The road down which he took his way described many a curve seeking to obviate the precipitousness of the descent. The rocks rose high on either side for a time, and when the scene beyond broke upon him in its entirety it was as if a curtain were suddenly lifted. How shadowy, how fragrant the budding woods above the calm and lustrous water! The mill, its walls canted askew, dark and soaked with the rain, and its mossy roof awry, was sombre and silent. Over the dam the water fell in an unbroken crystal sheet so smooth and languorous that it seemed motionless, as if under a spell. Ferns were thick on a marshy slope opposite, where scattered boulders lay, and one quivering blossomy bough of a dogwood-tree leaned over its white reflection in the water, fairer than itself, like some fond memory embellishing the thing it images.
With that sudden sense of companionship in loneliness by which a presence is felt before it is perceived, he turned sharply back as he was about to move away, and glanced again toward the mill. A young girl was standing in the doorway in an attitude of arrested poise, as if in surprise.
Timidity was not the juggler’s besetting sin. He lifted his hat with a courteous bow, the like of which had never been seen in Etowah Cove, and thus commending himself to her attention, he took his way toward her along the slant of the corduroy road; for this fleeting glimpse afforded to him a more vivid suggestion of interest than the Cove had as yet been able to present. For the first time since reaching its confines it occurred to him that it might be possible to live along awhile yet. Nevertheless, he contrived to keep his eyes decorously void of expression, and occupied them for the most part in aiding his feet to find their way among the crevices and obstacles with which the road abounded. When he paused, he asked, suffering his eyes to rest inquiringly on the girl, “Beg pardon, but will you kindly inform me where is the miller?”
The glimpse that had so attracted him was, he felt, all inadequate, as he stood and gazed, privileged by virtue of his simulated interest in the absent miller. He could not have seen from the distance how fair, how dainty, was her complexion, nor the crinkles and sparkles of gold in her fine brown hair. It waved upward from her low brow in a heavy undulation which he would have discriminated as “à la Pompadour,” but its contour was compassed by wearing far backward a round comb, the chief treasure of her possessions, the heavy masses of hair rising smoothly toward the front, and falling behind in long, loose ringlets about her shoulders. She had a delicate chin with a deep dimple,—which last reminded him unpleasantly of Mrs. Sims, for dimples were henceforth at a discount; a fine, thin, straight nose; two dark silken eyebrows, each describing a perfect arc; and surely there were never created for the beguilement of man two such large, lustrous gray-blue eyes, long-lashed, deep-set, as those which served Euphemia Sims for the comparatively unimportant function of vision. He had hardly been certain whether her attire was more or less grotesque than the costume of the other mountain women until she lifted these eyes and completed the charm of the unique apparition. She wore a calico bought by the yard at the store, and accounted but a flimsy fabric by the homespun-weaving mountain women. It was of a pale green tint, and had once been sprinkled over with large dark green leaves. Lye soap and water had done their merciful work. The strong crude color of the leaves had been subdued to a tint but little deeper than the ground of the material, and while the contour of the foliage was retained, it was mottled into a semblance of light and shade here and there where the dye strove to hold fast. The figure which it draped was pliant and slender; the feet which the full skirt permitted to be half visible were small, and arrayed in brown hose and the stout little brogans which had brought her so nimbly from Piomingo Cove. Partly amused, partly contemptuous, partly admiring, the juggler remarked her hesitation and embarrassment, and relished it as of his own inspiring.
“Waal,” she drawled at last, “I don’t rightly know.” She gazed at him doubtfully. “Air ye wantin’ ter see him special?”
He had a momentary terror lest she should ask him for his grist and unmask his subterfuge. He sought refuge in candor. “Well, I was admiring the mill. This is a pretty spot, and I wished to ask the miller’s name.”
There was a flash of laughter in her eyes, although her lips were grave. “His name be Tubal Sims; an’ ef he don’t prop up his old mill somehows, it’ll careen down on him some day.” She added, with asperity, “I dunno what ye be admirin’ it fur, ’thout it air ter view what a s’prisin’ pitch laziness kin kem ter.”
“That’s what I admire. I’m a proficient, a professor of the science of laziness.”
She lifted her long black lashes only a little as she gazed at him with half-lowered lids. “Ye won’t find no pupils in that science hyar about. The Cove’s done graduated.” She smiled slightly, as if to herself. The imagery of her response, drawn from her slender experience at the schoolhouse, pleased her for the moment, but she had no disposition toward further conversational triumphs. There ensued a short silence, and then she looked at him in obvious surprise that he did not take himself off. It would seem that he had got what he had come for,—the miller’s name and the opportunity to admire the mill. He experienced in his turn a momentary embarrassment. He was so conscious of the superiority of his social status, knowledge of the world, and general attainments that her apparent lack of comprehension of his condescension in lingering to admire also the miller’s daughter was subversive in some sort of his wonted aplomb. It rallied promptly, however, and he went on with a certain half-veiled mocking courtesy, of which the satire of the sentiment was only vaguely felt through the impervious words.
“I presume you are the miller’s daughter?”