an
American."

"Ah, you Americans are a happy lot and may go where
you please. Take this seat by the window; it is very
warm. My son has been in America, but he tells us so
little, we are none the wiser for that, about your part of
the world."

I knew him in America. That is why I called."
Yes.'^" The mother bent forward and regarded her
curiously, attentively.

"He lived very near us. He did a great deal of good —
among the poor." She put her hand to her slender white
throat, then dropped it again in her lap. Then, looking
in Lady Thryng's eyes, she said: "I have seen your pic-
ture. I should have known you from that, but you are
more beautiful."

if

284 The Mountain Girl

"Oh! That can hardly be, my dear! It was taken
many years ago, you know."

"Yes, he said so — his lordship — only there we called
him Doctah Thryng."

A shadow flitted over the mother's face. "He was a
practitioner over there — never in England."

"That is a pity; it is such noble work. But perhaps
he has other things to do here."

"He has — even more noble work than the practice of
medicine."

"What does he do here?" asked Cassandra, in a low
voice.

"He must take part in the affairs of government. Very
ordinary men may study and practise medicine, but unless
men who are wise, and are nobly born and bred, make it
their business to care for the affairs of their country, the
nation w^ould sooh be wrecked. That is what saves Eng-
land and makes her great."

"I see." Cassandra sat silent then, and Lady Thrjmg
waited expectantly for her errand to be declared, curious
about this beautiful young creature who had stepped into
her home unannounced from out of the unknown, yet
graciously kindly and unhurried. " I think I know. With
us men are too careless. They think it isn't necessary,
I suppose." Again she paused with parted lips, as if she
would speak on, but could not.

"With you, men are too busy making money, I am told.
It is necessary to have a leisure class like ours."

"Oh!" Cassandra caught her breath and smiled.
She was thinking of the silver pot her mother had enjoined
her to take with her, and why. "But we do think a great
deal of family ; even the simplest of us care for that, al-
though we have no leisure class — only the loafers. I'm
afrai4 you think it very strange I should come to you in
this way, but I — thought I would like to see Doctah
Thryng again, and when I heard he was not in England, I
thought I would come to you and bring the messages
from those who loved him when he was with us. But
I mustn't stop now and take your time. I'll write them
instead, only that wouldn't be like seeing him. He stayed
a whole year at our place."

"And you came from Canada.'*"

Cassandra at Queensderry 285

"Oh, no. A long way from there. My home is in
North Carolina."

"Oh, indeed ! How very interesting ! That must
have been when he was so ill." Then, noticing Cassandra's
extreme pallor, she begged her most kindly to come out on
the terrace and have tea; but she would not. She felt
her fortitude giving way, and knew she must hasten. "But
you must, you know. The heat and your long ride have
made you faint."

"I — I'm afraid so. It — won't — last."

"Wait, then. You must take a little wine; you need
it." Roused to sympathy. Lady Thryng left her a mo-
ment and returned immediately with a glass of wine, which
she held to her lips with her own hand. "There, you will
soon be better. Here is a fan. It really is very warm.
Indeed, you must have tea before you go."

She took her passive hand and led her out on the terrace
unresisting, and again Cassandra was minded to throw her
arms about the lovely woman's neck, who was so sweet
and kind, and sob on her bosom and tell her all — but David
had his own reasons, and she would not.

"Do you stay long in England?"

"I am going to-morrow. Oh !" she exclaimed, as they
stepped out, and she saw the number of elaborately dressed
guests moving about and gayly chatting and laughing.
"I can't go out there. I am a strangah." It was a low
melancholy wail as she said it, and long afterward Lady
Thryng remembered that moaning cry, "I am a strangah.'*

"No, no. You are an American and a very beautiful
one. Come, they will be glad to meet you. Give me
your name again."

"Thank you — but I must — must go back." Sud-
denly, with a cry, "My baby, he is mine," she swept
forward with long, swinging steps toward a group who were
bending over a rosy-cheeked girl, who was seated on the
steps of the terrace with a child in her arms. She was
comforting him and cuddling and petting him, and those
around her were exclaiming as young girls will : " Isn't he
a dear ! " — " Oh, let me hold him a moment ! " — '* There,
he is going to cry again. No wonder, poor little chap ! " —
" Oh, look at his curls — so cunning — give him to

me."

286 The Mountain Girl

Seeing his mother, he put up his arms to her and smiled,
while two tears rolled down his round baby cheeks.

*'I found him in the pony carriage with Hetty Giles,
and he was crying so — and such a darling ! I just took
him away — the love !" cried Laura. *'Why, we saw you
yesterday at the Victoria. I could not pass him by, you
remember?"

The baby, one beaming smile, nestled his face bashfully
in his mother's neck and patted her cheek, glancing side-
wise at his admirers through brimming tears, while Cas-
sandra, her eyes large and pathetic, turned now on Laura,
now on her mother, stood silent, quivering like one of her
own mountain creatures brought to bay. But she was
strengthened as she felt her baby again in her arms, and as
she stood thus looking about her, every one became silent,
and she was constrained to speak. She did not know
that something in her manner and appearance had com-
manded silence — something tragic — despairing. It was
but for an instant, then she turned to Lady Laura.

'* Thank you for comforting him. I ought not to have
left him. I nevah did before, with strangahs." She tried
to bid Lady Thryng good-by, but Laura again besought
her to stop and have tea.

"Please do. I fairly adore Americans. I want to talk
to you ; I mean, to hear you talk."

Cassandra had mastered herself at last, and replied
quietly : "I don't guess I can stay, thank you. You have
been so kind." Then she said to Lady Thryng, "Good-
by," and moved away. Laura walked by her side to the
carriage.

"I hope you'll come again sometime, and let me know

you."

"You are right kind to say that. I shall nevah forget."
Then, leaning down from the carriage seat, and looking
steadily in Laura's warm, dark eyes, she added: "No, I
shall nevah forget. May I kiss you?"

"You sweet thing!" said the girl, impulsively, and,
reaching up, they kissed. Cassandra said in her heart,
"For David," and was driven away.

Laura found her mother standing where they had left
her. She had been deeply stirred by the sight of Cassandra
with the child in her arms. Not that beautiful mothers

Cassandra at Queensderry 287

and lovely children were rare in England; but that, ex-
cept for the children of the poor, no little one like this had
been in her own home or so near her in all the years of her
widowhood. It was the sight of that strong mother love,
overpowering and sweeping all before it, recognizing no
lesser call — the secret and holy power that lies in the
Christ-mother, for all periods and all peoples — she herself
had felt it — and the cry that had burst from Cassandra's
lips, "My baby — he is mine." Tears stood in Lady
Thryng's eyes, and yet it was such a simple little thing.
Mothers and babies ? Why, they were everywhere.

" She moved like a tragic queen," said Lady Clara.
"What was the matter ?"

" Nothing, only her baby had been crying; but wasn't
he a love ?" said Lady Laura.

"I say ! He was a perfect dear !" said one and another.

"I don't care much for babies," said Lady Clara.
"They ought to be trained to stay with their nurses and
not cry after their mammas like that. Fancy having
to take such a child around with one everywhere, even
in making a formal call, you know ! Isn't it absurd ?
American women spoil their children dreadfully, I have
heard."

CHAPTER XXXI

IN WHICH DAVID AND HIS MOTHER DO NOT AGREE

The day after Cassandra's flight from Queensderry
David returned. Although greatly prolonged, his African
expedition had been successful, and he was pleased. He
had improved his opportunities to learn political conditions
and know what might best advance England's power
in that remote portion of her possessions.

Mr. Stretton had informed him that he might soon be
called to a seat in the House, and he was glad to be in
a measure prepared to hold opinions of his own on a few,
at least, of the vital issues. Canada he already knew well,
and to be conversant also with the state of affairs in
South Africa gave him greater confidence.

The first afternoon of his return he spent in looking over
the changes which had been in progress at Daneshead
during his absence. In spite of his weariness, he seemed
buoyant and gay, more so, his mother thought, than at
any time since his return from America. She said noth-
ing about the episode of Cassandra's call, — possibly for
the time it was forgotten, — but as they parted for the
night, w^hen they were alone together. Lady Thryng again
broached to her son the subject of his marriage.

*'We have had a visit from Lady Clara Temple," she
said.

David lay upon a divan with his hands clasped beneath
his head, and the light from a reading lamp streamed upon
his sunny hair, which always looked as if some playful
breeze had just lifted it. His whole frame had the sin-
ewy appearance of energy and power. His mother's
heart swelled with love and pride as she looked at his
smiling, thoughtful face, and down upon his lean, strong
body that in its lassitude expressed the vigor of a splen-
did animal at rest.

288

David and his Mother 289

Still more would she have given thanks for the resto-
ration of this beloved son could she have been able to con-
trast his present state with his condition when, ill and
discouraged, he had gone to the lonely log cabin in a
wilderness, struggling to build up both body and spirit,
far from the sympathy and fellowship of his own.

Now she thrilled with the thought of what he might
achieve if only he would, but her heart misgave her that
he still held some strange notions of life. She thought
the surest way to control his quixotic impulses was to
provide him with a good, practical wife, — one who would
see the world as it is and accept conditions that are stable,
not trying to move mountains, yet with sufficient am-
bition for both her husband and herself. With a wife and
children a man could not afford to be erratic.

*'WTiat were you saying, mother?"

*'^Vhat were you thinking, David, that you did not
hear me ? I am telling you we have just had a very de-
lightful visit from Lady Clara Temple, and Lady Temple
and her son have called."

David made no reply. He seemed to think the remark
called for none. " Well, David ? "

"Well, mother ? " and then : "I think I will go to bed.
I am rarely tired, and bed is the place for me." He kissed
his mother, then took hold of her chin and lifted her face
to look in his eyes. "What is it, little mother, what is
it ?" he asked gayly and obtusely.

"Aren't you a bit stupid, David, not to see ? I wish
— I do wash you could care for Lady Clara. She really
is charming."

" I do care for her — as Lady Clara Temple. She is
charming, and, as you say of me, a bit stupid. What
has Laura been doing these two months ? "

"Preparing for her coming out after her own fashion.
We've been a good deal in town, but she has a reckless way
of doing anything she pleases, quite regardless."

"She is a big-hearted fine lass, mother. Don't let her
ways trouble you."

"She needs the right influence, and Lady Clara seems
to exert it over her — at least I think she will in time."

"Ah, very good, let her. I won't interfere. Good
night, little mother; sleep well. If I am late in the morning,

290 The Mountain Girl

don*t be annoyed. I've had three wakeful nights. The
sea was very rough."

"David ! " Lady Thryng placed her hands on his shoul-
ders and held him, looking in his eyes. " Marry Lady
Clara. You are worthy of a princess, my son. You
can afford to be ambitious. The day may come when
you can entertain the king."

"Now really, mother; I'll entertain the king with
pleasure. He's a fine old chap. A little gay, you know,
but quite the right sort. But Lady Clara is a step too
high. She'd rub it into me some day that I'd married
above my station, you know. Good night. Dream of the
king, mother, but not of Lady Clara."

He sought his bed, and was soon soundly sleeping,
content with the thought that next week he would sail
for America and have Laura's coming out postponed.
The family festivity was following too closely on the year
of mourning, at any rate. The announcement that he
already had a penniless American wife would naturally
be a blow to them, all the more so if his mother was
seriously cherishing such hopes as she had expressed ;
but he couldn't be a cad. His conscience smote him that
his conduct already bordered closely on the caddish, but
to be an out and out cad, — no, no.

When he awoke, — late, as he had said, but refreshed
and jubilant, — the revelation he must make seemed to him
less formidable, and he was minded to make it with no
more delay as he tossed over his mail, while breakfasting
in his room.

"Ah, what is this ?'^ A letter in his wife's hand, bear-
ing the Liverpool postmark ! Was she on her way to him,
then ? "Good God ! " He tore off the cover hastily, but
sat a moment with bowed head, his hand over his eyes,
before reading it.

" My dear David, — My husband, forgive me. I have
done wrong, but I meant to do right. They said words
of you, — on our mountain, David, — words I hated ;
and I lied to them and came to you. I told them you
had sent for me. I did it to prove to them that what
they were saying was not true. I took the money you
gave me and came to England, and now God has punished

David and his Mother 291

me, and I am going back. I know you will be surprised
when I tell you how wrong I have been. I would not
write you I had borne you a little son, because I did not
want you to come back to America for his sake, but
for mine. My heart was that proud. Oh ! David, for-
give me." David's face grew pale, and the paper trem-
bled in his hand, but he read eagerly on.

" My heart cries to you all the time. He is yours, David;
forgive me. He is very beautiful. He is like you. Your
sister held him in her arms, and I kissed her for love of
you, but she did not know why. She did not guess the
beautiful baby was yours — your very own. Your
mother saw him, but she did not guess he was hers —
her little grandson. I took him away quickly. They
might have kept him if they knew. You will let me have
him a little longer, won't you, David ? When he is older,
you will have to take him home and educate him, but
now — now — he is all I have of you. Soon the terrible
ocean will be between us again.

"It will be just the same in your home now as if I had
never come. I did not say I was your wife — for you
had not — and I would not tell them. I want you to
know this, so nothing will be changed by me. In London,
before I knew, when I thought you were there, when I
did not understand, I wrote my name in the hotel book,
but in Queensderry something in my heart stopped me
and I only wrote my old name, Cassandra Merlin. I must
have been beginning to understand."

David paused and dashed the tears from his eyes.
"Poor little heart! Poor little heart!" he cried. He
paced the room, then tried to read again. The letters,
blurred by his tears, seemed to dance about and run
together.

"Now I see it all clearly, David, and, after a little, God
will help me to live on the happiness you brought me in
our sweet year together. There was happiness for a
lifetime in that year. Comfort your heart with that
thought when you think of me, and do not be too sad.

"Oh, David ! I did not know that to save me from
marrying Frale and living a life worse than death you
sacrificed yourself. But you did not need to do it. After
knowing you and after doing what he did to you, I

292 The Mountain Girl

never could have married him. I only knew you came
to me and saved me from the terrible life I might have
led, and I took you as from God. I have seen the beau-
tiful lady you should have married, and I don't know
what to do, nor how to give you back to yourself. I
suppose there may be a way, but we have made our vows
to each other before God, and we must do no sin. My
heart is heavy. I would give you all, all, but I can't
take back the love I gave you. I could die to set you
free again, for in that way I could keep the blessed love
which is part of my soul, in heaven with me, only for our
little son. My life is his now, too, and I have no right to
die, not yet, even to set you free.

"Oh, David, David ! This must be the shadow I saw
clouding our long path of light. In some terrible way
it has been laid on me to do you a wrong in the eyes of
your family and all your world. Your mother told me
you had work to do for your country, great and glorious
work. I believe it, and you must do it and not let an
ignorant mountain girl stand in your way.

*'0h ! I can't think it out to-night. When I try to see
a way, I can't. The visions are lost to my eyes, and they
may never come again. The windows of my soul are
clouded, and the clear seeing is gone, because, David, I
know it is myself that comes between. I can only cry
to you now to forgive me. Don't let me mar your great,
good life. Don't try to come back to me. Stay on and
live your life and do your work, and I will keep your little
son safe for you, and teach him to love you and call you
father, and he shall be called David. He has no name
yet ; I was waiting for you. It will only be a little while
before he will need you, then you may take him. Your
mother and sister will love him. He will be a great boy
full of laughter and light, like you, David, and then your
mountain girl wife will be gone and your sacrifice at an
end, and your reward will come at last.

"I will go back and stay quietly where I belong. Don't
send me any more money. I have enough to take me
home, and I can earn all we need after that. Earning
will help me by giving me something to do for our baby
and so for you. Sometimes I will send you word that all
is well with him, but do not write to me any more. It

David and his Mother ^93

will be easier for you so, and don't let your heart be too
much troubled for me, David. It will interfere with your
power and usefulness in your own world. Grieving is
like fire set to a great tree. It burns the heart out of it
first, and leaves the rest. A man must not be like that.
With a woman it is different. Be glad that you did save
me and brought me all these months of sweet, sweet
happiness. I will live on the remembrance.

"People have to bear the separation of death, and we
will call the ocean that divides us Death, for our two
worlds are divided by it. I sail to-morrow. You took
me into your heart to save me, and now, David my love,
I go out of your heart to save you, and give you back
to your own life. Some day the cords that bind us to
each other, the cords our vows have made, will part and
set you free. Good-by, good-by, David my heart,
David my love, David, David, good-by.

" Cassandra Merlin."

For a long instant David sat with the letter crushed in
his hand, then suddenly awoke to energetic action.

"To-day.? When does the boat leave? Good God!
there may be time." He rang for a servant and began
tossing his clothing together. " Curses on me for a cad
— a boor — a lout — Why did I leave my mail until
this morning and then oversleep ! Clark," he said,
as the man appeared, "tell Hicks to bring the machine
around immediately, then come for my bag."

"Beg pardon, but the machine's out of order, my lord,
and her ladyship's just going out in the carriage."

"Why is it out of order? Hicks is a fool. Ask Lady
Thryng to wait. No, pack my bag and send my boxes
on after me as they are. I'll speak to her myself."

He threw off his jacket, thrust his cap in his pocket, and
dashed away, pulling on his coat as he went, holding the
crushed pages of the letter in his hand. He overtook his
mother as she was walking down the terrace.

" Mother, wait," he cried, "I'm going with you, Where's
Laura ? "

"She was coming. I can't think what is delaying her."

David hurried on to the carriage. " Get in, mother,
I'll take her place. Get in, get in. We must be off."

294 The Mountain Girl

"David, are you out of your head ? "

*' Yes, mother. Drive on, drive on. I must catch
the first train for Liverpool — I may catch it. Put the
horses through, John. Make them sweat,'* he said, lean-
ing out of the carriage window.

*' Explain yourself, David. Are you in trouble .f*"

*'Yes, mother. Wait a little."

She looked at her son and saw his mouth set, his eyes
stern and anguished, and she placed her hand gently on
his as they were being whirled away. "Your bags are
not in, David, if you are going a journey."

"Clark will follow with them, and I can wait in Liver-
pool, if I can only catch this boat."

"David, explain. If you can't, then let me read this,"
she pleaded, touching the letter in his hand; but he
clutched it the tighter.

"No one may read this, not even you." He pressed
the crumpled sheets to his lips, then folded them care-
fully away. "It's just that I've been a cad — a fiendish
cad and an idiot in one. I thought myself a man of high
ideals — My God, I am a cad ! "

"David, you sacrificed yourself to ideals, but you are
still a boy and have much to learn. When men try to
set new laws for themselves and get out of the ordinary,
they are more than apt to make fools of themselves, and
may do positive harm. What is it now ? "

"Can't you get over the ground any faster, John?"
he cried, thrusting his head again out of the window.
"These horses are overfed and lazy, like all the English
people. Why was the machine out of order ? Hicks
is a fool — I say !" He put his hand inside his collar
and pulled and worked it loose. "We are all hidebound
here. Even our clothes choke us."

"David, tell me the truth."

"I am telling you the truth. I ain a cad, I say. And
you — you, too, are a part of the system that makes
cads of us all."

"I am your mother, David," said Lady Thryng,
reprovingly.

"You have reason to be proud of your son! Oh!
curse me ! I won't be more of a cad than I am now by
laying the blame on you. I could have helped it, but

David and his Mother 295

you couldn't. We are born and bred that way, over here.
The petty lines of distinction our ancestors drew for us,
— we bow down and worship them, and say God drew
them. Over here a man hides the sun with his own
hand and then cries out, 'Where is it.^'"

"I would comfort you if I could, but this sounds very
much like ranting. I thought you had outlived that sort
of thing, my son."

"Thank God, no. I've been very hard pressed of late,
but I've not outlived it."

*'You will tell me this trouble — now — before you
leave me "^ You must, dear boy." He took the hand
she put out to him, and held it in silence ; then, inco-
herently, in a voice humbled and low, — almost lost in
the rumbling of the carriage, — he told her. It was a
revelation of the soul, and as the mother listened she
too suffered and wept, but did not relent.

Cassandra's cry, "I am a strangah!" sounded in her
ears, but her sorrow was for her son. Yes, she was a
stranger, and had wisely taken herself back to her own
place ; what else could she do ? Was it not in the nature
of a Providence that David had been delayed until after
her departure ? The duty now devolved upon herself
to comfort him without further reproof, but nevertheless
to make him see and do his duty in the position he had
been called to fill.

I "Of course she has charm, David, and evidently good
sense as well."

"How do you mean.^"

"To perceive the inevitable and return without fuss
or complaint to her own station in life."

For an instant he sat stunned, and ere he could give
utterance to his rage, she resumed, "Naturally, marriage
now, in your own class can't be; you'll simply have
to live as a bachelor." David groaned. "Why, my
son, many do, of their own choice, and you have man-
aged to be happy during this year."

He glanced at his watch. "Eleven o'clock, — can't — "

"There's no use urging the horses so; we can't make
it."

"We may, mother, we may." He half rose as if he
would leap from the vehicle. "I could go faster on foot.

296 The Mountain Girl

There's a quarter of an hour yet before the Liverpool
express. John, can't we get on faster than this?"

"No, my lord. One of the 'orses has picked up a
stone. If you'll 'old 'em I'll dig it out in 'alf a minute,
my lord."

David sprang out and took the reins. "Where's the
footman .f^" he asked testily.

"You left 'im behind, my lord. He was 'elping Lady
Laura cut roses."

" David, this is useless. The last train from London
went through an hour ago and we haven't ten minutes for
the next. Order him to return and we'll consider calmly."

David laughed bitterly, and only sprang into the coach
and shut the door with a crash. " Drive on, John," he
shouted through the window, and again they were off at a
mad gallop.

His mother turned and looked at him astounded. " Let
me read what she has written you, my son," she implored,
half frightened at his frenzy.

" It's of no use for you to read it. We can't talk now,
not rationally."

" Then tell him not to drive so furiously, so we can hear
each other."

*' I would avoid useless discussion, mother, but you
force it." An instant he paused, and his teeth ground
together and his jaw set rigidly, then he continued with a
savage force that appalled her, throwing out short sen-
tences like daggers. " Lord H brings home an Ameri-
can wife. His family are well pleased. She is every where
received. Her father is a rich brewer. Her brother has
turned out his millions from the business of pork packing.
The stench from his establishment polutes miles of coun-
try, but does not reach England — why ? Because of the
disinfectant process of transmuting their greasy American
dollars into golden English sovereigns. There's justice."

" Be reasonable, David. Their estates were involved
to the last degree and those sovereigns saved the family.
Without them they would have passed out of their pos-
session utterly, and been divided among our rich trades-
people, and the family would have descended rapidly to
the undergrades. It goes to show the value of birth, what
is more, and how those Americans, who made^ a pretence

David and his Mother ^97

long ago of scorning birth and title and casting it all off,
are glad enough now to buy their way back again, if not
for themselves, for their children. But, David, for a man
to voluntarily degrade his family by marrying beneath
him, with no such need as that of Lord H , of ulti-
mately by that very means lifting it up is — is — inexpres-
sible — why — ! In the case of Lord H there was a

certain nobility in marrying beneath him."

" Beneath him ! For me, I married above me, over all
of us, when I took my sweet, clean mountain girl. The

nobility of Lord H is unique. Lady H made a

poor bargain when she left the mingled stenches of brew-
ing and butchering to step into the moral stench which
depleted the Stonebreck estates."

*' You are not like my son, David. You are violent."

" Your son has been a cad. Now he is a man, and
must either be violent or weep." He looked away from
her out at the flying hedgerows, then took up the fruit-
less discussion again, striving with more patience to arouse
in his mother a sense of the utter w^orldliness of her stand.
She met him at every point with the obtuse and age-long
arguments of her class. When at last he cried out, " But
what of my son, mother, my little son, and the heir to all
this grandeur which means so much to you ? Her eye-
lids quivered and she looked down, merely saying, " His
mother has offered you a solution to that difficulty which
seems to me the only wise one. You say she proposes to
keep him a year or two and then send him to us."

*' Ah, you are like steel, mother." David spoke plead-
ingly, *' You thought him a beautiful child ? "

*' I did, and a wholesome one, which goes to show that
you may safely trust him with her for a time. Moreover, his
mother has a right to him and the comfort she may find
in him for a few years. You see I would be quite just to
her. I do not accuse her of being designing in marrying
you. No doubt it was quite your own fault. It is a posi-
tion you two young people rushed into romantically and
most foolishly, and you must both suffer the consequences.
It is sad, but it must be regarded in the light of hard
common sense, and my ungrateful task seems to be to
place it in that light for both your sakes."

Still David watched the hedgerows with averted face.

298 The Mountain Girl

" You are listening, David ? "

" Yes, mother, yes. Common sense you said."

"Can't you see, that to bring her here, where she does
not belong — where she never will be received as belong-
ing, even though she is your wife — will only cause
suffering to you both ? Eventually misunderstandings
will arise, then will come alienation and unhappiness.
Then again, yours must be in a measure a public life,
unless you mean to shirk responsibility. Has your
country no claim on you ? "

"I have no thought of shirking my duty, and am
prepared to think and act also — "

"You wish it to be effective .f* Has it never occurred
to you how your avenues will be cut off if you marry a
wife beneath your class ? "

"What in God's name will my wife have to do with
England's African policy.'^ Damme — "

"David!"

"Mother — I beg your pardon — "

"She may have everything to do with it. No man
can stand alone and foist his ideas upon such a body of
men, without backing. Instead of hampering yourself
with an ignorant mountain girl from America, you should
have allied yourself to a strong family of position here, if
you would be a power in England. What sort of a Lady
Thryng will your present wife make ? What kind of a
leader socially in your own class ? You might better try
to place a girl from the bogs of Ireland at the head of your
table."

Again David's rage surged through him in a hot wave,
but he controlled himself. " You admitted Cassandra
has both beauty and charm ?**

"Would my son have been attracted to her else?
Nevertheless, what I say stands. As a help to you — "

"You have done your duty, mother. I will say
this for you — that for sophistry undiluted, a woman
of the present day who stands where you do, can
out-Greek the ancients. How is it we see so differ-
ently ? Is it that I am like my father? How did he
see things ? "

" Your father was as much a nobleman as your uncle.
Only by the accident of birth was he differently placed.

David and his Mother 299

Did I never tell you that but for his death he would have
been created bishop of his diocese ? So you see — "

** I see. By dying he just escaped a bishopric. Did it
make a difference in his reception up above — do you
think ? "

*'0h, David, David!"

*'I'm sorry mother — never mind. We're nearly there
and I have something I must say to you before I leave
you to end this discussion forever. There are two kinds
of men in this world, — one sort is made by his circum-
stances, and the other makes his circumstances. You
would respect your son more if he belonged to the first
variety, but I tell you no. I will make my own condi-
tions. Before all else, I am a man. My lordship was
thrust upon me. Don't interrupt, I beg, I know all
you would say, but you do not know all I would say —
My birth gave it to me certainly, but a cruel and bloody
war was the means by which it came to me. Very well.
I will take it and the responsibility which it entails;
but the cruelty that brought me my title is ended and in
no form shall it be continued, social or otherwise. I hold
to the rights of my manhood. I will bring to England
whom I please as my wife, and my world shall recognize
her, and you will receive her because I bring her, and be-
cause she will stand head and soul above any one you
have here to propose for me. Here we are, mother
dear. One kiss ? Thank you, thank you. Postpone
Laura's coming out until — I return — which will be —
when — vou know."

He leaped from the carriage before it had time to halt,
and ran, but alas ! bajffled and enraged at his ill success,
he stood on the platform and watched the train pull
out. It was only a slow local puffing away there.

"Liverpool express left five minutes ago, my lord,"
said the guard.

His mother leaned out, watching him with sad, yet
eager eyes, satisfied that it should be so. He might re-
turn now, and there was by no means an end to her
opposition.

CHAPTER XXXII

IN WHICH CASSANDRA BRINGS THE HEIR OF DANESHEAD
CASTLE BACK TO HER HILLTOP, AND THE SHADOW LIFTS

"Cassandry Merlin, whar did you drap from ? " cried
the Widow Farwell, as she looked up from the supper she
was preparing at the great fireplace, and saw her daughter
in the doorway with her baby. Her old face radiated
light and warmth and love as she took them both in her
arms. "Whar's David .^';

Cassandra smiled wearily, returning her mother's kiss
and yielding her the baby. "You'll have to be satisfied
with me and little son, mother. David was still in Africa,
so I came home again." She spoke as if a trip to England
were a casual little matter, and this was all the explana-
tion she gave that night. "I got the hotel carriage to
bring me up from the station."

The mother, with quaint simplicity, accepted it, asking
no troublesome questions. If David was not there, why
should not her daughter return. After their supper to-
gether, in the warm, starlit evening, each member of
the family carrying something for the traveller's comfort,
they all climbed up to Cassandra's cabin, and the old life
began as if it had suffered no interruption. Cassandra
so filled the pauses with questions of all that had happened
during her absence that it was only after her mother was
in bed and dropping off to sleep she remembered ques-
tions of her own that had been unasked, or left unan-
swered.

The next day Cassandra pleaded weariness and stayed
in her cabin, sending Martha down for her necessary
supplies, and quietly occupying herself with setting her
simple home in its accustomed order. The day after,
she spent overlooking the little farm with Cotton, and
hearing from him all about the animals. The cows, two
little calves, Frale's colt, and her own filly, and how "some

300

The Shadow Lifts 301

ol' houn' dog'* had got into the sheep-pen and killed the
mother sheep, and "Marthy" had brought the twin
lambs up by hand. And while Cassandra busied herself
thus, the widow kept charge of the little grandson, warm-
ing her heart with his baby ways, petting him and solacing
herself for his long absence.

Thus the first days were lived through, and no further
explanation made, for something held Cassandra silent
in a strange waiting suspense. It was not hope, for she
felt that she had taken a stand which was conclusive,
and there was nothing more for which to hope. What
else could she do, and what could David do ^ The con-
ditions were made for them ; each must bide in his own
world, and she had named the ocean which divided them,
**Death."

At night she did not weep, for weeping made her ill,
and she must conserve her strength for her little son, so
she lay staring out at the stars. Sometimes she found
herself holding her breath and listening, — half lifting
her head from her pillow, — but listening for what ?
Then she would lean over her baby's cradle, and hear
his soft breathing, trying to make herself think she was
listening for that and not for David's step. Then she
would lie back and try again to sleep, and her heart would
cry to God to give her peace, and let her rest. So the
long nights passed, tearlessly and sleeplessly.

On the boat she had slept, lulled by its rocking and
swaying, but here in her home — in her accustomed
routine — sleep had fled, and old thoughts and dreams
came like the dead to haunt her. The paleness which
had come upon her in London, and which the sea breeze
had supplanted with fleeting roses, returned, and she
moved about looking as if only her wraith had come back
to its old haunts.

On the third day after Cassandra's return, David
found himself climbing the laurel path a far different
man from the one who, two years before, had slowly
and wearily toiled up to the little house of logs which was
to be his shelter. With strong, free step and heart up-
lifted and glad, he now climbed that winding path. He
had conquered the ills of his body, and his spirit had lived
and loved, and he had learned to know happiness from

302 The Mountain Girl

its counterfeit. He had gone out and seen men chasing
phantoms and shadows thinking therein to find joy — joy
— the need of the world — one in a coronet, one in a
crown, and the beggar in a golden sovereign — while he —
he had found it in his own heart and in Cassandra's eyes.

David had passed the Fall Place, seeing no one ; for the
widow had ridden over to spend the day with Sally Carew,
her niece was in the spring-house skimming cream, while
Cotton was dawdling in the corn patch whistling and
pulling the ripened ears from the stalks. A cool breeze
had dispelled the heat of the September afternoon, and
the hills were already beginning to don their gorgeous
apparel after the summer's drouth ; their wonderful
beauty struck him anew and steeped his senses with their
charm.

If only gjl was well with his wife — his wife and his
little son ! His heart beat so madly as he neared the
thicket of laurel where once he had stood to w^atch her
moving about his cabin, that he was forced to pause;
and again he saw her, standing in her homespun dress,
strongly relieved against the whiteness of the canvas
room beyond — but this time not alone — Ah, not alone !
Holding his little son in her arms, her body swaying with
rhythmic motion, lulling him to drowsiness and sleep,
she stooped to lay him in the rude little cradle box.

David trembled as he watched, and dashed the tears
from his eyes, but could not move to break too soon this
breathless, poignant spell of gladness. Suddenly he
could wait no longer, but his feet clung to the earth when
he would move, and his mouth went dry. Ah, could he
never reach her ? He stood holding out his arms, when,
oh, wonder of wonders ! she raised herself and stood as
if listening, then, moving swiftly, walked from the cabin
and came to him as if she had heard him call, although
he had made no sound — her arms outstretched to him
as were his to her.

She did not cry out, but with parted lips and radiant,
glowing face, fled to him and was clasped to his heart.
She could feel its beating against her breast, and his
silence spoke to her through his eyes, which saw not her
face but her soul ; his lips brought the roses to her cheeks
as the sea breezes had done — roses that came and fled

The Shadow Lifts 303

and came again — until at last it was Cassandra who
spoke first.

"I want you to see him, David."

"Yes, yes, my wife," was all he said, his eyes on hers,
but he did not move.

"I want you to see our little son, David." A strange
pang shot through his heart. Still he stood, holding her
and marvelling at himself. What ! Was it that this young
usurper had stolen into his place ?

"Love is selfish, dear. Let me recover from one joy
before you overwhelm me with another. First, I must
have my own, and know that it is all mine."

"I don't understand, David. I can't wait. Oh!
David — David!"

"You turn my name to music with your tones lingering
over it. I had forgotten how sweet it was."

"But I don't understand, David. Come and see him."
And as she drew him forward, they moved as one being,
not two.

"No, you don't understand, thank God. But I will
teach you something you never knew. Love is not only
blind, dearest ; he is a greedy, selfish little god."

Then she laughed happily, holding him at arm's-length
and looking in his eyes. "I know it. I know it. I
found it out all by myself. Didn't I tell you in my letter ?
Oh, David, so was I !" She drew him to her again and
nestled her face in his bosom. "I was jealous of our little
son. I wanted you, David — Oh ! I wanted you." At
last came the tears, the blessed human tears which she had
held back so long. But now they did no harm except to
drench her husband's gray tie, and they brought a lovely
flush to her face. "I can't stop, David; I can't stop. I
haven't cried for so long, and now I can't stop."

"Sweetheart, don't try to stop. Cry it all out. Wash
the stains from me of the cruel old world where I have been ;
cleanse me so that I may see as clearly as you see ; but you
would have to cry forever to do that, wouldn't you, sweet ?
And soon you must laugh again."

He clasped and comforted her as she was used to comfort
her baby, soothing her and drying her eyes with his own
handkerchief. "Yours isn't large enough for such a
flood, is it, sweet ? "

304 The Mountain Girl

"No, a — a — and I — I can-can't find mine," she
sobbed. "I — I — left it tucked under baby's chin —
and now I've spoiled your pretty gray tie."

" Bless you ! They are my tears, and it is my tie — "

'* David ! He is crying — hark ! "

*' Helping his mother, is he "^ Come then, his father will
comfort him."

"Hear him. Isn't it a sweet little cry, David .f^" She
smiled at him from under tear- wet lashes.

"Why, bless you again ! Yours was a sweet little cry."
They w^ent in, and he bent over the odd little cradle and
lifted the child tenderly from its soft nest. The wailing
ceased, and the fatherhood awoke in him and laughed with
joy as he held the warm little body to his heart, wherein
now, he knew, lay the key of life — the complete and
rounded love, God's gift to man, to be cherished when
found, and fought for and held in the holy of holies of his
own soul.

"He isn't afraid, you see, David. How he stares at
you ! Does he feel it in his own little heart that you are
his father ? I have whispered it to him a thousand,
thousand times. Sit here with him, David, and I'll make
you some tea." She busied herself with the tea things
— the old life beginning anew — with a new interest.

"I always make it just as you taught me that first day
when I came up here so choked with trouble I couldn't
speak. You always brought me good, David."

He saw as he watched her that some new and subtile
charm had been added to her personality. Was it mother-
hood that had given it to her, or the long year of patient
waiting and trusting; or had she passed through depths
of which he as yet knew nothing, to cause this evanescent
breath of pathos ? He felt and knew it was all of these.
What must she have endured as she wrote that letter !

David fell easily and happily into his life on the moun-
tain again — not the English lord, but the vital, human
being, the man in splendid possession of himself and his
impulses, holding sacred his rights as a man, not to be
coerced by custom or bound by any chains save those he
himself had forged to bind his heart before God.

For a time he would not allow himself to think of the

The Shadow Lifts 305

future, preferring to live thus with the world completely
shut away. Buoyantly, jubilantly, he tramped the hills
and visited the homes where he had been wont to bring
help and often comforts, and found himself therein lauded
and idolized as few of his station ever are.
" Again he was "Doctah Thryng," and the love that
accompanied the title, in the hearts of those mountain
people, was regal. He enjoyed his little farm, and the
gathering of his first "crap," counting his bundles of
fodder and his bushels of corn. Sometimes he rode with
Cassandra, visiting the old haunts ; at such times David
insisted that the boy be left with the grandmother or that
Martha should come up to mind him, that he might have
his wife free and quite to himself as in their first days.

But all this time, although silent about it, Cassandra
kept in her heart the thought of David's real state. She
felt he was playing a part to bring her joy, and was grate-
ful, but she knew he must return to his own world and live
his own life. Therefore she existed in a state of breathless
suspense, to enjoy these moments to the fullest, — not to
miss or mar an instant of the blessed time while it lasted.

The days were flying — flying — so rapidly she dared
not think, and here was splendid October trailing her
wonderful draperies over the hills like a lavish princess.
When would David speak ? But perhaps he was waiting
for her to speak first ? If so, how long ought she to remain
silent ? Often he caught the wistful look in her eyes, and
half divined the meaning.

One day when they had wandered up her father's path,
and the mnd came in warm, soft gusts, sweeping over the
miles of splendor from the sea, David drew her to him,
determined to win from her a full expression.

"What is it, Cassandra? Open your heart. Don't
shut anything away from me. What have you been
dreaming lately .f^"

"You have never said a word of fault with me yet,
David — for what I did, going away off there and not
waiting quietly until you could come back, as you wrote
me to do."

"That was the bravest, finest thing you ever did — but
one." He was thinking of her renunciation.

"You are so good to forgive me, David. In one way it

/

306 The Mountain Girl

was better that I went, because it made me understand as
I never could have done otherwise. You would never have
told me, but now I know."

'* Unfold a little of this wisdom, so I may judge of its
value."

"Can you, David .^^ I'm afraid not. You have a way
of bewildering me, so I can't see the rights and wrongs of
things myself. But there ! It is just part of the dif-
ference. Why, even the nursemaids over there, and Hetty
Giles, the landlady's daughter, are wiser than I. I came
to see it every instant, the difference between you and
me — between our two worlds. David, how did you ever
dare marry me ?

He only laughed happily and kissed her. "Tell it all,'*
he said tenderly.

"I felt it first when I went to the town house. It was
hard to find the address. I only had Mr. Stretton's."
David set his teeth grimly in anger at himself at giving her
only his lawyer's address, in stupid fear lest her letters
betray him to his mother and sister.

"Now, do not hide one thing from me — not one," he
said sternly, and she continued, with a conscientious fear
of disobedience, to open her heart.

"I saw by the look in the old man's eyes that I had not
done the right thing, coming in that way with a baby in
my arms, like a beggar. I saw he was very curious, and
I was that proud I didn't know what to tell him I had come
for, when I found you were not there, so when he said
artists often came to see the gallery, I said I had come to
see the gallery; and David, I didn't even know what a
gallery was. I thought it was a high piazza around a
house, and I found it was a great room full of pictures.
I was that ignorant.

"I felt like I was some wild creature that had got lost
in that splendid palace and didn't know where to run to
get away; and they all fixed their eyes on me as if they
were saying : * How does she dare come here ? She isn't
one of us ! ' and one was a boy who looked like you. The
old man kept saying how like it was to the new Lord
Thryng, and it made me cold to hear it, — so cold that
after I had escaped from there and was out in the sun, my
teeth chattered."

The Shadow Lifts 307

David sat silent and humbled; at last he said: "Go
on, Cassandra. Don't cover up anything."

"When I got back to the hotel, everything seemed so
splendid and stuffy and horrid — and every way I turned
it seemed as if those dead ancestors of yours were there
staring at me still ; and I thought what right had they
over the living that they dared stand between you and me ;
and I was angry." She stirred in his arms, and pressed
closer to him. "David — forgive me — I can't tell it
over — it hurts me."

"Go on," he said hoarsely.

"The old man told me what was expected of you because
of them — how your mother wished you to marry a great
lady — and I knew they could never have heard of me —
and I forgot to eat my dinner and stayed in my room and
fought and fought with myself — I'm sorry I felt that way,
David. Don't mind. I understand now." She put up
her hand and touched his cheek, and he took it in his and
kissed it. Then she laughed a sad little laugh.

"Remember that funny little old silver teapot. Mother
brought it to me before I left, and I took it with me ! She
is so proud of our family, although she has only that poor
little pot to show for it, with its nose all melted off to make
silver bullets sure to kill. Did you know it was one of
those bullets Frale tried to kill you with ? Oh, David,
David!"

"And yet your mother is right, dear. That little
wrecked bit of silver helps to interpret you — indicates
your ancestors — how you come to be you — just as you
are. How could I ever have loved you, if you had been
different from what you are ?"

For a long moment she lay still — scarcely breathing —
then she lifted her head and looked in his eyes. One of her
silences was on her, and while her lips trembled as if to
speak, she said no word. He tried to draw her to him
again, but she held him off.

"Then tell me what it is," he said gently. But she only
shook her head and rose to walk away from him. He did
not try to call her back to him, respecting her silence, and
she moved on up the path with long, swift steps.

When she returned, he held out his arms to her, but she
stood before him looking down into his eyes, "I couldn't

308 The Mountain Girl

tell you sitting there with your arms around me, David,
and what I have to say must be said now ; I may never be
strong enough to say it another time, and it must be said."

Then she told him all that had occurred while she was in
Queensderry, from the moment she came, going down into
her heart and revealing the hidden thoughts never before
expressed even to herself, while he gazed back into her eyes
fascinated by her spiritual beauty which was her power.

She told of the chatter of Hetty Giles, and how she had
pointed out the beautiful lady his mother wished him to
marry — and how slowly everything had dawned upon
her — the real differences. Of the guests she had seen on
the Daneshead terrace and how they wore such lovely
dresses and moved so easily and laughed and talked all at
once, as if they were used to it all, and perhaps wore such
charming things for every day — the wonderful colors
and wide, beautiful hats with plumes — and how even the
servants wore pretty clothes and went about as if they all
knew how to do things, passing cups and plates.

Then she told of her talk with his mother and how care-
fully she had guarded her tongue lest a word escape her
he would rather not have had her speak. "I had wronged
you in not telling you you had a son, and I meant to leave
him with your mother so he could be raised right." She
paused, and put her hand to her throat, then went bravely
on. "Your mother was kind — she gave me wine — she
brought it to me herself. I knew what I ought to do, but
I wasn't strong enough. It seemed as if something here
in my breast was bleeding, and my baby would die if I
did it. When I came out, he was in your sister's arms and
had been crying, and it seemed as if all I had planned had
happened, and I took him and carried him away quickly.
I couldn't go fast enough, and I left the inn that night.
The world seemed all like Vanity Fair.^'

David rose and stood before her looking down into her
eyes. He could not control his voice in speaking, and she
felt his hands quiver as they rested on her shoulders.
"When did you read that book, Cassandra.? Where did
you find it ?" he asked, in dismay.

"Among your books in the cabin. I felt at first that it
must be a kind of a disgrace to be a lord — as if every one
who had a title or education must be mean and low, and

The Shadow Lifts 309

all the rest of the world over there must be fools; but
because of you, David, I knew better than to believe that.
Your mother is not like those women, either. She was
kind and beautiful, and — I — loved her, but all the more
I saw the difference. But now you have come to me and
made me strong, I can do it. Everything has grown clear
to me again, and I see how you gave yourself to me — to
save me — when you did not dream of what was to be for
you in the future; and out of your giving has come the
— little son, and he is yours. Wait ! Don't take me in
your arms." She placed her hands on his breast and held
him from her.

"So it was just now — when you spoke as if people
would understand me better because of that little silver
pot, showing I had somewhere in the past a name and a
family like theirs over there — I thought of 'Vanity Fair,'
and I hated it. I wish you had never seen it. There is,
nor has been, nothing on earth to make me possible for
you, now — your inheritance has come to you. I have
a pride, too, David, a different kind of pride from theirs.
You loved me first, I know, as I was — just me. It was
a foolish love for you to have, David dear, — but I know
it is true ; you could not have given yourself to save me
else, and I like to keep that thought of you in my heart,
big and noble and true — that you did love just me."
She faltered, but still held him from her. "Do you think
I would not do all I can to keep from spoiling your life
over there "^ "

"Stop, stop. It is enough," he cried. In spite of her-
self, he took her hands in his and drew her to him in peni-
tent tenderness. "I'm no great lord with wide distances
between me and your mountain world here, Cassandra;
never think it. I'm tremendously near to the soul of
things, and the man of the wilderness is strong in me.
One thing you have not touched upon. Tell me, what
did Frale say or do to you to so trouble you and send you
off?"

She stirred in his arms and waited, then murmured,
"He pestered me."

"Explain. Did he come often ?"

"Oh, no. He — I — he came one evening up to our
cabin, and — I sent him off and started next day."

310 The Mountain Girl

*' But explain, dearest. How did he act ? What was it ? "

She was silent, but drew her husband's head down and
hid her face in his neck. "There ! Never mind, love.
You needn't tell me if you don't wish."

"He kissed me and held me in his arms like they were
iron bands — and I hated it. He said you had gone away
never to come back, and that the whole mountain side knew
it ; and that he had a right to come and claim my promise
to him. Oh, David, David, this is the last. I have kept
nothing back from you now, nothing. My heart cried out
for you — like I heard you call — and I went — to — to
prove to them all that word was a lie. I knew nothing
they said here could touch you, but I couldn't bear that
the meanest hound living should dare think wrong of you.
Seems like I would have done it if I had had to crawl on
my knees and swim the ocean."

"My fingers tingle to grasp the throat of that young
man. I fought him for you once, and if it hadn't been for
a rolling stone under my foot, it would have been death
for one of us. As it was, I won — with you to save me
— bless you."

"Butnow, David— "

"Ah, but now — what ? Are you happy ? "

"That isn't what I mean. You have your future — "

"I have my now. It is all we ever have. The past is
gone, and lives only in our memories, and the future exists
only in anticipation ; but now — now is all we have or
can have. Live in it and love in it and be happy."

"But we must be wise. We've got to face it sometime.
Let — me help you — now while I have the strength,"
she pleaded earnestly.

But David only laughed out joyously, and looked at his
wife until she turned her face away from him. "Look
at me," he cried. "Dear, troubled eyes. Tears? Tears
in them ? Love, you have kept nothing back this time,
and now it is my turn, but I shall keep something back
from you. I'm not going to reprove your idolatry by turn-
ing iconoclast and throwing your miserable old idol down
from his pedestal all at once. I tell you what it is, though,
if I could feel that I was worthy of your smallest finger —
that I deserved only one of those big tears — there —
there — there ! Listen, dearest, I'll come to the point.

The Shadow Lifts 311

"Who is it now, making so much of the estimates of
the world ? Somehow our viewpoints have got mixed.
Sacrifice myself ? Why, Cassandra, if I were to lose you
out of my life, I should be a broken-hearted man. What
did I sacrifice ? Phantoms, vanities, and emptiness. Oh,
Cassandra, Cassandra, my priestess of all that is good !
Open your eyes, love, and see as I see — as you have
taught me to see.

" Much that we strive for and reckon as gain is really
worthless. Why, sweet, I would far, far rather have you
at your loom for the mother of my son, than Lady Clara
at her piano. Your heritage of the great nature — the
far-seeing — the trusting spirit — harboring no evil and
construing all things to righteousness — going out into the
world and finding among all the dust and dross, even of
centuries, only the pure gold — the eye that sees into a
man's soul, searching out the true and lovely qualities
there and transmuting all the rest into pure metal — my
own soul's alchemist — your heritage is the secret of
power."

'*! don't believe I understand all you are saying, David.
I only see that I have a very hard task before me, and now I
know it is hard for you, too. Your mother made it clear to
me that your true place is not living here as a doctor, even
though you do so much good among us. I saw all at once
that men are born each to fill a place in the world, and I
think each man's measure should be the height of his own
power and ability, nothing lower than that; and I see it

— your power will be there, not here, where it must be
limited by our limits and ignorance. That is your own
country over there. It claims you — and I — I — there
is the difference, you know. Think of your mother, and
then of mine. David, I must not — Oh, David ! You
must be unhampered — free — what can I — what can
wedo.^"

"We can just go down the mountain, sane beings, to
our own little cabin, belonging to each other first of all."
He took her hand and led her along the path, carpeted with
pine needles and fallen leaves. " And then, when you are
ready and willing — not before, love — we will go home

— to my home — just like this, together."

She caught her breath. "Listen, for I am seeing visions

312 The Mountain Girl

too, now, as you have taught me. I will lead you through
those halls and show you to all those dead ancestors, and
I will dress you in a silken gown, the color of the evening
star we used to watch together from our cabin door, and
around your neck I will hang the yellow pearls that have
been worn by all those great ladies who stared at you from
out their frames of gold the day you came alone and
unrecognized, bearing your priceless gift in your arms.
You shall wear the rich old lace of the family on your
bosom, and the jewelled coronet on your head ; and no one
will see the silk and the jewels and the lace, for looking at
you and at the gift you bring.

*'No, don't speak ; it is my turn now to see the pictures.
All will be yours, whatever you see and touch in those
stately homes — for you will be the Lady Thryng, and,
being the Lady Thryng, you will be no more wonderful
or beautiful than you were when you climbed to me,
following my flute notes, or w^hen you bent between me
and the fire preparing my supper, or when you were weav-
ing at your loom, or when you came to me from our cabin
door with your arms outstretched and the light of all the
stars of heaven in your eyes."

Then they were silent, a long silence, until, seated to-
gether in their cabin before a bright log fire, as she held
their baby to her breast, Cassandra broke the stillness.

"Now I see it better, David. As you came here and
lived my life, and loved me just as I was — so to be truly
one, I must go with you and live your life. I must not
fail you there.'*

"You have been tried as by fire and have not failed —
nor are you the kind of woman who ever fails."

Then she smiled up at him one of those rare and fleeting
smiles that always touched David with poignant pleasure,
and said : "I think I understand now. God meant us to
feel this way, when he married us to each other."

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