One of the standers, well-mounted, took up a distant pass at Elliott’s Wells, the site of a settlement abandoned many generations ago. Concealing his horse in a thicket at the rear of the stand, he returned to the knoll, stood in front of a great pine, a giant among its lofty fellows, and listened for the cry of the pack. But listening was difficult and no cry came to his ears. The wind was high, and, singing among the pine tops like æolian harps, rose and swelled and softened and died away, now whispering of the wold with its peaceful sheep, and quiet meadows where cattle grazed, now thundering of stormswept mountain tops and the break of ocean surges on rockbound coasts, and again softened to the lap of sluggish wavelets on the shining shores of placid bays, and sighing told of those that grieved, and shrieked with the anguish of those that suffered, and softened again with the laughter of little children, and told the myriad stories and waked the thousand memories that the weird and mysterious songs of the wind among the pines bring to those whose hearts are attuned to nature. More than once the stander stood at attention, thinking he heard the cry of a distant hound, but, with a lull in the wind, the aural will-o’-the-wisp was gone, so misleading are the wind-sounds to even the trained ear. An hour passed. Two hours—but only the wind was heard, no bay of dog, no blast of horn betraying the presence of hunter or hound anywhere in the great expanse of forest.
Not far away was an old graveyard, one of the Colonial villages of the dead occasionally found in the low-country forests. The lettering on the marble slabs that covered the eternal sleepers revealed them as members of important families, many of them children who died of fever during the summer months before the days of quinine, deep wells and wire screens. The stander, while listening for the cry of the pack, read the lichen-covered inscriptions on the tombs and mused like Gray and Omar. With a whimsical smile, he looked at the towering crown of a great water-oak deep-rooted in the mould of a stout-hearted 17th century squire—a “five-bottle man” perhaps, and marveled at the alchemy of nature that could, from Madeira, Port and old Jamaica Rum, resolve a dew to nourish a Water Oak! Then, with ineffable sadness, he read the brief life-stories of God’s little children, “Mary,” “Anne,” “William,” “beloved daughter,” “beloved son” “of —— and —— his wife,” “died August 171-,” “died September 172-.” A cherub deep-carved in the marble, the line “Suffer little children to come unto Me”—no more! Seven, eight generations of men and women had lived their lives and passed since these little children were taken home 200 years ago! Yet, how near the tragedy seemed! The father returning from field or forest to find the mother in agony over the stricken child, no doctor, no ice, no effective medicines. The brilliant eyes, the burning cheeks, delirium, the end. The little mound in the woodland, wet with a mother’s tears, the graver’s chisel in the marble—and that was all. So men and women lived, and little children died—two hundred years ago!
At the end of the fourth hour of waiting, the stander, hearing only the wind-harps among the pine-tops, and realizing that, either the pack had jumped and been led by the chase out of the drive—a cunning old buck sometimes running contrary to all precedent—or that, striking no trail, the drivers had “blown out” of the Big Drive and called the hunt together for exploitation elsewhere, mounted his horse and rode due west through the woods for the Willtown road, which, running north and south, and nearly parallel with the Edisto and its tributary Penny Creek, would be crossed by any deer making for the river. Just as he reached the road, he accosted a negro walking toward Parker’s Ferry X-Roads, and asked if he had heard horns or hounds.
“Maussuh, uh binnuh stan’ een Willtown road close to Mas’ Edwu’d Baa’nwell’ Clifton place, w’en uh yeddy de dog duh comin’ fuh me, en’ uh stop fuh liss’n. Bimeby, uh see de mukkle duh shake, en’, fus’ t’ing uh know, de deer jump out de t’icket en’ light een de big road en’ look ’puntop me! ’E foot fall saaf’ly ’pun de groun’ same lukkuh cat duh sneak ’puntop’uh bu’d. ’E tu’n ’e head en’ ’e look ’puntop me lukkuh somebody, ’cep’n’ suh ’e yeye big lukkuh hawn owl’ eye. ’E look at me so positubble, uh t’ink mus’be ’e duh haant, en’ uh dat ’f’aid ’e gwine t’row one spell ’puntop me, uh tu’n ’way me head. W’en uh look roun’ ’gen, ’e gone! Yuh come de dog’! Uh nebbuh see summuch dog’! Dem full’ de road, en’ dem woice’ roll ’tell you nebbuh yeddy shishuh music. Dem cross’ de road, en’ dem gone! Attuh leetle w’ile, uh yeddy’um duh gib dem toung een de gyaa’d’n uh ole Maussuh’ Clifton house wuh dem Nyankee bu’n down eenjurin’ uh de wah. De gyaa’d’n big ez uh cawnfiel’, en’ ’e full’uh high rose bush duh climb up ’pun de tree, en’ all kind’uh briah en’ t’icket dey dey. Uh yeddy de dog’ mek uh sukkle roun’ de gyaa’d’n, den dem stop. Bimeby, yuh come de ole buck duh run puhzackly ’pun ’e back track, en’, w’en ’e git to de big road weh him lef’ me duh stan’up, uh t’awt at de fus’ ’e bin gwine jump ’puntop me, but ’e tu’n shaa’p roun’ en’ light down de road gwine Paa’kuh’ Ferry Cross-road’. ’E run ’traight een de big road, en’ uh’ spec’ ’e gone ’way todduh side Allstun’ Abenue befo’ de dog’ git back to de big road on ’e trail. De dog’ comin’ so fas’ uh git out ’e way fuh l’em pass, en’ dem so hasty, dem nebbuh ’top fuh smell weh de deer tu’n off down de road, en’ dem gone uh bilin’ t’ru de mukkle t’icket on de back track weh dem come f’um, en’ dem run ’bout uh mile befo’ dem fin’ out sun dem bin ’puntop de back track, den dem tu’n roun’ en’ come back fuh weh uh binnuh stan’ up. One leetle blue speckle’ toad bus’ out de pack en’ tek de fresh trail weh de buck jump off de back track, en’ gone! Soon ez dem todduh dog’ yeddy him woice, dem lef’ de ole trail en’ bu’n de win’ down de big road on de fresh track. Da’ duh de las’ uh shum, en’ uh nebbuh yeddy’um no mo’ attuh ’e done gone.”
Sure enough, the veteran Echo, the most intelligent dog in the pack, was running wide when she reached the road for the second time and detected the old buck’s maneuver. With a roar, the pack followed her at top speed down the open road, but, by the time the cry reached the Allston place on Penny Creek, the buck, with two or three miles the start of them, had run directly through the negro quarters, causing general consternation in the settlement, and had taken the water at the landing. Instead of crossing, however, he swam rapidly up stream and, aided by the flood tide, was a mile away before the pursuing pack reached the water’s edge. True to their usual practice, they crossed the creek and spread over the swamp on the other side in search of the trail, but trail there was none. The puzzled hounds ran up and down the bank for several hundred yards, whimpering with disappointment, but, for them that day, the buck was lost as completely as though the brown waters had swallowed him up, and one by one the disappointed dogs reluctantly recrossed the stream, and, as there was no sound of horn to summon them, singly and in groups they made their way to their respective homes.
Realizing that the buck had run far out of the chive, and, by giving all the passes a wide berth had lost the hunt, the sometime stander of Elliott’s Wells followed the spreading slot of the deer in the “big road” as far as Allston’s, and, riding up to the quarters, sought information of hounds and quarry from an old negress who was seated on the steps of her cabin, trying to loosen, with a tough horn comb, the kinky wool of a little black girl who sat on a lower step between her knees.
“Mauma, have you seen anything of a deer or dogs?”
The old woman, true to her training, tried to rise to drop a curtsy before replying, but the wide-eyed imp of darkness between her knees sat stolidly on the hem of her homespun skirt and prevented her rising.
“Git up, gal, ent you hab sense ’nuf fuh mek yo’ mannus w’en you see w’ite people? Uh bin agguhnize ’long all dem fowl’ fedduh en’ t’ing you hab een you head, en’ dem tanglety up ’tell uh cyan’ git ’um out, en’ you hab no bidness fuh gone en’ creep t’ru da’ fowlh’us’ winduh fuh git dem aig’. Git up en’ gone!”
But long before she reached the end of her sentence, the girl was up and gone, and, with a deep curtsy, the old woman answered the hunter.