CHAPTER X
It was late on an afternoon several days after the party from the bluegrass had gone down from the mountains when Layson, with a letter of great import in his pocket sought Madge Brierly.
He was very happy, as, a short time before he reached her isolated cabin, he stepped out to the edge of that same ledge where Horace Holton had found the view too full of memories for comfort, to look off across the lovely valley spread before, below him. There were no memories of struggle and bloodshed to arise between him and that view and for a time he gloried in it with that bounding, pulsating appreciation which can come to us in youth alone, as his eyes swept the fair prospect of wooded slope and rugged headland, stream-ribbon, mountain-meadow, billowy forest. Then, with a deep breath of the wondrous air of the old Cumberlands, which added a physical exhileration almost intoxicating to the pleasure of the thoughts which filled his mind, he went slowly up the rugged twisting path to Madge's cabin. There, standing by the bridge he called, and, presently, the girl appeared.
He smiled at her. He did not wish to tell her, too quickly, of the news the letter held.
The girl was still full of the visit and the visitors. They had seemed to her, reared as she had been in the rough seclusion of the mountains, like denizens of another, wondrously fine world, come to glimpse her in her crude one, for a few hours, and then gone back to their own glorious abiding place.
She did not admit it to herself, but they had left behind them discontent with the life she knew, her lack of education, almost everything with which, in days gone by, she had been so satisfied.
Layson, watching her as she approached, was tempted to enjoy her as she was, for a few minutes, before telling her the news which, young and inexperienced as he was, he yet knew, instinctively, would change her for all time.
"Well," he said, "how did you like them, Madge?"
The girl sat upon a stump and looked off across the valley. Her hands were clasped upon one knee, as she reflected, the fading sunlight touched her hair with sheening brilliance, her eyes, at first, were dreamy, happy.
"Oh, I loved your aunt!" said she. "She made me think of my own mammy.... She made me think of my own mammy."
"And she was quite as much in love with you."
"Was she?... And Cunnel Doolittle! Ain't he splendid? And how he do know hosses! Wouldn't I love to see some of them races that he told about? Wouldn't I love to have a chance to learn how to become a lady like your aunt? She's just the sweetest thing that ever lived."
"And ... and ... Miss Barbara?" said Layson, with a little mischief in his wrinkling eyelids.
The girl shrugged herself together haughtily upon her stump. He had seen lowlands girls use almost the same gesture when, in drawing-rooms, some topic had come up which they did not wish to talk about.
"Huh! Her!" said Madge and would have changed the subject had he let her.
"Really?" he asked, wickedly. "Didn't you like her?"
"I ain't sayin' much," said Madge, "because she's different from me, has had more chance, is better dressed, knows more from books an' so on, an' it might seem like I was plumb jealous of her. Maybe I am, too. But, dellaw! Her with her pollysol! When she opened it that way at me I thought it war a gun an' she war goin' to fire! Maybe I ain't had no learnin' in politeness, but it seems to me I would a been a little more so, just the same, if I'd been in her place. She don't like me, she don't, an' I—why, I just hates her! Her with her ombril up, an' not a cloud in sight!"
Layson looked at her and laughed. The letter in his pocket made it seem probable that she would not need, in future, to submit to such humiliations as the bluegrass girl had put upon her, so his merriment could not be counted cruel.
"Jealous of her?" he inquired, quizzically.
She sat in deep thought for a moment and then frankly said: "I reckon so; a leetle, teeny mite. Maybe it has made me mean in thinkin' of her, ever since."
"You're honest, anyway," said he, "and I shall tell you something that will comfort you. She was as jealous of you as you were of her."
"She was!" the girl exclaimed, incredulous, surprised. "Of me?" You're crazy, ain't you?"
"Not a bit."
"What have I got to make her jealous?"
"A lot of things. You've beauty such as hers will never be—"
"Dellaw!" said Madge, incredulously. She had no knowledge of her own attractiveness. "Don't you start in makin' fun o' me."
"I'm not making fun of you. You're very beautiful—my aunt said so, the Colonel said so, and I've known it, all along."
No one had ever said a thing like this to her, before. She looked keenly at him, weighing his sincerity. When she finally decided that he really meant what he had said, she breathed a long sigh of delight.
"They said that I—was beautiful!"
"They did, and, little girl, you are; and you have more than beauty. You have health and strength such as a bluegrass girl has never had in all the history of women."
"Oh, yes," said she, "I'm strong an' well—but—but—"
"But what?"
"But what?" she quoted bitterly. "But I ain't got no eddication. What does strength and what does what you tell me is my beauty count, when I ain't got no eddication? Why—why—I looked plumb foolish by the side of her! You think I don't know that my talk sounds rough as rocks alongside hers, ripplin' from her lips as smooth as water? You think I don't know that I looked like a scare-crow in all them clo'es I had fixed up so careful, when she come on with her gowns made up for her by dressmakers? Why—why—I never see a dressmaker in all my life! I never even see one!"
"Well," said he, and looked at her with a slow smile, "there probably will be no reason why you may not see as many as you like, in years to come,"
She was amazed. "This some sort o' joke?"
"No, Madge. How would you like to be rich?"
"Me?... Rich? Oh ... oh, I'd like it. Then I could go down in th' bluegrass, study, l'arn, an'—I could do a heap o' good aroun' hyar, too" She sighed. "But thar never was nobody rich in these hyar mountings an' I reckon thar never will be."
"Perhaps you may be," said the youth, and there was a serious quality in his voice which made her start and then lean forward on her stump to gaze at him with searching, eager eyes.
"Your land down in the valley," he went on, "may contain coal and iron enough to give you a fortune. Now there are bad men in this world, and I want you to promise me to sell it to nobody without first coming to me for advice."
"Promise?" said the girl, the wonder all ashine in her big eyes. "In course I'll promise that. But is there r'ally a chance of it?"
"There really is."
"Oh, if I only knowed, for shore! Seems like I couldn't wait!"
"You shall know, to-night, or, maybe, sooner. I have the engineers report, but I must study it out carefully and make sure what boundaries he means. I'm almost certain they include your land. As soon as I find out I'll come back here and call to you and let you know."
"I reckon you won't have to call! I'll be watchin' for you every minute."
"Well, I'm off. But remember what I said about letting anyone buy any of your land from you. Don't sell an inch, don't give an option at whatever price, to anyone without consulting me."
When he had left, the girl still sat there, dreaming on her stump after she had watched him out of sight.
The news that she might become rich had stirred her deeply for a moment, but, soon she wondered if riches, really, would mean everything, and decided that they would not.
"Somehow," she mused, "somehow I don't care much about it, not unless—unless—oh, I can't think of nothin' in th' world but him! An' he says he's goin' to go away, never to return no more!... Other folks has gone away, afore, but it didn't seem to hurt my heart like this. I wonder what is ailin' me."
Her thought turned back to that half-bitter, half-delightful moment when he had tried to kiss her at the bridge. "Why, even then," she mused, "thar were somethin' seemed to draw me to him in spite o' myself. Never felt anythin' like it afore. It war—just as if I war asleep, all over, an' never wanted to wake up! I wonder if I wish he warn't comin' back, to-night—not half so much, I reckon, as I wish he warn't never goin' away!"
She left her resting place upon the stump, and, torn by varying emotions, found a place upon the trail where she could look off to his camp. She was standing there, leaning listlessly against a tree, when the sound of someone coming made her turn her head. She saw Joe Lorey.
"Madge," said he, approaching, "I wants a word with you,"
She did not wish to talk with him. Her mind was far too busy with its thoughts of Layson, its dismay at the prospect of his departure. "No time, Joe; it's too late," said she. She started to go by him toward her little bridge.
But he was not inclined to be put off. The mountaineer's slow mind had been at work with his great problem and he had quite determined that he would take some action, definite and unmistakable, without delay. He had leaned his ever-present rifle up against a stump, had laid the old game-sack, still burdened with the stolen dynamite, upon the ground, close to it, and was prepared to talk the matter out, to one end or the other. He loved her with the fierce love of the primitive man; his rising wrath against the circumstances amidst which he seemed to be so powerless had made him sullen and suspicious; mountain life, continual defiance of the law, unceasing watchfulness for "revenuers," does not teach a man to be smooth-mannered, half-way in his methods. He made a move as if to catch her arm; she darted by him, running straight toward the old game-sack.
That burden in the game-sack had been a constant horror to him ever since he had first stolen it down at the railroad workings. The mighty evidence of the power of the explosive which had been shown to him when it had torn and mangled its poor victim there, had filled him with a terror of it, although it had also filled him with determination to make use of that great power if necessary. But now, as he saw her running, light-footed, lovely, toward the bag which held it, running in exactly the right way to stumble on it if a mis-step chanced, his heart sprang to his throat. What if the dire explosive he had planned to use upon his enemies should prove to be the death of the one being whom he loved? He sprang toward her with the mighty impulse of desperate muscles spurred by a panic-stricken mind and caught her, roughly, just before her foot would have touched and spurned the game-sack.
"Stop!" he cried, in desperation.
She was amazed that he should take so great a liberty. She stopped, perforce, but, after she had stopped, she stood there trembling with hot anger. "Joe Lorey," she exclaimed, "you dare!"
Now he was all humility as he let his hand fall from her arm. "It was for your sake, Madge," said he. "A stumble on that sack—it mout have sent us both to Kingdom Come!"
She looked at him incredulously, then down at the sack. "That old game-sack? Why, Joe, you're plumb distracted!"
"I'm in my senses, yet, I tell you," he persisted. "T'other day I went down where they're blastin' for th' railroad. I see 'em usin' dynamighty, down thar, an' I watched my chance an', when it come, I slipped one o' th' bombs into that game-sack. Ef you'd chanced to kick it—"
She was impressed. "Dynamighty bombs? Dellaw! What's dynamighty bombs?"
"It's a giant powder, a million times stronger nor mine." He reached into the sack and, with cautious fingers, took out the cartridge and the fuse, exhibiting them to her. "See here. I seed 'em take a bomb no bigger nor this one, an' light a fuse like this, an' when it caught it ennymost shook down a mounting! I seed a poor chap what war careless with one, an' when they picked him up, why—"
"Don't, Joe!" said the girl, looking at the cartridge with the light of horror shining in her eyes. "What you doin' with such devil's stuff?"
"I got it for th' revenuers," he said frankly. The mountaineers of the old Cumberland, to this day, make no secret of their deadly hatred for the agents of the government excise. "They're snoopin' 'round th' mountings, an' if they find my still I plan to blow it into nothin', an' them with it."
She recoiled from him. "No, no, Joe; you'd better gin th' still up, nor do such work as that!"
"I'll never gin it up!" said he, with a set face. "It's mine; it war my father's long before me. There's only one thing could ever make me gin it up."
"What's that?" The girl was still spellbound by the fascination of the dynamite which she had come so near to treading on. Her eyes were fixed upon the cartridge in his hand with horror, wonder.
He stepped closer to her. "I mout gin it up for you!"
"For me?"
"You know I've loved ye sence ye were that high," said he, and measured with his hand a very little way up the side of the old stump. "Many a time I've listened hyar to your evenin' hymn, an' thought I'd rather hear you singin' in my home than hear th' angels singin' in th' courts o' Heaven. Say th' word, Madge—say you'll be my little wife!"
The girl was woe fully affected. Her eyes filled and her bosom heaved with feeling. It cut her to the soul to have to hurt this playmate of her babyhood, defender of her youth, companion of her budding womanhood; their lives had been linked, too, by the great tragedy which, years ago, had orphaned both of them. But, of late, she had felt sure that she could never marry him. She would not admit, even to herself, just why this was; but it was so. "No, no, Joe; it can never be," she said.
He knew! "And why?" said he, his face blackening with bitter feeling, his brows contracting fiercely. "Because that furriner from the blue grass has come atween us!"
Madge, surprised that he should guess the secret which she had scarcely admitted, even to herself, was, for a second, frightened by his keenness. Had she shown her feelings with such freedom? But she quickly regained self-control and answered with a clever counterfeit of lightness. "Him? Oh, sho! He'd never think o' me that way!"
"Mebbe so," said Joe, "but I know you think more o' th' books he teaches you from than o' my company. From th' thickets borderin' th' clearin' where you've studied, I've watched you settin' thar with him, wen I'd give th' world to be thar in his place. Why, I'd ennymost gin up my life for one kiss, Madge!" He looked at her with pitiful love and longing in his eyes; but this soon changed to a sort of mad determination. "I'll have it, too!" he cried, advancing toward her.
She was amazed, not in the least dismayed. Indeed the episode took from the moment some of its emotional strain. That he should try to do this utterly unwarrantable thing took a portion of the weight of guilty feeling from her heart. It had been pressing heavily there. "You shan't!" she cried. "Careful, Joe Lorey!"
She eluded him with ease and ran across her little bridge. He paused, a second, in astonishment, and, as he paused, she grasped the rope and pulled the little draw up after her.
"Look out, Joe; it air a hundred feet, straight down!" she cried, as she saw that the baffled mountaineer was trembling on the chasm's edge, as if preparing for a spring. "Good night, Joe. Take my advice—gin up th' still, an' all thought of makin' a wife of a girl as ain't willin'."
Half laughing and half crying she ran up the path which wound about among the thickets on the rocky little island where her rough cabin stood, secure, secluded.
The mountaineer stood, baffled, on the brink of the ravine. Much loneliness among the mountains, where there was no voice but his own to listen to, had given him the habit of talking to himself in moments of excitement.
"Gone! Gone!" he said. "Gone laughin' at me!" He clenched his fists. "And it is him as has come atween us!" He turned slowly from the place, picked up his rifle, slung the game-sack, saggin with the weight of the dynamite, across his shoulder by its strap, and started from the place.
He had gone but a short distance, though, before he stopped, considering. Murder was in Joe Lorey's heart.
"She said he war comin' back," he sullenly reflected. "I'll ... lay for him, right hyar."
He looked cautiously about. His quick ear caught the sound of footsteps coming up the trail.
"Somebody's stirrin', now," he said. "Oh, if it's only him!"
He slipped behind a rock to wait in ambush.
But it was not his enemy who came, now, along the trail. Horace Holton, held to the mountains by his mysterious business, had left the others of the party to go home alone, as they had come, and returned to the neighborhood which housed the girl who owned the land he coveted.
Joe, suspicious of him, as the mountaineer who makes his living as a moonshiner, is, of course, of every stranger who appears within his mountains, stepped forward, suddenly, his rifle in his hand and ready to be used. He had no idea that the man had been a member of the party from the bluegrass.
"Halt, you!" he cried.