The Mountain Girl Part 19

"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 Ca.s.sandra, 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 because 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 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 like 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. When 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 mountain, 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 schoolhouse, 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 remembrance. 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 G.o.d will send for you some day here on the mountain. He will send for you on the mountain top. He will compa.s.s 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, and 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 mountain. David stood near and longed to touch her pa.s.sive 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 XII

IN WHICH Ca.s.sANDRA 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 deepening 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 arbutus 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 a.s.surance 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, inventing new caprices and tossing forth the notes daringly--delicately--rapturously--now penetrating and strong, now faintly following and scarcely heard, uttering a wordless gladness.

Under the great holly tree in the shadows Ca.s.sandra sat, watching, as he watched, the crescent moon and the lone star sailing in the pale amber light, with the deepening 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 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 pa.s.sion 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 sweet, 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 G.o.ds, 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-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 pa.s.sively 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 who was walking in her sleep, yet he knew her to be awake.

"Miss Ca.s.sandra, 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 Arc, 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? What 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 find it. Now I know it is you who make it I won't disturb 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 expressions 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 compa.s.s, 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, reckless 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 weeds 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 Ca.s.sandra, 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 cla.s.sic lore, treasured where schools were none and books 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 pa.s.sed the house, the old mother sat on her little porch churning b.u.t.ter in a small dasher churn. She was glad, as he could see, because she could do something once more.

"Now are you happy?" he called laughingly, as he paused beside her.