THE WINDFALL
CHAPTER I
Despite his buoyant optimism Hilary Lloyd could but quail as he looked about him. The vast uninhabited heights of the encompassing Great Smoky Mountains, green, purple and bronze, seeming to his theatrical sense magnificently posed against the turquoise background of further ranges, glimpsed through clifty defiles and almost touching the differing translucent blue of the sapphire sky; the river, crag-bound, crystal-clear, with an arrowy swiftness; the forest, dense beyond any computation, gigantic of growths, redundantly rich of foliage, and gorgeous with autumnal tints—all were as revelations to his half-stunned mind. He had never dreamed of the natural wealth, the splendid extent, the picturesque values of this region. His imagination flagged, failed. He was sensible of the strain upon his receptivity to compass the transcendent reality. But whence, amidst these primeval splendours, should materialise the patrons of his little street fair? Its flimsy booths were already rising about the stony expanse of the public square of the town of Colbury, not, in stereotyped phrase, like magic, but with all the laborious accompaniments of hammers and saws, the straining of muscles and patience, the expenditure of profanity and perspiration, and the sound of loud, raucous voices. The tents reluctantly spread their mushroom-like contour, now and again suddenly collapsing from awkward handling or inadequate aid. The manager looked at the few humble toilers with a prescient pang. To be stranded here, on the uttermost confines of civilisation, seemed a disaster indeed of direful menace. He realised his friend's impressions and could have voiced in unison the exact phrase as a heavy fellow of medium height, arrayed in a ready-made suit of a loud plaid, slouched up with his hands in his pockets, and chewing a straw.
"Well, partner, we've done it again!" he said, not without the accents of reproach.
Lloyd obviously flinched at the tone, and his face flushed. It was of a singularly perfect contour and chiselling, according to the canons of art, and in its large nobility of expression it might have served, and possibly had, as a model for an artist's realisation of some high ideal. But there was a most mundane anxiety in his luminous eyes, darkly blue and long-lashed, and the alertness with which they eagerly surveyed the meagre festival preparations gave an accent of the ludicrous to his fine facial suggestions. He was like a man playing the rôle of a prince, unstaged, on the bare sidewalk, and his utter unconsciousness and indifference to the effect of his remarkable appearance added to its impressiveness. His hair was fine and light brown in tint, and it shone like silk as he lifted his straw hat and wearily mopped his brow with his handkerchief. He was young, twenty-five perhaps, and very fair of complexion, and the delicate texture of his skin allowed the fluctuating flush of annoyance visibly to come and go in his cheek. He was something more than of medium height, although not notably tall; he was very symmetrically put together, and, while slight and elegant, his movements showed intimations of muscular strength and a swift deftness that implied some special athletic training.
He presently gathered his faculties together and with a desperate courage affected to see naught amiss. "Why, we knew that it was only a country town, Haxon," he remonstrated.
Haxon pushed his wide-brimmed imitation Panama hat on the back of his head, showing in full relief his round red face, beaded with perspiration. He lifted one plump hand with an accusatory gesture toward the infinite stretch of the lonely mountains, and then turned melancholy eyes toward Lloyd.
"Why," Lloyd responded, "what is the matter with the mountains, Hax? I haven't got anything against 'em."