“Ugh!” she grunted. “Wonder if I could tip it over?”
She tried, and failed to move it,—tried once more and failed. Then she looked about her for some sort of a pry. Having secured a loose board, she attacked the task once more.
This time she was more successful. With a thump that shook the solid old frame from sill to rafter, the cumberstone block rolled over on its side.
As it fell the girl’s heart skipped a beat. What was that she heard? Could it have been a metallic clinking? Had her ears deceived her? She hoped not. But if she had heard aright, from whence had it come? From some dark corner among the rafters, or from within the very heart of the old pounding mill?
At that moment there came to her ears the sound of hoarse shouting. What did it mean? Was there to be trouble? Would there be shots? Would women be fleeing, men dying?
None of these. A strange and stirring scene was being enacted at the schoolhouse at the mouth of Laurel Branch.
A short time after Marion left the school building, as Florence stood looking away at the lovely blue of the hills and trying in vain to tell it all an affectionate goodbye, she heard someone exclaim:
“Look a’yonder!”
“Hit’s them quare folks from up yonder beyond the stone gateway,” said another.
At once the girl found herself staring in wonder at a strange procession moving slowly down the road. A score of mountain men and women, some on horseback, most on foot, led by a one-armed giant and a boy with an arm in a sling, were advancing on the schoolhouse.