How vast, how vast was the wilderness! Unseen, it gave an impression of infinite space. The wind clashed the bare boughs above his head. The pines wailed and groaned aloud. The commotion of the elements, the many subordinate, undetermined sounds, the weird, tumultuous voices of the forest, rising often to a terrible climax, had a mysterious, overpowering effect. It was a relief to detect a familiar note in the turmoil, even if it were the howl of a wolf, or the distant crash of a riven tree. How his mare plunged and floundered!—her head and neck now high before him, till he almost fell back upon her haunches, and now diving down so low that he had much ado to keep from slipping over the pommel.
“Well, Marvin,” said Harshaw, once more on level ground, “if you and Jeb will come down to my farm and visit me, I’ll promise you one thing,—I won’t turn you out of the house at midnight in a down-pour like this—ha! ha! ha! Confound you, old lady,”—to the mare, as she stumbled,—“stand up, can’t you?”
“You-uns oughtn’t ter set us down that-a-way,” said Marvin, grieved at the reflection on his hospitality.
“Lord A’mighty!” exclaimed “hongry Jeb,”—his tones from out of the darkness were vaguely yearning,—“talkin’ ter me ’bout ever kemin’ ter see ennybody at thar farm! Ye mought ez well ax that thar wolf ez we-uns hearn a-hollerin’ yander, ‘Jes’ kem an’ set awhile, Mister Wolf, an’ eat supper at my farm.’ I wouldn’t dare no mo’ ter show my muzzle in the settlemints ’n he would his’n. The law ’lows both o’ us air pests an’ cumberers o’ the groun’, an’ thar’s a price on his head ez well ez mine. The law ’lows we air both murderers.”
There was a pause, while the thud of the horses’ hoofs was barely heard on the dank, soft mould. Then the voice of “hongry Jeb” seemed to detach itself from kindred dreary voices of the rain and the winds and the woods, and become articulate.
“That’s edzac’ly whar it hurts my feelins. The wolf air enough mo’ like the revenuers, a-seekin’ who they may devour. I oughter played the sheep, I reckon, an’ gin ’em my blood stiddier lead; but I’m human,—I’m human,” insistently. “An’ when a feller with a pistol draws a bead on me, I jes’ naterally whips up my rifle an’ bangs too. An’ he war a pore shot an’ I war a good un, an’ he got the wust o’ it.”
The horses surged through the ford of an invisible torrent, stumbling among the rolling bowlders and struggling out on the other bank, and then they could hear again the monotonous falling of the multitudinous raindrops; the dreary wind took up its refrain, and the melancholy voice of Jeb began anew.
“’Twould hev been self-defense, ef I hedn’t been engaged in a unlawful act, preferrin’ ter squeege the juice out’n my apples, an’ bile an’ sell it, ’n ter let ’em rot on the groun’. I war a fool. I ’lowed the apples war mine. Me an’ my dad an’ my gran’dad hed owned the orchard an’ the lan’ sence the Injun went. But ’twarn’t my apples,—b’long ter the governmint. I ain’t never shot at no man ez didn’t shoot at me fust. But ’tain’t self-defense fur me. I’m got ter play sheep.”
The woful tenor of this discourse seemed to anger Marvin suddenly.