“An’ shet up yerse’f, M’ria. Least said, soonest mended,” Marvin interposed. “Look-a-hyar, Lethe Sayles, ye hev done harm enough; it may be ’kase it war right. Take sech satisfaction ez ye kin in yer notion. It never turned out right,—turned out mighty wrong. I ain’t goin’ ter answer ye nare nuther word. I hev got a question ter ax you-uns right now. Who war it ye tole ’bout findin’ out ’twar me a-moonshinin’?”
She detailed tremulously the scene in the court-room, and the impression it produced was altogether at variance with her expectations. Perhaps, however, it was only natural that Sam Marvin should feel less interest in the belated disclosure, which he had thought was made months previous, than in the circumstances of the trial, Peter Rood’s death, the imprisonment of the jury, and the riot of the rescuing mob. As to his wife, she was chiefly shocked by the publicity attaching to testimony in open court.
“An’ ye jes’ stood up thar, Lethe Sayles, ez bold-faced ez a biscuit-block, an’ lifted up yer outdacious voice afore all them men? Waal, sir! Waal! I dunno what the wimmen air a-comin’ ter!”
“I war obligated ter tell sech ez I knowed,” Alethea contended against this assumption of superior delicacy. “I never felt no more bold-faced than in tellin’ ’speriunce ’fore the brethren at camp.”
“Oh, child!” cried Mrs. Marvin. “It’s the spirit o’ grace movin’ at camp, but at court it’s the nimbleness o’ the devil.”
Alethea argued no further, for conversation was impeded by the succeeding operations of gathering the crop. Marvin was leading the team of the great wagon from one to another of the heaps of corn. The huge creaking wheels crushed the ranks of stalks that fell in confusion on either side; the white canvas cover had been removed from the hoops, in order to facilitate the throwing of the corn into the wagon. Through the wreaths of smoke appeared the long ears of a pair of mules. Sam Marvin had apparently found his new home in a thirstier locality than his old, for he was evidently thriving. The pair of mules might have been considered a sorry team in point of appearance: their sides were rubbed bare with the friction of the trace-chains; they were both unkempt, and one was very tall and the other small, but they were stalwart and sure-footed and fleet, and a wonderful acquisition in lieu of the yoke of slow oxen she remembered. The continuous thud, as the ears of corn were thrown into the wagon, enabled Marvin to affect not to hear Alethea’s reiteration as to Tad’s fate.
“I wisht ye’d tell me suthin’ ’bout’n Tad,” she said piteously. “I wisht I knew ye hedn’t hurt him, nor—nor”—
She paused in the work, looking drearily about her. The wind tossed her garments; she was fain at times to catch her bonnet by the curtain, to hold it. The smoke had taken flight; dragons, winged horses, griffins, forgotten myths, all scurrying away before the strong blast. And still they came and went, and rose once more, for the wind that lifted the smoke fanned the fire. The flames were in sight along the base of Big Injun Mounting, writhing now like fiery serpents, and now rising like some strange growth in quivering blades; waving and bowing, appearing and disappearing, and always extending further and further. They seemed so alive, so endowed with the spirit of destruction, so wantonly alert, so merciless to the fettered mountain that tossed its forests in wild commotion, with many a gesture of abject despair, and spite of all could not flee. Their strong, tawny color contrasted with the dull garnet of the bare boughs and the deep, sombre green of the solemn pines. The smoke carried from the fire a lurid reflection, fading presently in the progress across the landscape of the long, dun-colored flights. The wintry sunset was at hand. The sky was red and amber; the plains of the far west lay vaguely purple beneath. On Walden’s Ridge, rising against the horizon, rested the sun, from which somehow the dazzling fire seemed withdrawn, leaving a sphere of vivid scarlet, indescribably pure and intense, upon which the eye could nevertheless gaze undaunted.
Pensive intimations there were in its reduced splendors; in the deep purple of Chilhowee, in the brown tints of the nearer ranges. Something was gone from the earth,—a day,—and the earth was sad, though it had known so many. And the night impended and the unimagined morrow. And thus the averted Future turns by slow degrees the face that all flesh dreads to see. The voice of lowing cattle came up from the cove. The fires in the solitudes burned apace.