Dwellers in the Hills

by Melville Davisson Post

We came to many a familiar landmark of my golden babyhood, the enchanted grove on the Seely Hill where I had hunted fabled monsters and gone whooping down among the cattle, the Greathouse meadow where Red Mike pitched me out of the saddle when he grew tired of having his bit jerked, and I sat up in my little petticoats and solemnly demanded that Jourdan should cut his head off, a thing the old man promised on his sacred honour when he could borrow the ax of the man in the moon; the high gate-post by the cattle-scales where I perched bareheaded in a calico dress and watched old Bedford make his last fight against human government, Bedford, a bull of mysterious notions, that would kill you if he found you walking in his field, and lick your stirrup if you came riding on a horse.

It was now a country of rich meadow-land, and blue-grass hills rising to long, flat ridges that the hickories skirted; but in that other time it was a land of wonders, where in any summer morning, if a fellow set out on his chubby legs, he might come to enchanted forests, lost rivers, halcyon kingdoms guarded by some spell where the roving fairies hunted the great bumblebee to the doorway of his house, and slew him on its sill and carried off his treasure.

Through the fringe of locust bushes along the roadside we caught the first glimpse of home, and the three horses pricked up their ears and swung out in a longer trot. We clattered down the wide lane and tumbled out of the saddles at the gate, leaving the Bay Eagle standing proudly like some victorious general, and the Cardinal like a tired giant who has done his work, and El Mahdi with his grey head high above the gate looking away as of old to the far-off mountains as though he wondered vaguely if the friend or the message or the enemy would never come.

We marched over the flagstone walk and into the house and up the stairway. Old Liza flung us some warning through a window to the garden, which we failed to catch and bellowed back a welcome. Then we gained the door to the library, threw it open and went crowding in.

A step beyond that door we halted with a jerk. Ward was lounging in a big chair with a pillow behind his shoulder, and over by the open window where the sun danced along the casement was Cynthia Carper setting a sheaf of roses in a jar.

Ward looked us down to the floor, and then he laughed until the great chair tottered on its legs. "Cynthia," he cried, "will you drop a courtesy to the gallant troopers?" She spun around with a fear kindling in her eyes.

"The cattle!" she said. "Did you get them over?"

I had the situation in my fingers, and I felt myself grow taller with it. "Yes," I said harshly. Then I put my hand into my pocket, drew out the letter and handed it to her with a mocking bow. "I was asked to carry this letter back to you, and say that my brother's word is good enough for Nicholas Marsh."

She took the envelope and stood twisting it in her slim fingers, while a light came up slowly in the land beyond her eyelids.

Ward held out his hand for the letter. And then I looked to see her flutter like a pinned fly. She grew neither red nor white, but crossed to his chair and put the letter in his hand.