Erskine Payne
The Mountain Girl
CHAPTER XII
IN WHICH CASSANDRA 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 assurance 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 Cassandra 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 passion 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 gods, 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 passively 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 Cassandra, 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 compass, 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 Cassandra, 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 classic 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 passed the house, the old mother sat on her little porch churning butter 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.
"Well, I be. Hit's been a right smart o' while since I been able to do a lick o' work. We sure do have a heap to thank you fer. Be Decatur Irwin as glad to lose his foot as I be to git my laig back?" she queried whimsically; "I reckon not."
"I reckon not, too, but with him it was a case of losing his life or his foot, while with you it was only a question of walking about, or being bedridden for the next twenty years."
"They be ignorant, them Irwins, an' she's more'n that, fer she's a fool. She come round yest'day wantin' to borry a hoe to fix up her gyarden patch, an' she 'lowed ef you'n Cass had only lef' him be, he'd 'a' come through all right, fer hit war a-gettin' better the day you-uns took hit off. I told her yas, he'd 'a' come cl'ar through to the nex' world, like Farwell done. When the misery left him, he up an' died, an' Lord knows whar he went."
"I'll get him an artificial foot as soon as he is able to wear one. He'll get on very well with a peg under his knee until then. What's Hoyle doing with the mule?"
"He's rid'n' him fer Cass. She's tryin' to get the ground ready fer a crap. Hit's all we can do. Our women nevah war used to do such work neither, but she would try."
"What's that? Is she ploughing?" he asked sharply, and strode away.
"I reckon she don't want ye there, Doctah," the widow called after him, but he walked on.
The land lay in a warm hollow completely surrounded by hills. It had been many years cleared, and the mellow soil was free from stumps and roots. When Thryng arrived, three furrows had been run rather crookedly the length of the patch, and Cassandra stood surveying them ruefully, flushed and troubled, holding to the handles of the small plough and struggling to set it straight for the next furrow.
The noise of the fall behind them covered his approach, and ere she was aware he was at her side. Placing his two hands over hers which clung stubbornly to the handles of the plough, he possessed himself of them. Laughingly he turned her about after the short tussle, and looked down into her warm, flushed face. Still holding her hands, he pulled her away from the plough to the grassy edge of the field, leaving Hoyle waiting astride the mule.
"Whoa, mule. Stand still thar," he shrilled, as the beast sought to cross the bit of ploughed ground to reach the grass beyond.
"Let him eat a minute, Hoyle," said David. "Let him eat until I come. Now, Miss Cassandra, what does this mean? Do you think you can plough all that land? Is that it?"
"I must."
"You must not."
"There is no one else now. I must." He could feel her hands quiver in his, as he forcibly held them, and knew from her panting breath how her heart was beating. She held her head high, nevertheless, and looked bravely back into his eyes.
"You must let me – " he paused. Intuitively he knew he must not say as yet what he would. "Let me direct you a little. You have been most kind to me – and – it is my place; I am a doctor, you know."
"If I were sick or hurt, I would give heed to you, I would do anything you say; but I'm not, and this is laid on me to do. Leave go my hands, Doctor Thryng."
"If you'll sit down here a moment and talk this thing out with me, I will. Now tell me first of all, why is this laid on you?"
"Frale is gone and it must be done, or we will have no crop, and then we must sell the animals, and then go down and live like poor white trash." Her low, passive monotone sounded like a moan of sorrow.
"You must hire some one to do this heavy work."
"Every one is working his own patch now, and – no, I have no money to hire with. I reckon I've thought it all over every way, Doctor." She looked sadly down at her hands and then up at the mountain top. "I know you think this is no work for a girl to do, and you are right. Our women never have done such. Only in the war times my Grandmother Caswell did it, and I can now. A girl can do what she must. I have no way to turn but to live as my people have lived before me. I thought once I might do different, go to school and keep separate – but – " She spread out her hands with a hopeless gesture, and rose to resume her work.
"Give me a moment longer. I'm not through yet. That's right, now listen. I see the truth of what you say, and I came down this morning to make a proposition to your mother – not for your sake only – don't be afraid, for my own as well; but I didn't make it because I hadn't time. She told me what you were doing, and I hurried off to stop you. Don't speak yet, let me finish. I feel I have the right, because I know – I know I was sent here just now for a purpose – guided to come here." He paused to allow his words to have their full weight. Whether she would perceive his meaning remained to be seen.
"I understand." She spoke quietly. "Doctor Hoyle sent you to be helped like he was – and you have been right kind to more than us. You've helped that many it seems like you were sent here for we-all as well as for your own sake, but that can't help me now, Doctor; it – "
"Ah, yes it can. I'm far from well yet. I shall be, but I must stay on for a long time, and I want some interest here. I want to see things of my own growing. The ground up around my little cabin is stony and very poor, and I want to rent this little farm of yours. Listen – I'll pay enough so you need not sell your cattle, and you – you can go on with your weaving. You can work in the house again as you have always done. Sometime, when your mother is stronger, you can take up your life again and go to school – as you meant to live – can't you?"
"That can never be now. If you take the farm or not, I must bide on here in the old way. I must take up the life my mother lived and my grandmother, and hers before her. It is mine, forever, to live it that way – or die."
"Why do you talk so?"
"God knows, but I can't tell you. Thank you, suh. I will be right glad to rent you the farm. I'd a heap rather you had it than any one else I ever knew, for we care more for it than you would guess, but for the rest – no. I must bide and work till I die; only maybe I can save little Hoyle and give him a chance to learn something, for he never could work – being like he is."
Thryng's eyes danced with joy as he regarded her. "Hoyle is not going to be always as he is, and he shall have the chance to learn something also. Look up, Miss Cassandra, look squarely into my eyes and laugh. Be happy, Miss Cassandra, and laugh. I say it."
She laughed softly then. She could not help it.
"Wasn't that what the 'Voices' were saying last night when you followed?"
"Yes, yes. They seemed like they were calling, 'Hope, hope,' but they were not the real 'Voices.' You made it."
"Yes, I made it; and I was truly calling that to you. And you replied; you came to me."
"Ah, but that is different from the 'Voices' she heard."
"But if they called the truth to you – what then?"
"Doctah, there is no longer any hope for me. God called me and let me cut off all hope, once. I did it, and now, only death can change it."
"If I believe you, you must believe me. We won't talk of it any more. I'm hungry. Your mother was churning up there; let's go and get some buttermilk, and settle the business of the rent. You've run three good furrows and I'll run three more beside them – my first, remember, in all my life. Then we'll plant that strip to sunflowers. Come, Hoyle, tie the mule and follow us."
So David carried his way. They walked merrily back to the house, chattering of his plans and what he would raise. He knew nothing whatever of the sort of crops to be raised, and she was naïvely gay at his expense, a mood he was overjoyed to awaken in her. He vowed that merely to walk over ploughed ground made a man stronger.
On the porch he sat and drank his buttermilk and, placing his paper on the step, drew up a contract for rent. Then Cassandra went to her weaving, and he and Hoyle returned to the field, where with much labor he succeeded in turning three furrows beside Cassandra's, rather crooked and uncertain ones, it is true, but quite as good as hers, as Hoyle reluctantly admitted, which served to give David a higher respect for farmers in general and ploughmen especially.
CHAPTER XIII
IN WHICH DAVID DISCOVERS CASSANDRA'S TROUBLE
After turning his furrows, David told Hoyle to ride the mule to the stable, then he sat himself on the fence, and meditated. He bethought him that in the paper he had drawn up he had made no provision for the use of the mule. He wiped his forehead and rubbed the perspiration from his hair, and coughed a little after his exertion, glad at heart to find himself so well off.
He would come and plough a little every day. Then he began to calculate the number of days it would take him to finish the patch, measuring the distance covered by the six furrows with his eye, and comparing it with the whole. He laughed to find that, at the rate of six furrows a day, the task would take him well on into the summer. Plainly he must find a ploughman.
Then the laying out of the ground! Why should he not have a vineyard up on the farther hill slope? He never could have any fruit from it, but what of that! Even if he went away and never returned, he would know it to be adding its beauty to this wonderful dream. Who could know what the future held for him – what this little spot might mean to him in the days to come? That he would go out, fully recovered and strong to play his part in life, he never doubted. Might not this idyl be a part of it? He thought of the girl sitting at her loom, swaying as she threw her shuttle with the rhythm of a poem, and weaving – weaving his life and his heart into her web, unknown to herself – weaving a thread of joy through it all which as yet she could not see. He knocked the ashes from his pipe and stood a moment gazing about him.
Yes, he really must have a vineyard, and a bit of pasture somewhere, and a field of clover. What grew best there he little knew, so he decided to go up and consult the widow.
There were other things also to claim his thoughts. Over toward "Wild Cat Hole" there was a woman who needed his care; and he must not become so absorbed in his pastoral romance as to forget Hoyle. He was looking actually haggard these last few days, and his mother said he would not eat. It might be that he needed more than the casual care he was giving him. Possibly he could take him to Doctor Hoyle's hospital for radical treatment later in the season, when his crops were well started. He smiled as he thought of his crops, then laughed outright, and strolled back to the house, weary and hungry, and happy as a boy.
"Well, now, I like the look of ye," called the old mother from the porch, where she still sat. "'Pears like it's done ye good a-ready to turn planter. The' hain't nothin' better'n the smell o' new sile fer them 'at's consumpted."
"Mother," cried Cassandra from within, "don't call the doctor that! Come up and have dinner with us, Doctor." She set a chair for him as she spoke, but he would not. As he stood below them, looking up and exchanging merry banter with her mother, he laughed his contagious laugh.
"I bet he's tired," shrilled Hoyle, from his perch on the porch roof. "He be'n settin' on the fence smokin' an' rubbin' his hade with his handkercher like he'd had enough with his ploughin'. You can nigh about beat him, Cass. Hisn didn't look no better'n what yourn looked."
"Here, you young rascal you, come down from there," cried David. Catching him by the foot, which hung far enough over to be within reach of his long arm, he pulled him headlong from his high position and caught him in mid-air. "Now, how shall I punish you?"
"Ye bettah whollop him. He hain't nevah been switched good in his hull life. Maybe that's what ails him."
The child grinned. "I hain't afeared. Get me down on the ground oncet, an' I c'n run faster'n he can."
"Suppose I duck him in the water trough yonder?"
"I reckon he needs it. He generally do," smiled Cassandra from the doorway. "Come, son, go wash up." David allowed the child to slip to the ground. "Seems like Hoyle is right enough about you, though. Don't go away up the hill; bide here and have dinner first."
David dropped on the step for a moment's rest. "I see I must make a way up to my cabin that will not pass your door. How about that? Was dinner included in the rent, and the mule and the mule's dinner? And what is Hoyle going to pay me for allowing him to ride Pete up and down while I plough?"
"Yas, an' what are ye goin' to give him fer 'lowin' ye to set his hade round straight, an' what are ye goin' to give me fer 'lowin' ye to set me on my laigs again? Ef ye go a-countin' that-a-way, I'm 'feared ye're layin' up a right smart o' debt to we-uns. I reckon you'll use that mule all ye want to, an' ye'll lick him good, too, when he needs hit, an' take keer o' yourself, fer he's a mean critter; an' ye'll keep that path right whar hit is, fer hit goes with the farm long's you bide up yandah."
"You good people have the best of me; we'll call it all even. Ever since I leaped off that train in the snow, I have been dependent on you for my comfort. Well, I must hurry on; since I've turned farmer I'm a busy man. Can you suggest any one I might get to do that ploughing? Miss Cassandra here may be able to do it without help, but I confess I'm not equal to it."
"I be'n tellin' Cass that thar Elwine Timms, he ought to be able to do the hull o' that work. Widow Timmses' son. They live ovah nigh the Gerret place thar at Lone Pine Creek. He used to help Frale with the still. An' then thar's Hoke Belew – he ought to do sumthin' fer all you done fer his wife – sittin' up the hull night long, an' gettin' up at midnight to run to them. Oh, I hearn a heap sittin' here. Things comes to me that-a-way. Thar hain't much goin' on within twenty mile o' here 'at I don't know. They is plenty hereabouts owes you a heap."
"I think I've been treated very well. They keep me supplied with all I need. What more can a man ask? The other day, a man brought me a sack of corn meal, fresh and sweet from the mill – a man with six children and a sick mother to feed, but what could I do? He would leave it, and I – well, I – "
"When they bring ye things, you take 'em. Ye'll help 'em a heap more that-a-way 'n ye will curin' 'em. The' hain't nothin' so good fer a man as payin' his debts. Hit keeps his hade up whar a man 'at's good fer anything ought to keep hit. I hearn a heap o' talk here in these mountains 'bouts bein' stuck up, but I tell 'em if a body feels he hain't good fer nothin', he pretty generally hain't. He'd a heap better feel stuck up to my thinkin'."
"They've done pretty well, all who could. They've brought me everything from corn whiskey to fodder for my horse. A woman brought me a bag of dried blueberries the other day. I don't know what to do with them. I have to take them, for I can't be graceless enough to send them away with their gifts."
"You bring 'em here, an' Cass'll make ye a blueberry cake to eat hot with butter melt'n' on hit 'at'll make ye think the world's a good place to live in."
"I'll do it," he said, laughing, and took his solitary path up the steep. Halfway to his cabin, he heard quick, scrambling steps behind him, and, turning, saw little Hoyle bringing Cassandra's small melon-shaped basket, covered with a white cloth.
"I said I could run faster'n you could. Cass, she sont some th' chick'n fry." He thrust the basket at Thryng and turned to run home.
"Here, here!" David called after the twisted, hunched little figure. "You tell your sister 'thank you very much,' for me. Will you?"
"Yas, suh," and the queer little gnome disappeared among the laurel below.
In the morning, David found the place of the Widow Timms, and her son agreed to come down the next day and accept wages for work. A weary, spiritless young man he was, and the home as poverty-stricken as was that of Decatur Irwin, and with almost as many children. It was with a feeling of depression that David rode on after his call, leaving the grandmother seated in the doorway, snuff stick between her yellow teeth, the grandchildren clustering about her knees, or squatting in the dirt, like young savages. Their father lounged in the wretched cabin, hardly to be seen in the windowless, smoke-blackened space nearly filled with beds heaped with ragged bedclothes, and broken splint-bottomed chairs hung about with torn and soiled garments.
The dirt and disorder irritated David, and he felt angered at the clay-faced son for not being out preparing his little patch of ground. Fortunately, he had been able to conceal his annoyance enough to secure the man's promise to begin work next day, or he would have gained nothing but the family's resentment for his pains. Already David had learned that a sort of resentful pride was the last shred of respectability to which the poorest and most thriftless of the mountain people clung – pride of he knew not what, and resentfulness toward any who, by thrift and labor, were better off than themselves.
He reasoned that as the young man had been Frale's helper at the still, no doubt corn whiskey was at the bottom of their misery. This brought his mind to the thought of Frale himself. The young man had not been mentioned between him and Cassandra since the day she sought his help. He thought he could not be far from the still, as he forded Lone Pine Creek, on his way to the home of Hoke Belew, whose wife he was going to see.
David was interested in this young family; they seemed to him to be quite of the better sort, and as he put space between himself and the Widow Timms' deplorable state, his irritation gradually passed, and he was able to take note of the changes a week had wrought in the growing things about him.
More than once he diverged to investigate blossoming shrubs which were new to him, attracted now by a sweet odor where no flowers appeared, until closer inspection revealed them, and now by a blaze of color against the dark background of laurel leaves and gray rocks. Ah, the flaming azalea had made its appearance at last, huge clusters of brilliant bloom on leafless shrubs. How dazzlingly gay!
In the midst of his observance of things about him, and underneath his surface thoughts, he carried with him a continual feeling of satisfaction in the remembrance of the little farm below the Fall Place, and in an amused way planned about it, and built idly his "Castles in Spain." A bit of stone wall whose lower end was overgrown with vines pleased him especially, and a few enormous trees, which had been left standing when the spot had been originally cleared, and the vine-entangled, drooping trees along the banks of the small river that coursed crookedly through it, – what possibilities it all presented to his imagination! If only he could find the right man to carry out his ideas for him, he would lease the place for fifty years for the privilege of doing as he would with it.
After a time he came out upon the cleared farm of Hoke Belew, who was industriously ploughing his field for cotton, and called out to him, "How's the wife?"
"She hain't not to say right smart, an' the baby don't act like he's well, neither, suh. Ride on to th' house an' light. She's thar, an' I'll be up d'rectly."
Thryng rode on and dismounted, tying his horse to a sapling near the door. The place was an old one. A rose vine, very ancient, covered the small porch and the black, old, moss-grown roof. The small green foliage had come out all over it in the week since he was last there. The glazed windows were open, and white homespun curtains were swaying in the light breeze. A small fire blazed on the hearth, and before it, in a huge-splint-bottomed rocking-chair, the pale young mother reclined languidly, wrapped in a patchwork quilt. The hearth was swept and all was neat, but very bare.
Close to the black fireplace on a low chair, with the month-old baby on her knees, sat Cassandra. She was warming something at the fire, which she reached over to stir now and then, while the red light played brightly over her sweet, grave face. Very intent she was, and lovely to see. She wore a creamy white homespun gown, coarse in texture, such as she had begun to wear about the house since the warm days had come. Thryng had seen her in such a dress but once before, and he liked it. With one arm guarding the little bundle in her lap, dividing her attention between it and the porridge she was making, she sat, a living embodiment of David's vision, silhouetted against and haloed by the red fire, softened by the blue, obscuring smoke-wreaths that slowly circled in great rings and then swept up the wide, overarching chimney.
He heard her low voice speaking, and his heart leaped toward her as he stood an instant, unheeded by them, ere he rapped lightly. They both turned with a slight start. Cassandra rose, holding the sleeping babe in the hollow of her arm, and set a chair for him before the fire. Then she laid the child carefully in the mother's arms, and removed the porridge from the fire.
