A Maid of the Kentucky Hills Part 9

She clasped her hands with something like a tragic gesture, and stared hard at the ground in front with forehead a-frown.

I did not answer her at once. How could I? A new facet of her many-sided nature had flashed upon me, and I was a little dazed. We reached the tree-bridge before I attempted a reply.

"I shall be here a year. Come to see me on Baldy. Or come to the place where I first found you, and I will meet you there. I'm going to give you the things for which you long. I can do it, but not with Granny or Granf'er. They would object; they would not understand."

She looked up at me--for I had climbed to the tree--dumbly, yearningly.

"I'll come," she said. It was scarcely more than a half-whisper.

I did not like to leave her in that mood.

"All right, Dryad!" I returned, cheerily. "Now tell me where that road goes."

My aim was to bring her mind back to its accustomed channel for the present. She brightened at my query.

"T' 'Ebron," she said.

"Oh! Yes! Some day soon I'm going there. I have a garden at home and I'm going there to buy seed."

She laughed at this, and I felt relieved.

"Good-by, Dryad."

I knelt on the tree, bent down and took her upheld hand in mine. It was warm, soft, and, that moment, clinging. Forerunners of dusk had come, and the gray pools of her clear eyes made me release her hand and get on my feet.

She moved away, and as I turned to set my face in the opposite direction, something halted me in the very act.

On the Hebron road, two hundred yards or more distant, I saw the figure of a man. A young, tall, bareheaded, roughly clad man, standing very straight and still. He saw me; he was looking at me. Of that I was sure.

His position was by a great stone, which cast him in deeper shadow.

There was something portentous in his att.i.tude, natural though it was. I stopped and returned his inspection of me, but he made no sign, no gesture. He might have been a tree of the forest, for all of his immobility. A feeling, not of fear, but of premonition, swept over me as I went on across the tree.

I knew it was Buck Steele, the smith of Hebron.

CHAPTER NINE

IN WHICH I SIT UPON A HILLTOP AND REFLECT TO NO ADVANTAGE

I did something to-day which I have had vaguely in mind ever since I took up my abode in the wilderness. I climbed to the very top of my hill of refuge.

The princ.i.p.al reason why I have never attempted it before was that I feared it would prove too much for me; would require too much exertion.

And 'Crombie, while advising and insisting upon continuous exercise, had also warned me not to overdo it.

This morning I felt mighty as Tubal Cain. My walks, my regular hours, my wholesome diet, are having effect. I am beginning to brown. At seven o'clock, when I shaved, the path of my razor showed a firm, tanned skin.

My eyes are clear, and I can feel life coming into me. Oh, what a glorious thing it is! Just simple, primitive, animal life! I don't know when I have coughed. I can inflate my lungs, and imagine the consternation of that "colony" at the inrushing flood of this ozone laden air. I am not deluding myself that I am sound. 'Crombie said it would take time, and 'Crombie knows. But I am better. My recent walks have not caused me to pant and blow. That is why, this morning, I felt the a.s.surance within me that I could surmount old Baldy's peak, and feel no bad results.

Rain fell last night. It began just as I went to bed, and I lay and listened to it. There is something most fascinating about rain on the roof after you have gone to bed. Last night it dropped gently, a steady murmur. It came to my ears as a cradle song of Nature. I could hear it outside the window near which I sleep. The patter, patter, and after a while the gurgling of little streams over the clapboard eaves. I remember of thinking what a good soaking my garden spot would get, and of the consequent delay waiting for it to dry out before I could spade it up, then I went to sleep.

This morning I was awakened by the orchestra of the birds. I had heard stray notes before about daybreak. s.n.a.t.c.hes of song, broken trills, single cries, and challenging calls. But this morning it was different.

I don't know how to account for it. Whether the rain had something to do with it; whether they met by accident or appointment. The solution of that question is a minor thing, however. I received the full benefit of the gathering. I have never heard an exhibition which equaled that forest symphony. There must have been nearly a dozen varieties of birds.

And each little fellow was singing with all the heart of him. I tell you they made music. Each had a different tune, and among humans this would have represented bedlam. But among the feathered kind--take my word for it if you have never heard it--the effect was wonderful. It was one great alleluia chorus, and the air throbbed with the sweetest music I ever heard. I recognized many of the vocalists by their songs. I knew that about my plateau were gathered the cardinal, the thrush, the oriole, the catbird, the jay and the mockingbird. And when I mention the jay, let no one rise up and point the finger of scorn, exclaiming on that blue-coated fellow's harsh and grating scream. Mr. Caviler, your voice is harsh and grating too when you get very angry, isn't it? But have you never heard the love-note of the jay? Have you never, in the dappled shade, when their half-fledged nestlings are flapping and hopping about and stretching cavernous yellow jaws for worms and moths--have you never heard the parent birds, watchful in the overhead branches, make love? There was never a sweeter, mellower, richer tone drawn from flute or harp than the love-note of the jay.

Many others were there that were strange to me, but the effect of the whole was so sweet that I had to drag myself from bed, so charmed was I by that chorus in the early dawn.

The sky was clear when I came out; a deep, rich, fathomless blue. Night had taken the rain-clouds with it when it left. A woodsy, wet, earthy odor, than which there was no perfume rarer, delighted my nostrils.

Everything was washed clean. The leaves, the trunks of the trees, the very stones. It was then, as I stood and felt the might of the everlasting hills entering into me, that I decided on my task for the day. As yet it was too early. The ground was soft. It would be wet and slippery on the slope above, and perhaps muddy. I determined to wait an hour or two, so went down to my favorite seat under the pine tree, taking with me Spencer's "First Principles," which is a book calculated to make one use his mind, at least.

It was eleven o'clock before I looked at my watch--too late for mountain climbing that morning. Upon reflection, I saw that this was just as well. In fact, the afternoon would be a much better time to make the ascent. The sun had been shining generously for several hours, drying both the vegetation and the surface of the ground. So Mr. Spencer had really done me a good turn in carrying me through the forenoon. I left the book on the bench and went back to the Lodge, thinking to resume my reading after I returned from the peak. I did not expect to be gone over an hour and a half, allowing for plenty of time to rest.

After a leisurely dinner, I took my alpenstock, and imagining myself at the base of the Matterhorn to lend zest, bravely fronted the upward climb.

It was rather stiff work from the beginning. I flanked the Lodge for a score of yards, and started up where the ascent was comparatively gradual. This did not last long. Before I reached the encircling band of evergreens I had to force my way through bushes which insisted on rapping my nose, and vines which were equally determined to tie themselves into knots over my toes, and trip me. At length I came to the dark line of pines and cedars, where I stopped to investigate my condition. My breath was coming pretty heavy, but I was not really tired. So after a few moments' rest I went on. My going was tolerably easy now while the trees lasted. Beneath their shade the earth was barren. Some half dead moss and a plentiful sprinkling of pine cones was all. As I walked over the latter they yielded softly to my feet, and sent up a pungent odor. I heard no bird notes here, but once a brown-winged shape flitted soundlessly by in front of me, low to the ground. Everything was very still. There was no wind astir. The belt proved to be a somber spot, and I was not sorry when I had pa.s.sed it.

The dense shade had a depressing effect.

Then I came to open ground; open and bare. Two hundred and fifty feet above me rose old Baldy's head. For perhaps half the distance a scrub growth strove for existence in the rocky soil; beyond that the surface was absolutely denuded. The incline had grown much sharper, but the earth was knotty and uneven, in many places indented with excoriations, and I found I could go forward with much greater ease than I had antic.i.p.ated. A quarter of an hour later found me facing the last ascent, which was all but perilous in its sheer rise. My staff was of no avail here; hands and feet must win. So I laid my alpenstock down, drew a deep breath and started up. Just how I got to the top I cannot say. But there is a big element of tenacity in my nature, and I fought on with squared jaws and set teeth, slipping, scrambling, sprawling, until I had won. I crawled over the crest on my hands and knees, and for quite ten minutes I lay prostrate, recovering my wind and my spent strength. Then I got onto my feet and looked about me.

It was a glorious prospect; even solemn and majestic. A prodigious sweep of country was laid bare before me. I hesitate to say how many miles I could see, for distance is most deceptive at great alt.i.tudes. But it was the topography, more than the far reaching view, which impressed me. I was standing in the midst of a world newly created, the only living creature. Leagues upon leagues of virgin forest flowed back from my point of vantage till the perspective ended in a misty blur. East and west stretched the mighty ranges, with constantly diverging spurs, each clothed with its own garment of green and glistening glory. Anon the ancient hills valleyed into troughs whose length had no visible limit, and it did not require the imagination of a poet to behold beneath me the effect of an immense sea which had suddenly been frozen into permanent form. How illimitable! How overpowering! Slowly I turned to the different points of the compa.s.s. Far to the north a smudge of smoke fouled the tender bosom of the sky, and I quickly looked another way.

Cedarton lay in that direction.

For a half-hour I stood and gazed, and wondered, and thought. Here was incentive for rumination, and when I at length withdrew my eyes from the bewildering panorama I felt infinitesimally puny, and weak, and small.

What was I? A mote in a sunbeam; an atom of matter; no more.

The point upon which I stood was an irregular circle, approximating thirty feet in diameter. An imperfect stone formation marked its outer boundaries; the effect of some t.i.tanic convulsion in forgotten time. In one place--toward the southwest--the rim of rock broke, and here the earth had sloughed away before the ages-long war of the elements, the result being a broad, flume-like chute leading downward. Instinctively I drew back from this place, for it suggested unknown terrors. A sort of sandy, granular deposit covered the top of the k.n.o.b; the grinding caused by years upon years of wind and rain.

My inspection of the peak occupied scarcely a minute. Then I sat down in its exact center, lit my briar-root, hugged my knees, and allowed myself for the first time that day to think of yesterday's experience. You could never guess my first thought. It was that material would quickly acc.u.mulate now for my book. I sensed the approach of things--of many things, and not all of them were pleasant. In fact, some wore grisly aspects. I believe in premonitions. I don't know what they are, or what causes them, or anything about them except they exist. But one came to me as I sat on the tiptop of old Baldy this afternoon, smoking my pipe and hugging my knees, and feeling very much like a bird in its eyrie. I was troubled and elated in turn; a queer experience, but common to all.

There was no reason in the world why I should have been either depressed or uplifted. But somehow the near future looked to me to be vibrant with incidents waiting their chance to happen, and in some unformed way I felt that, innocently enough, I had set in motion a train of events which would quickly envelope me in their workings. I say it was a premonition--a prescience--and I believe I am right.

I can make nothing yet of Lessie or her household. Granf'er and Granny have their prototypes among those who call themselves ultra refined.

Each is interesting to me, in his and her way. Granny has a suspicious nature. I cannot think she is as down-right mean and crusty as she pretends to be. Maybe Granf'er is trifling, and trying, and Granny might have to lash him with her tongue to keep him in the traces. I am sure the old lady's dislike for me is real, though why this should be I cannot fathom just now. I have a strong suspicion that deep down in her heart Granny has a feeling of worship for the Dryad, and in everything which presents itself in masculine shape she sees a possible cause for Lessie leaving her. That seems the most plausible reason for her dislike. Lessie has plunged me into a quandary where I can see no light at all. Her personality is the most complex I have ever encountered. She is absolutely baffling. I can't understand the way she talked to me as we came down the path from the house scarcely twenty-four hours ago.

What was it within her that suggested the things of which she spoke? If she had delivered an oration in Latin I could not have been more surprised. She--the product of many generations of hill dwellers, whose intelligence always remained at a minimum, among whom the stirrings of ambition were never felt and where knowledge had never gained the slightest foothold--she to suffer the travail of a fettered mind striving for light; of a shackled soul struggling for expression! What could it mean? And to make the enshrouding darkness yet more dense, _she was cousin to the Satyr_! The Satyr! That whimsical, hapless ne'er-do-well who strolled the woods day after day, drinking white whiskey, and bringing strains from his old fiddle which made one's flesh creep with their weird sweetness. Is it a wonder I was puzzled? I promised to help her, and I am going to do it. I know the task will be pleasant. I will escape monotony, and she will be improved, and in this way it will work good to both of us. I shall begin--but at this point in my cogitations there floated suddenly across the field of memory that tall, dark shadow standing on the Hebron road, still and stern.

I took the pipe from my mouth and stood up. The sun had more than half completed its journey from zenith to horizon. I made another detour, looking for the best place to descend. I found it a short distance from where I had come up; almost a path, surprisingly easy to traverse. I carefully noted its location with reference to the points of the compa.s.s, and went down with practically no labor. Already I knew I should come back, for the spot held a strong attraction for me. Not alone for the view, which in itself was sufficient compensation for the climb, but there was also a sense of such complete aloneness--and I have that peculiarity. At times I want to be where no one can see me, or talk to me. I want to be utterly alone, without the possibility of interruption. Such a place I knew I had found on the peak of Bald k.n.o.b.

When I reached the evergreens I realized that it must be almost twilight on the plateau. At least a cooling, grateful shade was there, and the philosophy of Spencer.

A few moments later I crashed through the bush in the rear of the Lodge, came around and flung my cap boy-like on one of the benches alongside the door, then hurried toward the lone pine. When I had taken a half-dozen steps I looked up, and halted abruptly.

Lessie was standing under the tree, holding "First Principles" open in her hands.

CHAPTER TEN

IN WHICH I SPEND A PLEASANT HOUR AND HEAR SOME NEWS