“I’m a Sunday-school worker, madam. I’m on my way to Blood Camp, and am tired and sore. I certainly would be glad to abide the night with you; I have change with which to pay for my lodging and——”
“I’m mighty sorry, but we’re all sick here, an’ I guess we can’t keep ye.”
“Is not that your husband over there in the field with the horses?” he inquired, kindly.
“Yes, sir. But you needn’t ax him, fur we’re all sick here an’ I guess thet we can’t keep ye,” she finished, as she moved towards the door.
“Madam, have you any sons?” he ventured to ask at length.
“Oh, a boy. But he’s not here. He’s in Texas.”
“Well, may the good Lord bless him. And may he ever find a kindly home in which to abide the night when he falls among strangers. Good evening, madam,” and swinging his heavy hand-bag as if it were a mere trifle, with renewed determination he trudged on.
The sun was closing his great, wonderful eye in the west and darkness was fast filling the valleys and gorges. On either side of his way now appeared great clumps of wild ivy and rhododendrons. Down from the deep gorge a gentle breeze brought to his nostrils the sweet breath of wild honeysuckles and mountain roses. He quickened his steps and went forward, believing that he could continue to walk the whole night through, in the breath of the sweet flowers. Here and there he plucked a tuft of mountain moss from the trunk of a fallen tree. Now he snatched a wild cucumber blossom from its stem that brushed his face and carried it on with him.
He turned into the deep gorge in the twilight of evening, recalling what he had once been told of the attacks of the wild animals that frequent the gorge. Then, too, he had been told, that the gorge contained at times bands of cutthroats and robbers, besides not a few moonshine distilleries. Commercial travelers always made it a point to pass through the gorge in the daytime. And if, perchance, they were delayed in making the gorge in the heat of the noon-day’s sun, they lodged the night on the North Carolina side, or vice versa, in order to be safe from harm.
“But nobody would harm me, I believe,” Paul Waffington murmured as he passed on into the gorge.