The Mountain Girl. Erskine Payne

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СКАЧАТЬ a time all was silent around Hanging Rock. Thryng sat reading and pondering, expecting each moment to hear voices from the direction Frale had taken. He could not help smiling as he thought over his attempt to make this mountain boy into the typical English tourist, and how unique an imitation was the result.

      He called out to comfort Hoyle's fearful little heart: "Your brother's all safe now. Come out here until we hear men's voices."

      "I better stay whar I be, I reckon. They won't talk none when they get nigh hyar."

      "Are you comfortable down there?"

      "Yas, suh."

      Hoyle was right. The two men detailed for this climb walked in silence, to give no warning of their approach, until they appeared in the rear of the cabin, and entered the shed where Frale's horse was stabled. Sure were they then that its owner was trapped at last.

      They were greatly surprised at finding the premises occupied. David continued his reading, unconcerned until addressed.

      "Good evenin', suh."

      He greeted them genially and invited them into his cabin, determined to treat them with as royal hospitality as was in his power. To offer them tea was hardly the thing, he reasoned, so he stirred up the fire, while descanting on the beauty of the location and the health-giving quality of the air, and when his kettle was boiling, he brought out from his limited stores whiskey, lemons, and sugar, and proceeded to brew them so fine a quality of English toddy as to warm the cockles of their hearts.

      Questioning them on his own account, he learned how best to get his supplies brought up the mountains, and many things about the region interesting to him. At last one of them ventured a remark about the horse and how he came by him, at which he explained very frankly that the widow down below had allowed him the use of the animal for his keep until her son returned.

      They "'lowed he wa'n't comin' back to these parts very soon," and David expressed satisfaction. His evident ignorance of mountain affairs convinced them that nothing was to be gained from him, and they asked no direct questions, and finally took their departure, with a high opinion of their host, and quite content.

      Then David called his little accomplice from his hiding-place, took him into his cabin, and taught him to drink tea with milk and sugar in it, gave him crisp biscuits from his small remainder in store, and, still further to comfort his heart, searched out a card on which was a picture of an ocean liner on an open sea, with flags flying, great rolls of vapor and smoke trailing across the sky, with white-capped waves beneath and white clouds above. The boy's eyes shone with delight. He twisted himself about to look up in Thryng's face as he questioned him concerning it, and almost forgot Frale in his happiness, as he trudged home hugging the precious card to his bosom.

      Contentedly Thryng proceeded to set his abode in order after the disarray of the morning, undisturbed by any question as to the equity of his deed. His mind was in a state of rebellion against the usual workings of the criminal courts, and, biassed by his observation of the youth, he felt that his act might lead as surely toward absolute justice, perhaps more surely, than the opposite course would have done.

      Erelong he found a few tools carefully packed away, as was the habit of his old friend, and the labor of preparing his canvas room began. But first a ladder hanging under the eaves of the cabin must be repaired, and long before the slant rays of the setting sun fell across his hilltop, he found himself too weary to descend to the Fall Place, even with the aid of his horse. With a measure of discouragement at his undeniable weakness, he led the animal to water where a spring bubbled sweet and clear in an embowered hollow quite near his cabin, then stretched himself on the couch before the fire, with no other light than its cheerful blaze, too exhausted for his book and disinclined even to prepare his supper.

      After a time, David's weariness gave place to a pleasant drowsiness, and he rose, arranged his bed, and replenished the fire, drank a little hot milk, and dropped into a wholesome slumber as dreamless and sweet as that of a tired child.

      Such a sense of peace and retirement closed around him there alone on his mountain, that he slept with his cabin door open to the sweet air, crisp and cold, lulled by the murmuring of the swaying pine tops without, and the crackling and crumbling of burning logs within. Rolled in his warm Scotch rug, he did not feel the chill that came as his fire burned lower, but slept until daybreak, when the clear note of a Carolina wren, thrice repeated close to his open door, sounded his reveille.

      Deeply inhaling the cold air, he lay and mused over the events of the previous day. How quickly and naturally he had been drawn into the interests of his neighbors below him, and had absorbed the peculiar atmosphere of their isolation, making a place for himself, shutting out almost as if they had never existed the harassments and questionings of his previous life. Was it a buoyancy he had received from his mountain height and the morning air? Whatever the cause, he seemed to have settled with them all, and arrived at last where his spirit needed but to rest open and receptive before its Creator to be swept clear of the dross of the world's estimates of values, and exalted with aspiration.

      Every long breath he drew seemed to make his mental vision clearer. God and his own soul – was that all? Not quite. God and the souls of men and of women – of all who came within his environment – a world made beautiful, made sweet and health-giving for these – and with them to know God, to feel Him near. So Christ came to be close to humanity.

      A mist of scepticism that had hung over him and clouded the later years of his young manhood suddenly rolled away, dispelled by the splendor of this triumphant thought, even as the rays of the rising sun came at the same moment to dispel the earth mists and flood the hills with light. Light; that was it! "In Him is no darkness at all."

      Joyously he set himself to the preparation for the day. The true meaning of life was revealed to him. The discouragement of the evening before was gone. Yet now should he sit down in ecstatic dreaming? It must be joy in life – movement – in whatever was to be done, whether in satisfying a wholesome hunger, in creating warmth for his body, or in conquering the seeds of decay and disease therein, and keeping it strong and full of reactive power for his soul's sake.

      It was a revelation to him of the eternal God, wonder-working and all-pervading. Now no longer with a haunting sense of fear would he search and learn, but with a glad perception of the beautiful orderliness of the universe, so planned and arranged for the souls of men when only they should learn how to use their own lives, and attune themselves to give forth music to the touch of the God of Love.

      A cold bath, the pure air, and his abstemiousness of the previous evening gave him a compelling hunger, and it was with satisfaction he discovered so large a portion of his dinner of yesterday remaining to be warmed for his morning meal. What he should do later, when dinner-time arrived, he knew not, and he laughed to think how he was living from hour to hour, content as the small wren fluting beside his door his care-free note. Ah, yes! "God's in His heaven, all's right with the world."

      The wren's note reminded him of a slender box which always accompanied his wanderings, and which had come to light rolled in the jacket which he had given Frale as part of his disguise. He opened it and took therefrom the joints of a silver flute. How long it had lain untouched!

      He fitted the parts and strolled out to the rock, and there, as he gazed at the shifting, subtle beauty spread all before him and around him, he lifted the wandlike instrument to his lips and began to play. At first he only imitated the wren, a few short notes joyously uttered; then, as the springs of his own happiness welled up within him, he poured forth a tumultuous flood of trills – a dancing staccato of mounting notes, shifting and falling, rising, floating away, and then returning in silvery echoes, bringing their own gladness with them.

      The pæan of praise ended, the work of the day began, and СКАЧАТЬ