I’d tell ef ’twarn’t fur the mornin’ star.’”
The others joined tumultuously in the chorus. One sprang up, dancing a clumsy measure and striking his feet together with an uncouth deftness worthy of all praise in the estimation of his comrades. They broke into ecstatic guffaws, in the midst of which Mink’s “Oh, ah! Oh, ah!” heralding the next verse, seemed a voice a long way off. Down the ravine was visible a collection of great white trees, girdled and dead long ago, standing in some field, all so tiny in the distance that it was as if the fingers of a ghostly hand had pointed upward at the group of revelers on the ridge.
The shadows had shifted, slanted. The moon was westering fast. Every gauzy effect of vapor had its fascination in the embellishing beam, and shone vaguely iridescent All were drifting down the valley toward Chilhowee. Above them rose that enchanted mountain’s summit, with its long irregular horizontal line, purple and romantic, suggestive of its crags, its caves, its forests, and its wild unwritten poetry. A star was close upon it. Peace brooded on its heights.
The prophecy of dawn was momently reiterated with fuller phrase, with plainer significance. Even Mink, reluctant to recognize it, yielded at last to Jerry Price’s insistence. And indeed the jug was empty.
“Put the jug in the hollow tree, then, like we promised, an’ let’s go,” said Mink. “Mos’ day, ennyhow. ‘Oh, ah! Oh, ah! The daylight’s apt ter break,’ said the witch.”
The jug was thrust in the hollow of the tree, and the drunken fellows, in the securities of their fancied quiet, went whooping through the woods. The owl’s hoot ceased as their meaningless clamor rose from under the boughs. Now and then that crisp, matutinal sound, the vibrant chirp of half-awakened nestlings, jarred the air.
The group presently began to separate, some going down to Eskaqua Cove, where they would find their several homes if they could, but would at all hazards lay down their neighbors’ fences. Rood lingered for a time with Mink and one or two others who cherished the design of seeing old man Griff’s mill started before day. He turned off, however, when they had reached the open spaces of Piomingo Cove. It lay quiet, pastoral, encircled by the solemn mountains, with the long slant of the moonbeams upon it and the glister of the dew. The fields had all a pearly, luminous effect, marked off by the zigzag lines of the rail fences and the dark bushes that stood in corners. The houses, indicated by clumps of trees among which they nestled, were dark and silent. Not even a dog barked. When a cock crew the sudden note seemed clear and resonant as a bugle. “Crowin’ fur fower o’clock.” said Mink.
The road ran among woods much of the distance; through the trees could be caught occasional glimpses of the illuminated world without. But presently they gave way. A wide, deep notch in the summit of a mountain revealed the western sky. The translucent amber moon swung above these purple steeps, all suffused with its glamourous irradiation. Below, the shining breadth of the Scolacutta River swept down from the vague darkness. It was still night, yet one could see how the pawpaw and the laurel crowded the banks. The oblique line of the roof of the mill was drawn against the purple sky; its windows were black; its supports were reflected in the stream with a distinct reduplication; the water trickled down from crevices in the race with a lace-like effect, seeming never to fall, but to hang as if it were some gauzy fragment of a fabric. Beneath the great wheel, motionless, circular, shadowy, was a shoaling yellow light, pellucid and splendid,—the moon among the shallows. The natural dam, a glassy cataract, bursting into foam and spray, was whitely visible, with surging rapids below. The sound seemed louder than usual; it deadened the snap when Mink cut a pole from a pawpaw tree and hastily trimmed the leaves. He climbed gingerly upon the timbers of the race, then paused, looked back, and hesitated.