“Naw, ye won’t,” said one of them. “Ye won’t do nuthin’ like it. Ye air goin’ ter jail fower month, an’ arter that ter the Pen’tiary five year, an’ time ye git out’n thar ye’ll be so powerful pleased ter be foot-loose ye’ll mind yer manners the rest o’ yer days, an’ ye will hev clean furgot Jedge Gwinnan.”
He evidently thought some harshness salutary. Mink made no reply, and they presently fell to talking together of their town affairs and gossip, excluding him from the conversation, in which, in truth, he desired to take no share.
XVI.
In contrast with the steam-cars, the old ox-cart was a slow way of getting through the world, and had little of that magnificence which forced itself upon Mink’s jaded and preoccupied faculties. But as Alethea turned her face toward the mountains, it seemed the progress into Paradise, so happy was she in the belief that the rescuers had prevailed. For she, aunt Dely, and Jerry Price had left town early that morning, before doubts and contradictions were astir. The waning yellow moon still swung high in the sky, above the violet vapors of the level west. Long shadows were stalking athwart the fields and down the woodland ways, as if some mystic beings of the night were getting them home. A gust of wind came shivering along the road once and again,—an invisible, chilly presence, that audibly rustled its weird garments and convulsively caught its breath, and was gone. Above the Great Smoky Mountains the inexpressible splendors of the day-star glowed and burned. She walked behind the cart much of the time with Jerry, while aunt Dely sat, a shapeless mass, within it. A scent of tar issued from its clumsy wheels, heavy with the red clay mire of many a mile; a rasping creak exuded from its axles, in defiance of wagon-grease. The ox between his shafts had a grotesque burliness in the moonlight. The square, unpainted little vehicle was a quaint contrivance. Four of the dogs ran beneath it, in leash with their nimble shadows. And aunt Dely’s sun-bonneted head, nodding with occasional lapses into sleep, was faithfully reproduced in the antics of the silhouettes upon the ground that journeyed with them.
Now and again the Scolacutta River crossed their way in wide, shining curves scintillating with the stars, and then Alethea would perch upon the tail-board, and Jerry would clamber into his place as driver, and the dogs would yelp and wheeze on the bank, reluctant to swim, and the ox would plunge in, sometimes with a muttered low of surprise to find the water so cold. Fording the stream was slow work; the wheels often scraped against great hidden bowlders, threatening dislocation and destruction to the running gear. The transit was attended with a coruscation of glittering showers of spray, and left a foaming track across the swift current. Sometimes it was a hard pull up the steep, rocky bank opposite. The old ox had a sober aspect, a resolute tread, and insistently nodding horns. His sturdy rustic demeanor might have suggested that he was glad to be homeward bound, and to turn his back upon the frivolities of civilization and fashion. Not so aunt Dely. It seemed for a time as if her enforced withdrawal from these things had impaired her temper. She woke up ever and anon with caustic remarks.
“I reckon now, Lethe Ann Sayles, ye be goin’ ter bide along o’ yer step-mother?”
“Ye know that’s my home. I hev ter, aunt Dely.”
The girl’s voice was clear, sweet, thrilling with gladness, like some suddenly awakened bird’s singing a stave before dawn.
“I b’lieve ye!” satirically. “Ennybody but you-uns would be ’shamed ter own up ez ye hev got no home. Old ez ye be, an’ ye ain’t married yit! How old be ye? Lemme see,”—with a tone intimating that she would give no quarter,—“nineteen year, five month, an’ fower days. It’s plumb scandalous,” she muttered, arranging her shawl about her. “Ye Bluff!” addressing the ox in a querulous crescendo, “ye goin’ ter jolt the life out’n me, a-tryin’ ter ape the gait o’ the minchin’ sinners ye seen in Shaftesville! Actially the steer hev got the shuffles! I tell ye, Sodom an’ G’morrah warn’t nowhar fur seethin’ sin ter Shaftesville. The devil be a-gatherin’ his harvest thar. His bin an’ barn air full. Them folks will know some day ez store clothes ain’t no defense agin fire. They hev bartered thar salvation fur store clothes. But I do wisht,” she broke off suddenly, dropping her voice from her sanctimonious whine to her cheery drawl, “I hed one o’ them ready-made sun-bonnets. I hed traded off all my feathers an’ truck for store sugar an’ sech afore I seen ’em. I was so full o’ laff that I couldn’t keep my face straight whenst I viewed the contrivance.”