The Mountain Girl

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. Whatever 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, with food provided for both himself and the beast sufficient for the day slung in a sack behind him.

"Reckon ye'll 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 pail to fill. "If it happens that you need me for – anything at all, send Hoyle, and I'll come immediately. Will you?"

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, and contentment began – his hot tea within reach, his door wide open to the sweetness of the day, his fire dancing and crackling with good cheer, and his book in his hand. Ah! The delicious idleness and rest! No disorders 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.

"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'll 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.

"Now, that is more like." He began his dinner with a 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 way, – 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, Miss 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 white. 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 away?"

"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 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 country."

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 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 different – 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.

"Aunt 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?"

"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, 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 any way."

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' evenin'."

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 mentioned Thryng.

Frale laughed.

"Don't, Frale. How can you laugh?"

"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 stubbornly, drawing back.

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

"I'm a-listenin'."

"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 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.

"Oh, 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?"

"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."

"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."

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 over after me. Good! Take these cigars." He placed his own case in the boy's vest pocket.