The Mountain Girl Part 11

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 pa.s.s them by as if they were nothing to you. If they speak to you, of course nod to them and pa.s.s 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 over after me. Good! Take these cigars." He placed his own case in the boy's vest pocket.

"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 awkwardly, 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.

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?"

"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 descanting 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 c.o.c.kles 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 nothing 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 his heart, searched out a card on which was a picture of an ocean liner 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 concerning 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, bia.s.sed 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 discouragement at his undeniable weakness, he led the animal to water where a spring bubbled sweet and clear in an embowered hollow quite near his cabin, then stretched himself on the couch before the fire, with no other light than its cheerful blaze, too exhausted for his book and disinclined 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 crackling 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.

Deeply inhaling the cold air, he lay and mused over the events of the previous day. How quickly 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 hara.s.sments 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. G.o.d and his own soul--was that all? Not quite. G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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 discouragement of the evening before was gone. Yet now should he sit down in ecstatic dreaming? It must be joy in life--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 reactive power for his soul's sake.

It was a revelation to him of the eternal G.o.d, wonder-working and all-pervading. Now no longer with a haunting sense of fear would he search and learn, but with a glad perception of the beautiful orderliness of the universe, so planned and arranged for the souls of men when only they should learn how to use their own lives, and attune themselves to give forth music to the touch of the G.o.d of Love.

A cold bath, the pure air, and his abstemiousness of the previous evening gave him a compelling 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! "G.o.d'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 paean 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 completion of the task, he found he had been expending his strength too lavishly, but this time he accepted his weariness 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 discovered, 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 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 Ca.s.sandra 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 disturbed 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 Ca.s.sandra.

CHAPTER VII

IN WHICH FRALE GOES DOWN TO FARINGTON IN HIS OWN WAY

Frale felt himself exalted by the oath he had sworn to Ca.s.sandra, 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 Ca.s.sandra--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 footsteps 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.s unchallenged until he was too far below them to make speech possible. Later, when they found David seated on his rock, they a.s.sumed 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 to feel again the excitement of his mountain life, evading the law and conquering its hara.s.sments, was bitter. It had been his joy and delight in life to feel himself masterfully 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 considered 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--"Ca.s.s, Ca.s.s." 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 stubbornly 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.