Tubal Cain Sims’s lower jaw dropped. Parson Tynes figured in his mind only as the troublous advocate of a dead-and-gone love, and he thought it a breach of the peace, in effect, to seek to disinter and resuscitate this ill-starred attachment. He growled adversely, but he did not reach the point of articulate remonstrance, for Jane Ann Sims majestically waved her limp dish-cloth at him as a signal to desist, and opened her mouth very wide to emit the cause of her prideful satisfaction in a loud and wheezy whisper,—which discreet demonstration came sibilantly to the ears of the young people outside, the only other human creatures within a mile, and occasioned them much unfilial merriment.
Parson Tynes no longer dwelt on marrying and giving in marriage. Ambition had been his theme. It seemed that once, not long ago, being in Colbury when a great revival—a union meeting of various denominations—was held, he had had the opportunity to preach there through some wild rumor of his celebrity as a mountain orator; and afterward a certain visiting elderly minister had taken him aside and urged him to study and to cultivate his gifts, and above all to acquire a delivery. The visiting city minister, being a man who appreciated the Great Smoky Mountains as a large and impressive element of scenery, and having never seen them except gracing the horizon, did not realize that in all their commodiousness they had scant accommodations for learning. On his part, Tynes did not appreciate any especial superiority in the delivery of the men he had heard. His slow drawl and his mispronunciations were, of course, unperceived by him, and, speaking from a worldly point of view, he was chiefly refreshed at the meeting by the consciousness that there were many more ideas in his sermon than in that of the visiting city minister. He wondered satirically how the good man would have received the converse of this charge, had he dared to exhort him in turn to cultivate thought and acquire ideas. The meeting had done Tynes no good. It had only hurt his pride, and roused a certain animosity toward the larger world outside his life and the round of his work, and caused him to contemn as spurious the pretensions of the luckier clergy. He did not accord the advice he had received a single thought, so much more important it seemed to him what a preacher says than how he says it. But Jane Ann Sims had talked much and pridefully to her cronies in the Cove about the juggler’s “readin’s,” and their fame had reached the parson’s ears. Shortly after, he chanced to encounter Royce at the mill, and for the first time was impressed by the charm of a cultured enunciation in a naturally beautiful voice. “I’d like powerful well ter speak like that, now,” he said to himself, with a sudden discrimination of superiority. And this afternoon he had come to say that he had heard of the projected school, and that he would like to know whether the juggler had ever been taught elocution and was qualified to impart his knowledge. Royce had read for him,—or rather, had recited from memory,—and Tynes had been surprised and delighted, and had averred that he read “better’n all the men at the union meeting shook up in a bag together, the city minister at the bottom.”
“But ye would hev been s’prised, Tubal,” said Mrs. Sims, her fat face clouding and her dimples turning to creases, “ter hev viewed the gamesome an’ jokified way ez John Leonard conducted hisself ter the pa’son—plumb scandalous—made a puffeck laffin’-match o’ the whole consarn; though arter a while the pa’son seemed some less serious, too. But he an’ John Leonard air a-goin’ ter meet every day, beginnin’ day arter ter-morrer, in the schoolhouse, ter take lessons in readin’. An’ the pa’son pays him fur it. Jes’ think o’ that!” Her hand with the limp dish-cloth in it extended itself impressively. “Teachin’ the pa’son—the pa’son, mind ye—ter read!”
Tubal Cain Sims sat electrified by the honor. Now and again his stiff old visage relaxed with a broad smile, but this some grave thought suddenly puckered up. In the midst of his satisfaction and his appropriation of the honor that had descended upon his house, ever and anon a secret thought of his earlier distrust of the juggler intruded with a vaguely haunting fear of the promised visit from the sheriff. This he had latterly put from him, for the long silence and the passage of time warranted him in the conclusion that it had been merely a device of the officer to satisfy a meddlesome old fool, and was from the beginning devoid of intention. He hardly dared to wonder what Jane Ann Sims would have thought of his suspicion, as he remembered that from the moment of the juggler’s entrance on that stormy evening she had rated the young guest as highly as now. But then, it had never been her chance to hear those strange, mysterious utterances from the turmoils of midnight dreams.
“Jane Ann,” Tubal Sims said, with quavering solemnity, “I know this hyar young man be powerful peart, an’ thar’s nobody in the kentry ter ekal him, not even Pa’son Tynes; but what would you-uns think ef ye war ter hear him call out, like I hev done, in the night,—’way late, ’bout the darkest hour,—‘But the one who lives!—fur whose life!—his life!—fur his life!—what can I do!—fur his life!—his life!—it must be!—his life!’”
As he mimicked the cabalistic phrases that had so strongly laid hold upon his imagination, the very inflections of the agonized voice were duplicated. The sentiment of mystery, of awe, with which the air was wont to vibrate was imparted anew. The despair, the remorse of the tones, sent a responsive thrill like a fang into the listener’s heart. Jane Ann Sims, her face blank and white, sat staring dumbly as she hearkened. The leaves darkly rustled close to the window. Dim moonlight flecked the ground on the slope beyond with shadow and a dull suffusive sheen. The wind, rushing gustily past, bowed the flame of the guttering tallow dip, feebly flaring, in the centre of the table. As she put out her hand mechanically to shield it from extinction, the motion and the trifling care seemed to restore her mental equilibrium.
“That sounds powerful cur’ous, Tubal,” she said gravely, and his heart sank in disappointment with the words and tone. He had expected Jane Ann Sims to flout the matter aside loftily, and indignantly decline to consider aught that might reflect on her much-admired guest. It was he himself who began to feel that it was of slight moment and hardly worth detailing; the sheriff had barely listened to it, without lifting an eyelash of tired and drowsy eyes. He was sorry he had told Jane Ann. What a pother women are wont to stir up over a trifle!
“Why ain’t you-uns never spoke of it afore?” she demanded.
“Kase I ’lowed ’twould set you-uns agin him,” said the specious Tubal tentatively.
Jane Ann sniffed contemptuously. “Waal, I ain’t been ’quainted with no men so powerful puffeck in all thar ways ez I kin be sot agin a youngster, what eats a hearty supper, fur talkin’ in his sleep. I’d be a powerful admirer of the ‘sterner sex,’ ez Pa’son Greenought calls ’em, ef I knowed no wuss of ’em ’n that.”