The Phantoms of the Foot-Bridge and Other Stories Part 4

Time restored to Dundas his former place in life and the esteem of his fellow-citizens. His stay in the mountains was an episode which he will not often recall, but sometimes volition fails, and he marvels at the strange fulfilment of the girl's vision; he winces to think that her solicitude for his safety should have cost her her lover; he wonders whether she yet lives, and whether that tender troubled phantom, on nights when the wind is still and the moon is low and the mists rise, again joins the strange, elusive, woful company crossing the quaking foot-bridge.

HIS "DAY IN COURT"

It had been a hard winter along the slopes of the Great Smoky Mountains, and still the towering treeless domes were covered with snow, and the vagrant winds were abroad, rioting among the clifty heights where they held their tryst, or raiding down into the sheltered depths of the Cove, where they seldom intruded. Nevertheless, on this turbulent rush was borne in the fair spring of the year. The fragrance of the budding wild-cherry was to be discerned amidst the keen slanting javelins of the rain. A cognition of the renewal and the expanding of the forces of nature pervaded the senses as distinctly as if one might hear the gra.s.s growing, or feel along the chill currents of the air the vernal pulses thrill. Night after night in the rifts of the breaking clouds close to the horizon was glimpsed the stately sidereal Virgo, prefiguring and promising the harvest, holding in her hand a gleaming ear of corn. But it was not the constellation which the tumultuous torrent at the mountain's base reflected in a starry glitter. From the hill-side above a light cast its broken image among the ripples, as it shone for an instant through the bosky laurel, white, stellular, splendid--only a tallow dip suddenly placed in the window of a log-cabin, and as suddenly withdrawn.

For a gruff voice within growled out a remonstrance: "What ye doin' that fur, Steve? Hev that thar candle got enny call ter bide in that thar winder?"

The interior, contrary to the customary aspect of the humble homes of the region, was in great disarray. Cooking utensils stood uncleaned about the hearth; dishes and bowls of earthen-ware were a.s.sembled upon the table in such numbers as to suggest that several meals had been eaten without the ceremony of laying the cloth anew, and that in default of washing the crockery it had been re-enforced from the shelf so far as the limited store might admit. Saddles and spinning-wheels, an ox-yoke and trace-chains, reels and wash-tubs, were incongruously pushed together in the corners. Only one of the three men in the room made any effort to reduce the confusion to order. This was the square-faced, black-bearded, thick-set young fellow who took the candle from the window, and now advanced with it toward the hearth, holding it at an angle that caused the flame to swiftly melt the tallow, which dripped generously upon the floor.

"I hev seen Eveliny do it," he said, excitedly justifying himself. "I noticed her sot the candle in the winder jes' las' night arter supper."

He glanced about uncertainly, and his patience seemed to give way suddenly. "Dad-burn the old candle! I dunno _whar_ ter set it," he cried, desperately, as he flung it from him, and it fell upon the floor close to the wall.

The dogs lifted their heads to look, and one soft-stepping old hound got up with the nimbleness of expectation, and, with a prescient grat.i.tude astir in his tail, went and sniffed at it. His aspect drooped suddenly, and he looked around in reproach at Stephen Quimbey, as if suspecting a practical joke. But there was no merriment in the young mountaineer's face. He threw himself into his chair with a heavy sigh, and desisted for a time from the unaccustomed duty of clearing away the dishes after supper.

"An' 'ain't ye got the gumption ter sense what Eveliny sot the candle in the winder fur?" his brother Timothy demanded, abruptly--"ez a sign ter that thar durned Abs'lom Kittredge."

The other two men turned their heads and looked at the speaker with a poignant intensity of interest. "I 'lowed ez much when I seen that light ez I war a-kemin' home las' night," he continued; "it shined spang down the slope acrost the ruver an' through all the laurel; it looked plumb like a star that hed fell ter yearth in that pitch-black night. I dunno how I s'picioned it, but ez I stood thar an' gazed I knowed somebody war a-standin' an' gazin' too on the foot-bredge a mite ahead o' me. I couldn't see him, an' he couldn't turn back an' pa.s.s me, the bredge bein' too narrer. He war jes obligated ter go on. I hearn him breathe quick; then--pit-pat, pit-pat, ez he walked straight toward that light.

An' he be 'bleeged ter hev hearn me, fur arter I crost I stopped.

Nuthin'. Jes' a whisper o' wind, an' jes' a swishin' from the ruver. I knowed then he hed turned off inter the laurel. An' I went on, a-whistlin' ter make him 'low ez I never s'picioned nuthin'. An' I kem inter the house an' tole dad ez he'd better be a-lookin' arter Eveliny, fur I b'lieved she war a-settin' her head ter run away an' marry Abs'lom Kittredge."

"Waal, I ain't right up an' down sati'fied we oughter done what we done," exclaimed Stephen, fretfully. "It don't 'pear edzacly right fur three men ter fire on one."

Old Joel Quimbey, in his arm-chair in the chimney-corner, suddenly lifted his head--a thin head with fine white hair, short and spa.r.s.e, upon it. His thin, lined face was clear-cut, with a pointed chin and an aquiline nose. He maintained an air of indignant and rebellious grief, and had hitherto sat silent, a gnarled and knotted hand on either arm of his chair. His eyes gleamed keenly from under his heavy brows as he turned his face upon his sons. "How could we know thar warn't but one, eh?"

He had not been a candidate for justice of the peace for nothing; he had absorbed something of the methods and spirit of the law through sheer propinquity to the office. "We-uns wouldn't be persumed ter _know_." And he ungrudgingly gave himself all the benefit of the doubt that the law accords.

"That's a true word!" exclaimed Stephen, quick to console his conscience. "Jes' look at the fac's, now. We-uns in a plumb black midnight hear a man a-gittin' over our fence; we git our rifles; a-peekin' through the c.h.i.n.kin' we ketch a glimge o' him--"

"Ha!" cried out Timothy, with savage satisfaction, "we seen him by the light she set ter lead him on!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "OLD JOEL QUIMBEY"]

He was tall and lank, with a delicately hooked nose, high cheek-bones, fierce dark eyes, and dark eyebrows, which were continually elevated, corrugating his forehead. His hair was black, short and straight, and he was clad in brown jeans, as were the others, with great cowhide boots reaching to the knee. He fixed his fiery intent gaze on his brother as the slower Stephen continued, "An' so we blaze away--"

"An' one durned fool's so onlucky ez ter hit him an' not kill him,"

growled Timothy, again interrupting. "An' so whilst Eveliny runs out a-screamin', 'He's dead! he's dead!--ye hev shot him dead!' we-uns make no doubt but he _is_ dead, an' load up agin, lest his frien's mought rush in on we-uns whilst we hedn't no use o' our shootin'-irons. An'

suddint--ye can't hear nuthin' but jes' a owel hootin' in the woods, or old Pa'son Bates's dogs a-howlin' acrost the Cove. An' we go out with a lantern, an' thar's jes' a pool o' blood in the dooryard, an' b.l.o.o.d.y tracks down ter the laurel."

"Eveliny gone!" cried the old man, smiting his hands together; "my leetle darter! The only one ez never gin me enny trouble. I couldn't hev made out ter put up with this hyar worl' no longer when my wife died ef it hedn't been fur Eveliny. Boys war wild an' mischeevious, an' folks outside don't keer nuthin' 'bout ye--ef they _war_ ter 'lect ye ter office 'twould be ter keep some other feller from hevin' it, 'kase they 'spise him more'n ye. An' hyar she's runned off an' married old Tom Kittredge's gran'son, Josiah Kittredge's son--when our folks 'ain't spoke ter none o' 'em fur fifty year--Josiah Kittredge's son--ha! ha!

ha!" He laughed aloud in tuneless scorn of himself and of this freak of froward destiny and then fell to wringing his hands and calling upon Evelina.

The flare from the great chimney place genially played over the huddled confusion of the room and the brown logs of the wall, where the gigantic shadows of the three men mimicked their every gesture with grotesque exaggeration. The rainbow yarn on the warping bars, the strings of red-pepper hanging from the ceiling, the burnished metallic flash from the guns on their racks of deer antlers, served as incidents in the monotony of the alternate yellow flicker and brown shadow. Deep under the blaze the red coals pulsated, and in the farthest vistas of the fire quivered a white heat.

"Old Tom Kittredge," the father resumed, after a time, "he jes' branded yer gran'dad's cattle with his mark; he jes' cheated yer gran'dad, my dad, out'n six head o' cattle."

"But then," said the warlike Timothy, not willing to lose sight of reprisal even in vague reminiscence, "he hed only one hand ter rob with arter that, fur I hev hearn ez how when gran'dad got through with him the doctor hed ter take his arm off."

"Sartainly, sartainly," admitted the old man, in quiet a.s.sent "An'

Josiah Kittredge he put out the eyes of a horse critter o' mine right thar at the court-house door--"

"Waal, arterward, we-uns fired his house over his head," put in Tim.

"An' Josiah Kittredge an' me," the old man went on, "we-uns clinched every time we met in this mortal life. Every time I go past the graveyard whar he be buried I kin feel his fingers on my throat. He had a nervy grip, but no variation; he always tuk holt the same way."

"'Pears like ter me ez 'twar a fust-rate time ter fetch out the rifles again," remarked Tim, "this mornin', when old Pa'son Bates kem up hyar an' 'lowed ez he hed married Eveliny ter Abs'lom Kittredge on his death-bed; 'So be, pa'son,' I say. An' he tuk off his hat an' say, 'Thank the Lord, this will heal the breach an' make ye frien's!' An' I say, 'Edzacly, pa'son, ef it _air_ Abs'lom's death-bed; but them Kittredges air so smilin' an' deceivin' I be powerful feared he'll cheat the King o' Terrors himself. I'll forgive 'em ennything--_over his grave_.'"

"Pa'son war tuk toler'ble suddint in his temper," said the literal Steve. "I hearn him call yer talk onchristian, cussed sentiments, ez he put out."

"Ye mus' keep up a Christian sperit, boys; that's the main thing," said the old man, who was esteemed very religious, and a pious Mentor in his own family. He gazed meditatively into the fire. "What ailed Eveliny ter git so tuk up with this hyar Abs'lom? What made her like him?" he propounded.

"His big eyes, edzacly like a buck's, an' his long yaller hair," sneered the discerning Timothy, with the valid scorn of a big ugly man for a slim pretty one. "'Twar jes 'count o' his long yaller hair his mother called him Abs'lom. He war named Pete or Bob, I disremember what--suthin' common--till his hair got so long an' curly, an' he sot out ter be so plumb all-fired beautiful, an' his mother named him agin; this time Abs'lom, arter the king's son, 'count o' his yaller hair."

"Git hung by his hair some o' these days in the woods, like him the Bible tells about; that happened ter the sure-enough Abs'lom," suggested Stephen, hopefully.

"Naw, sir," said Tim; "when Abs'lom Kittredge gits hung it'll be with suthin' stronger'n hair; he'll stretch hemp." He exchanged a glance of triumphant prediction with his brother, and anon gazed ruefully into the fire.

"Ye talk like ez ef he war goin' ter live, boys," said old Joel Quimbey, irritably. "Pa'son 'lowed he war powerful low."

"Pa'son said he'd never hev got home alive 'thout she'd holped him,"

said Stephen. "She jes' tuk him an' drug him plumb ter the bars, though I don't see how she done it, slim leetle critter ez she be; an' thar she holped him git on his beastis; an' then--I declar' I feel ez ef I could kill her fur a-demeanin' of herself so--she led that thar horse, him a-ridin' an' a-leanin' on the neck o' the beastis, two mile up the mountain, through the night."

"Waal, let her bide thar. I'll look on her face no mo'," declared the old man, his toothless jaw shaking. "Kittredge she be now, an' none o'

the name kin come a-nigh me. How be I ever a-goin' 'bout 'mongst the folks at the settlement agin with my darter married ter a Kittredge? How Josiah an' his dad mus' be a-grinnin' in thar graves at me this night!

An' I 'low they hev got suthin' ter grin about."

And suddenly his grim face relaxed, and once more he began to smite his hands together and to call aloud for Evelina.

Timothy could offer no consolation, but stared dismally into the fire, and Stephen rose with a sigh and addressed himself to pushing the spinning-wheels and tubs and tables into the opposite corner of the room, in the hope of solving the enigma of its wonted order.

It seemed to Evelina afterward that when she climbed the rugged ways of the mountain slope in that momentous night she left forever in the depths of the Cove that free and careless young ident.i.ty which she had been. She did not accurately discriminate the moment in which she began to realize that she was among her hereditary enemies, encompa.s.sed by a hatred nourished to full proportions and to a savage strength long before she drew her first breath. The fact only gradually claimed its share in her consciousness as the tension of anxiety for Absalom's sake relaxed, for the young mountaineer's strength and vitality were promptly rea.s.serted, and he rallied from the wound and his pallid and forlorn estate with the recuperative power of the primitive man. By degrees she came to expect the covert unfriendly glances his brother cast upon her, the lowering averted mien of her sister-in-law, and now and again she surprised a long, lingering, curious gaze in his mother's eyes. They were all Kittredges! And she wondered how she could ever have dreamed that she might live happily among them--one of them, for her name was theirs. And then perhaps the young husband would stroll languidly in, with his long hair curling on his blue jeans coat-collar, and an a.s.sured smile in his dark brown eyes, and some lazy jest on his lips, certain of a welcoming laugh, for he had been so near to death that they all had a sense of acquisition in that he had been led back. For his sake they had said little; his mother would busy herself in brewing his "yerb" tea, and his brother would offer to saddle the mare if he felt that he could ride, and they would all be very friendly together; and his alien wife would presently slip out unnoticed into the "gyarden spot," where the rows of vegetables grew as they did in the Cove, turning upon her the same neighborly looks they wore of yore, and showing not a strange leaf among them. The sunshine wrapped itself in its old fine gilded gossamer haze and drowsed upon the verdant slopes; the green jewelled "Juny-bugs"

whirred in the soft air; the mould was as richly brown as in Joel Quimbey's own enclosure; the flag-lilies bloomed beside the onion bed; and the woolly green leaves of the sage wore their old delicate tint and gave out a familiar odor.

Among this quaint company of the garden borders she spent much of her time, now hoeing in a desultory fashion, now leaning on the long handle of the implement and looking away upon the far reaches of the purple mountains. As they stretched to vague distances they became blue, and farther on the great azure domes merged into a still more tender hue, and this in turn melted into a soft indeterminate tint that embellished the faint horizon. Her dreaming eyes would grow bright and wistful; her rich brown curling hair, set free by the yellow sun-bonnet that slipped off her head and upon her shoulders, would airily float backward in the wind; there was a lithe grace in the slender figure, albeit clad in a yellow homespun of a deep dye, and the faded purplish neckerchief was caught about a throat fairer even than the fair face, which was delicately flushed. Absalom's mother, standing beside Peter, the eldest son, in the doorway, watched her long one day.

"It all kem about from that thar bran dance," said Peter, a homely man, with a sterling, narrow-minded wife and an ascetic sense of religion.

"Thar Satan waits, an' he gits nimbler every time ye shake yer foot. The fiddler gin out the figger ter change partners, an' this hyar gal war dancin' opposite Abs'lom, ez hed never looked nigh her till that day.

The gal didn't know _what_ ter do; she jes' stood still; but Abs'lom he jes' danced up ter her ez keerless an' gay ez he always war, jes' like she war ennybody else, an' when he held out his han' she gin him hern, all a-trembly, an' lookin' up at him, plumb skeered ter death, her eyes all wide an' sorter wishful, like some wild thing trapped in the woods.

An' then the durned fiddler, moved by the devil, I'll be bound, plumb furgot ter change 'em back. So they danced haff'n the day tergether. An'

arter that they war forever a-stealin' off an' accidentally meetin' at the spring, an' whenst he war a-huntin' or she drivin' up the cow, an'

a-courtin' ginerally, till they war promised ter marry."

"'Twarn't the bran dance; 'twar suthin' ez fleetin' an' ez useless,"