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 DESPOT 
 
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SAMUEL CARSON & CO. 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
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BOOKS BY 
 
 (MARY N. MURFREE.) 
 
 IN THE TENNESSEE MOUNTAINS. Short 
 Stories. i6mo, $1.25. 
 
 DOWN THE RAVINE. Illustrated. i6mo, $1.00. 
 
 THE PROPHET OF THE GREAT SMOKY 
 MOUNTAINS. A Novel. i6mo, $1.25. 
 
 IN THE CLOUDS. A Novel. i6mo, $1.25. 
 THE STORY OF KEEDON BLUFFS. i6mo, 
 
 $1.00. 
 
 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. A 
 Novel. i6mo, $1.25. 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLTN & CO. 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK. 
 
THE 
 
 DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE 
 COVE 
 
 CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK y, - 
 
 AUTHOR OF "IN THE CLOUDS," "DOWN THE RAVINE," " IN THE TENNESSEE 
 
 MOUNTAINS," " THE PROPHET OF THE GREAT SMOKY 
 
 MOUNTAINS," ETC. 
 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 Camfcri&ge 
 
Copyright, 1888, 
 BY MARY N. MURFREE 
 
 AUTcvjMe nperued. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge: 
 Electrotyped and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Co. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 Ox a certain steep and savage slope of the Great Smoky 
 Mountains, the primeval wilderness for many miles is un 
 broken save by one meagre clearing. The presence of hu 
 manity upon the earth is further attested only by a log cabin, 
 high on the rugged slant. At night the stars seem hardly 
 more aloof than the valley below. By day the mountains 
 assert their solemn vicinage, an au. .are company. The 
 clouds that silently commune with the great peaks, the sin 
 ister and scathing deeds of the lightnings, the passionate 
 rhetoric of the thunders, the triumphal pageantry of the sun 
 set-tides, and the wistful yearnings of the dawn aspiring to 
 the day, these might seem the only incidents of this lonely 
 and exalted life. So august is this mountain scheme that 
 it fills all the visible world with its massive multitudinous 
 presence ; still stretching out into the dim blue distances an 
 infinite perspective of peak and range and lateral spur, till 
 one may hardly believe that the fancy does not juggle with 
 the fact. 
 
 One day a sound impinged suddenly upon its impressive 
 silence, faint and far, but even in the echo charged with 
 alien suggestions ; not akin to the woods or the waters, to 
 the cry of beast or of bird ; subtly at variance with the 
 mountain solitude, imposed upon it, neither of its essence 
 nor its outgrowth. A soul informed the sound, for it was 
 the voice of a man singing aloud in the wilderness, 
 
 Ml 2024 
 
2 Tff# .t>ESI:pT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 ing with so ecstatic a fervor, with tones so robust and full, 
 that distant peaks were voiced with fugue-like feignings, 
 rising to sudden outbursts and sinking to silence, as the 
 melody waxed or waned. It swung and swayed in rhyth 
 mic cadences across the valley. It might have seemed a 
 spirit in the air, for with the hymning echoes it was hard to 
 say whence it came. But two mountaineers, standing beside 
 the fence of the little cornfield in the clearing, gazed ex 
 pectantly up the road, that, precarious and rocky, ran along 
 the verge of the slope. For the song grew louder and more 
 distinct, and presently in its midst was heard the beat of 
 rapid hoofs. A moment more, and the young psalmist came 
 around a curve, galloping recklessly clown beneath the 
 fringed boughs of the firs and the pines, still singing aloud ; 
 the reins upon his horse s neck, his rifle held across the 
 pommel of the saddle, his broad hat thrust upon the back 
 of his head, his eyes scarcely turning toward the men that 
 stood by the wayside. 
 
 He had evidently not intended to stop, but one of them 
 threw up his arm and hailed him. 
 
 "Hy re, Teck! holdup!" 
 
 The rider drew rein. The rapt expression of his coun 
 tenance abruptly changed. He fixed imperative, worldly 
 eyes upon the speaker. They were deeply set, of a dark 
 blue color, full of a play of expression, and despite the mun 
 dane intimations of the moment they held the only sugges 
 tions in his face of a spiritual possibility. He had a heavy 
 lower jaw, stern and insistent. A firm, immobile mouth 
 disclosed strong, even teeth. His nose was slightly aquiline, 
 and he had definitely marked black eyebrows. His short 
 dark beard, worn after the manner common in the region, 
 and the usual brown jeans garb, lent his face no similarity 
 to the faces of the others. There was a strong individuality, 
 magnetism, about him, and before his glance the peremp 
 tory spirit of his interlocutor was slightly abated. It was 
 only after he had demanded, " What ye want ? " that he 
 was asked in turn, 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 3 
 
 " Whar ye been ? " 
 
 " Been a-huntin , said Teck Jepson. He laid one hand 
 upon the barrel of his rifle on the pommel of his saddle, as 
 if to call attention to it. 
 
 " Did n t ye get nuthin ? " 
 
 " Naw. I tuk ter studyin bout n the Bible, an a-sing- 
 in , an I warn t a-goin ter thwart the sperit. I ain t tuk 
 aim this day." 
 
 There was so obvious a pride in this statement that it im 
 posed upon the others as a valid source of satisfaction. 
 
 They all looked meditatively at the spaces of the sunlit 
 valley for a moment. The shadow of a great wing flickered 
 by. A cow-bell jangled from the slope below. 
 
 " Waal, I expec Ben hyar mought hev his say-so bout n 
 studyin on the Bible, jes in the time fur pullin fodder," 
 suggested Eli Strobe. 
 
 He was the constable of the district, a heavy, thick-set 
 fellow, forty years of age, perhaps, and of medium height. 
 He had a large head and a certain lowering side glance, 
 barely lifting the lids of his slow dark eyes with a sullen, 
 bovine expression. He carried himself in a deliberate pon 
 dering manner, and with distinct aggressiveness. He wore 
 his broad black wool hat pulled far over his brow. His boots 
 were drawn to the knee over his blue jeans trousers, and 
 were graced with large spurs. His features were straight 
 and regular, handsome in their way, and his face was char 
 acterized by a sort of surly dignity. He stood sturdily in 
 the road, with his hands in his pockets, and looked up from 
 under the brim of his hat at the horseman. 
 
 Jepson lifted his head loftily. < I d ruther be in the 
 wilderness with the sperit than with the gleaners in the rich 
 est fields o the y earth ! " 
 
 Despite a sanctimonious twang imitated from the circuit 
 rider, his voice in speaking betokened his gift in song. It 
 was rich and low, and as smooth as velvet. 
 
 The constable, at a spiritual disadvantage, recanted with 
 
4 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 acerbity. "I reckon so! Ennybody else would, too. 
 Ye talk ez ef nobody bed n t no religion but yerse f." 
 
 * Laws-a-massy ! " exclaimed Jepson s half-brother, Ben 
 Bowles. " Laws-a-rnassy ! wbenst Teck gits ter studyin 
 bout the Bible-folks, I d jes ez lief he d wander ez work. 
 He talks ter me till them tales bender me mighty nigh ez 
 much ez him. No fodder sca cely would hev been pulled 
 hyar ter-day ef he bed stayed." 
 
 The mention of his work reminded him of it anew. As 
 he stood in the turn-row, he began to tear from the stalwart 
 stalks of the Indian corn, tasseled far higher than his head, 
 the long blue-green and glossy blades, rustling at a touch 
 and shining in the sun. He was in his shirt-sleeves, a 
 gaunt, shambling fellow, with yellow beard and hair, and 
 long, tobacco-stained teeth ; he had a docile, acquiescent 
 face and a temporizing blue eye. Few men could contrive 
 to agree with both Jepson and Strobe, but to Ben Bowles 
 no miracle of trimming was impossible. The corn was fine ; 
 the heavy ears, swathed in their crisp husks and crested 
 with sun-embrowned silk, hung far from the stalks, about 
 which trumpet vines twined, the blossoms flaunting scarlet. 
 There even peered out now and then the tender blue eyes 
 of morning-glories, still open, abloom in the dank shadow. 
 The more prosaic growth of pumpkins was about the roots, 
 and sometimes Bowles caught his awkward feet in the vines, 
 and added a stumble to his shamble. 
 
 " The sperit hev been with me strong, mighty strong, 
 ter-day," said Teck Jepson suddenly. " I hev been studyin 
 on Moses, from the time he lef the saidges by the ruver 
 bank," he added, bridling with a sentiment that was strik 
 ingly like the pride of earth. Then, as he gazed down at 
 the landscape, his face softened and grew pensive. 
 
 The great ranges were slowly empurpled against the pale 
 eastern horizon, delicately blue, for the sun was in the 
 western skies. How splendidly saffron those vast spaces 
 glowed ! What purity and richness of tint ! Here and 
 
TttE DESPOT OF BROO^ffEDGE COVE. 5 
 
 there were pearly wing-like sweeps of an incomparable glis 
 ter ; and the clouds, ambitious, must needs climb the zenith, 
 with piled and stately mountainous effects, gleaming white, 
 opaque and dazzling. The focal fires of the great orb were 
 unquenched, and still the yellow divergent rays streamed 
 forth ; yet in its heart was suggested that vermilion smoul 
 dering of the sunset, and the western hills were waiting. 
 
 " T war tur ble hard on Moses," said Teck Jepson 
 dreamily, -when the Lord shut him out n Canaan, arter 
 travelin through the wilderness. Tur ble, tur ble hard I " 
 
 There was naught in the scene to suggest to a mind famil 
 iar with the facts an Oriental landscape, naught akin to 
 the hills of Judaea. It was essentially of the New World, 
 essentially of the Great Smoky Mountains. Yet ignorance 
 has its license. It never occurred toJTeck Jepson that his 
 Biblical heroes had lived elsewhere. Their history had to 
 him an intimate personal relation, as of the story of an 
 ancestor in the homestead ways and closely familiar. He 
 brooded upon these narrations, instinct with dramatic move 
 ment, enriched with poetic color, and localized in his robust 
 imagination, till he could trace Hagar s wild wanderings in 
 the fastnesses ; could show where Jacob slept and piled his 
 altar of stones ; could distinguish the bush, of all others on 
 the " bald," that blazed with fire from heaven, when the 
 angel of the Lord stood within it. Somehow, even in their 
 grotesque variation, they lost no dignity in their transmis 
 sion to the modern conditions of his fancy. Did the facts 
 lack significance because it was along the gullied red clay 
 roads of Piomingo Cove that he saw David, the smiling 
 stripling, running and holding high in his hand the bit of 
 cloth cut from Saul s garments, while the king had slept in 
 a cave at the base of Chilhowee Mountain ? And how was 
 the splendid miracle of translation discredited because Jep 
 son believed that the chariot of the Lord had rested in scar 
 let and purple clouds upon the towering summit of Thun- 
 derhead, that Elijah might thence ascend into heaven ? 
 
6 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE 
 
 He mistook the dramatic instinct, that entranced him 
 with these splendid epics, for religion. He sang loud and 
 long in the meetings, with a rich voice and a fervid indorse 
 ment of the sentiment of the rude hymns, but he told few 
 experiences ; his soul seemed untroubled, unstirred ; he 
 neither shouted nor exhorted others, and in the midst of 
 exhortation he often dropped asleep. But if the text were 
 from the Old Testament, rich in narrative, his fine head 
 was alert, his eyes grew eager and intent ; he would lean 
 forward, to lose no word, his hand on the back of the bench 
 in front of him, and often his strong hand trembled. He 
 was an earnest advocate of education. " Let the Bible be 
 read ! " he would exclaim in a thunderous, coercive voice, 
 strong with the sincerity of his own wish to read. For he 
 ^was sometimes aware that he carried with him broken im 
 pressions of the stories that emblazoned his mind. Then 
 his quick supplementing fancy would unconsciously assert 
 itself anew, the rift would close, and the continuity would 
 stretch forth perfected. 
 
 His was the mind receptive, romantic. The endowment 
 to believe the essential verity, undemonstrable though it be, 
 to see that which is not before the material eye, to feel the 
 abstract sentiment, he shared with those for whom tradition 
 has woven its fine, embellished webs, and history has penned 
 its heroic page, and poets have sung and have soared. The 
 gift was in the nature of a sarcasm, bestowed here. He 
 had not even the cradle lore of other men. Niggard circum 
 stance had environed him with all the limitations of igno 
 rance. In these close bounds, the readings of the circuit 
 rider gave him the only collations of connected fact, the 
 only narrative, the only glimpse of a status of people more 
 amply endowed than those about him ; and the dramatic 
 instinct vivified the meagre details, caused them to glow 
 before him, and they served for him as the libraries of the 
 world serve for other men. 
 
 Encompassed by the democratic sovereignty that hedges 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 7 
 
 about an American voter ; knowing no rank, no gradations 
 of caste, other than that of the sheriff, the constable, the 
 justice of the peace, and latterly the high estate of a cir 
 cuit judge had been brought to his knowledge, it was cu 
 rious how he caught from the spirit of the text the sentiment 
 of awe and reverence for the exalted in the earth, prophets 
 and high-priests, kings and great captains. He exulted in 
 the Scriptural pageantry. His fancy would marshal again 
 and again the fine show of the serried ranks of opposing 
 armies along the mountain side, when David went out in 
 the valley to fight Goliath. The triumph would hardly 
 have been what it was to him without those multiplied mar 
 tial spectators, nor, it is safe to say, to David either. 
 
 " Yes, sir," he reiterated. " T war tur ble hard on 
 Moses. I jes know how he felt. Thar ain t nuthin in this 
 worl so tormentin ter the sperit ez ter be in a place ye de 
 spise, an hanker an hone ter git ter another. Whenst I 
 war a witness in the court yander at Glaston agin Jake 
 Baintree ez killed Sam l Keale, I fairly pined so fur the 
 mountings my chist felt tight, like I could n t breathe, an 
 my eyeballs plumb started out n my head. An when they 
 lowed thar d hev ter be a new trial, an I d hev ter kem 
 back las March agin, I war so outdone an aggervated by 
 the foolin round o them lawyers, ez tuk an sp iled the case 
 they hed been at sech trouble ter fix jes 1 so, that I jes up-ed 
 an lowed afore the jedge ez I hoped I d be dead afore 
 that time." 
 
 " The folks laffed at ye, too," said the constable. 
 
 " Let em laff, laffin s cheap," retorted Jepson. He 
 was one of those happily constituted mortals who respect 
 their own mental attitude far more than its effect on others. 
 
 " Waal, they low ez Baintree air a-layin fur ye bout n 
 that thar testimony ye gin agin him," observed Strobe. 
 
 Jepson received this suggestion in the silence of con 
 tempt. 
 
 " I never looked ter see Baintree let off from that court," 
 said Bowles. 
 
8 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 " Yes," assented Jepson cheerfully. " The law peared 
 ter hev a weak streak in it somehows, an the lawyers said 
 they could n t prove it on him. An I lowed ter the State s 
 lawyer ez they hed better prove it then with a sentence from 
 Jedge Lynch." 
 
 The constable, mindful of his position as an officer of the 
 law, cast a sudden glance upon him of threatening surprise. 
 
 " What did the torney gineral say ter that ? " he de 
 manded pertinently. 
 
 " He say ef he hed sech a tongue ez mine he d tie it ter 
 his palate, ter keep it still," responded Jepson easily. " But 
 I told him thar warn t no danger, fur ef ennybody fell out 
 with the sayin s o my tongue, the doin s o my fist war 
 mighty apt ter make em fall in agin. Yes, sir," he pro 
 ceeded after a pause, " I appealed ter Jedge Lynch." His 
 form of expression was reminiscent of his recent experi 
 ences in the courts. " I never got nothin by it, though. 
 Folks is gittin so white-livered they be afeard o thar shad- 
 ders." 
 
 " Waal, now," spoke up the constable, moving back a 
 pace, and feeling at a disadvantage in being constrained to 
 look upward at the horseman, " when the courts hev let a 
 man go, an can t prove nuthin on him, I say t won t do 
 fur folks ter set out an mebbe hang a man by mistake." 
 
 " Whar s Saml Keale ? " Jepson asked the question, 
 and then looked casually across the road and the stream at 
 the great vermilion sun going down behind the long summit 
 line, far, far away, of Walden s Ridge, how finely out 
 lined, how delicate in hue, against the flushed horizon. The 
 mountains close around loomed sombre, purple, silent, and 
 mysterious, sharers in none of these ethereal graces of color. 
 On the rocky banks of the stream, here and there, felled 
 trees were lying ; one protruded far into the water, and was 
 green with moss and dank with ooze. It stirred suddenly, 
 for some water animal had sprung upon it, then splashed 
 again into the current, as Bowles s old dog rushed out of 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 9 
 
 the cornfield with a shrill, sharp bark of discovery. His 
 master s eyes followed him absently, while with a quivering 
 tail and alert ears he patrolled the banks hither and thither, 
 now and again uttering his sharp cry, varied with wheezes 
 of disappointment. 
 
 " Whar s Sam I Keale?" Jepson demanded again, 
 significantly, and once more waited for an answer. Neither 
 of the other men spoke. The wind stirred ; an acorn dropped 
 with a sharp thud from a chestnut oak ; a locust was shrill 
 ing from a pawpaw tree. Ef ye 11 tell me ennywhar 
 Sam l Keale km be, I 11 gin it up. Now jes look-a-hyar," 
 he argued. " Them two fellers nobody knowed then 
 what they war arter, but it kem out on the trial got it 
 inter thar heads ez thar war some silver mines in the mount 
 ings. An they sets out ter find one." His lip curled. " So 
 day arter day they leaves thar plows in the furrow, an 
 goes a-sarchin fur the silver mine. An one day nare one 
 o em kerns back. A plumb week goes by. An then hyar 
 kerns Baintree nigh starved with a-wanderin in the woods, 
 an with a big tale bout Sam l hevin fell down a hole ez 
 peared ter be the mouth o a cave, an he could n t hear 
 nuthin from him, though Baintree hollered an hollered. 
 An he war afeard the law d take artar him, kase they 
 war a-scufflin* whenst Sam l slipped an fell. Waal, the 
 folks tuk arter him fur not hevm kem straight ter tell, 
 lef the critter thar in the cave ter starve or drown. None 
 o that fooled me ! " 
 
 He broke off abruptly. 
 
 Ben Bowles pulled his hay-colored beard with meditative 
 fingers. " Ye b lieve Sam l war dead fust, an then war 
 flung down inter the cave." 
 
 Jepson knit his brows fiercely. " Percisely." 
 
 " Ye low, ef he warn t, Baintree would hev been power 
 ful quick ter skeet out n them woods an git somebody ter 
 holp him git Sanvl out, thout waitin a week 1 " 
 
 " Jes so ! " 
 
10 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 The constable put in suddenly ; his loyalty to the law 
 was enlisted, and he felt it his bounden duty to support its 
 decisions with the weight of his personal opinion. 
 
 " Baintree lowed Sam war dead, or lied sunk spang 
 through the yearth, kase he would n t answer. The boy 
 war afeard ter tell. He would n t even tell a-fust ez they 
 war a-scufflin an a-playin . An ez the jury lowed he 
 warn t guilty, I feel ez ef he ought ter be let ter go." 
 
 " Whar s Sam l Keale ? " demanded Jepson once 
 more. 
 
 Neither answered. The shrilling of the locust persisted 
 sharply. Only the rim of the sun showed above the dis 
 tant blue mountain ; the soft suffusions of light upon the 
 great valley were reddening, and a sense of impending 
 shadows, not yet falling, was upon the air. Night was 
 pluming her wings, to spread them erelong. A point of 
 light suddenly scintillated in the dark flow of the mountain 
 stream, for the poetic evening star how serene ! was 
 in the sky. What prophetic melancholy had pierced the 
 group of pines hard by ? Their fringes were astir, and a 
 monody, all tenderly subdued and subtly mournful, was on 
 the air. 
 
 " Baintree kem down yander ter the blacksmith shop las 
 Wednesday," Jepson resumed abruptly. " I war thar ter 
 hev this hyar horse-critter s nigh fore-foot shod ; " he leaned 
 over, glancing down at it, then came suddenly to the per 
 pendicular. " He kem thar ez ef he expected folks ter 
 bide by the verdic an be sati fied. He kem in the door 
 an walked roun , an then he sot down in the winder. An 
 then I jes riz up. I said ter him, I said aloud, Cain, I 
 see Abel with ye. I view him thar. Ye need n t winge 
 away. He hev kem ter abide alongside o ye. Ye kin hide 
 him in no caves. He air yer share forever ! An then 
 I turned back ter the anvil, whar Clem Sanders war a-for- 
 gin of the horse-clioe. An time he hed bent the bar I 
 looked over my lef" shoulder, an the winder war empty." 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 11 
 
 A long pause ensued. " Waal, sir," Strobe presently 
 remarked, "folks low he hev got religion now, an air goin 
 ter be baptized." 
 
 Teck turned a face of amazed anger upon him. 
 
 " He sha n t ! " he cried, as arrogantly as if he guarded 
 the gates of heaven. " He shell not save his soul ! He 
 shell not reach the golden shore, whilst the man he buried 
 in the depths o the yearth, thout nare minit s grace ter 
 think on salvation, air a-welterin in brimstun, an a-burnin 
 in hell. He shell not save his soul ! " 
 
 His breath was short, his cheek flushed, his eye intent 
 and fiery. All at once his whole aspect changed. 
 
 " Hy re, A minty ! " he cried out, his flexible voice ris 
 ing to a cheery key. " I see ye ; no use a-hidin . Supper 
 ready ? " 
 
 For there, sidling along among the weeds in the fence 
 corners, was a small girl, much distraught by the presence 
 of a stranger, and holding her head so bent down that little 
 could be seen of her face for the curling tangled red hair 
 that fell over it. She wore a blue checked homespun frock, 
 and she carried in her arms, feet upward, a large, ungainly 
 yellow cat, with unattractive green eyes, which rolled about 
 while its head hung down. 
 
 " They blows the horn at the house fur we-uns," Jepson 
 continued, " but A minty keeps one eye on the pot, an kerns 
 arter me jes a leetle aforehand every day. She knows I 
 be afeard ter go ter the house by myself. Suthin mought 
 ketch me on the road varmints, or dogs, or sech." 
 
 He winked jovially at the two men, but A minty stood 
 unsmiling by the fence. 
 
 Suddenly the resonance of a horn was on the air. with a 
 trailing refrain of echoes. So far they rang, so faint, so 
 fine, they hardly seemed akin to the homely blast wound 
 close at hand. The moon, rising now, a lucent yellow 
 sphere in the pink haze of the skies, far above the purple 
 earth, might naturalize such sounds. Thus rings the 
 
12 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 horn of Diana, perhaps, amidst the lunar mountains. And 
 when the vibrations died away the ear strained to hear them 
 again ; so elfin was the final tone that the succeeding inter 
 val was less like silence than a sound which the sense was 
 not fine enough to discern. 
 
 <l Wanter ride, A minty ? " Teck demanded of his small 
 niece. 
 
 Her shyness vanished instantly. She showed a rounded 
 freckled face and shining eyes, and an assemblage of jag 
 ged gleeful teeth, as she ran, with the deft noiselessness of 
 the barefooted gentry, almost under his horse s heels and 
 caught the stirrup. He reached down gravely for the cat, 
 holding it by the middle, with its four stiff paws out 
 stretched, and A minty clutched his great spurred boot, and 
 climbed up his long leg like a squirrel. He rode off, the 
 rifle stayed upon the pommel of the saddle by the hand that 
 held too the reins, while the little girl, nestling in his arms, 
 looked back at the two men by the side of the fence, and 
 the cat, which she clasped, turned its supple neck and gazed 
 back, too, from its perch above the horseman s shoulder. 
 
 The two men followed them with a languid gaze for a 
 moment ; then Strobe was moved to seat himself slowly and 
 circumspectly on a bowlder near the roadside. As he leaned 
 his shoulder against the pawpaw tree close by, the locust 
 shrilling high up among its branches suddenly ceased its 
 iteration. 
 
 " Teck air too durned smart," he said, his own individuality 
 reasserting itself since freed from the dominant presence of 
 the other, " too durned smart. Set an talk afore a off cer 
 o the law bout lynchin a man, an gin his opinion agin a 
 jury s verdic an a jedge s say-so. He hev got the big head 
 powerf ul bad. Axin , Whar s Sam l Keale ? Whar s 
 Sam 1 1 Keale ? ez ef enny cit zen hev got enny right ter 
 know or say, when the law s done its sheer." 
 
 " I reckon Jake Baintree mus be innercent," observed 
 Bowles, with the mild eye and voice of the temporizer. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 13 
 
 " He war twenty when it happened, an he be twenty-five 
 now a year older n Teck. It tuk all that time ter jail 
 an try him." 
 
 " Waal, the law is slow, the law is slow." The im 
 portant constable deported himself with a sort of clumsy 
 pride in the lingering exploits of the law. 
 
 " Yes, sir ; minds me of a slow mule-race all the time, 
 the law does," said Bowles. 
 
 Strobe looked at him, surlily suspicious of a satiric intent, 
 but the mild Bowles had evidently spoken in all good faith. 
 
 ** Sech talk ez Teck s air the reason they hed ter hev a 
 change o venue," said Strobe, presently. " Stiddier tryin 
 Baintree in Colb ry, his county town, they hed ter take 
 him ter Glaston, kase folks in this county war all so set 
 agin him the court lowed he couldn t git a fair trial hyar." 
 
 " I reckon his folks hev been powerful put ter it ter live 
 along all this time," remarked Bowles. 
 
 " I know they never planted none the fust year," rejoined 
 Strobe. 
 
 " Waal, at fust they lowed it would be soon over, an* 
 they jes stirred thar stumps ter do everything fur the trial, 
 an they thunk o nuthin else. Then nex year they hed 
 ter pay suthin ter them lawyers, whether they sp ilt thar 
 case or no." 
 
 " Jake war a-tellin me the t other day," said Strobe, 
 " how thankful he war ter some o thar neighbors, ez hed 
 holped em along in thar troubles. Ye know he air so 
 meek-spoken, an perlite, an sech now ; an he jes makes 
 hisse f ez small ez he sets by the fire, an he grins afore ye 
 kin speak ter him, an I dunno." He relinquished sud 
 denly the descriptive effort. " An I jes spoke up, an I 
 say, I d be obleeged ter ye, Jake, now that the law hev 
 let ye off, ef ye would n t look so durned guilty." 
 
 " What d he say ? " demanded Bowles. 
 
 " Waal, the critter changed suddint. An he say, I 
 know folks low I be guilty, an it makes me look guilty till 
 I plumb feel guilty. " 
 
14 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 The constable s portly form had a burly shadow behind 
 it, as he rose from his seat on the rock, for the moon was 
 well up now, glistening through the needles of the pines, 
 and casting a broad refulgent sheen upon the empty road ; 
 the blades of Indian corn gleamed, as they stirred in the 
 breeze. Bowles had unhooked his arms from the fence rail, 
 and the two men took their way together to the little cabin 
 in the notch. The conformation of the great slopes above 
 it was such as to show a neighboring peak standing definite 
 and dark against the evening sky. Adown the wooded 
 steeps the shadows gloomed. The ground fell away from 
 the door in an abrupt descent, and through the uninclosed 
 passage between the two rooms, which constituted the house, 
 could be seen a far-reaching defile of crags and sombre 
 purple ranges in the elusive blue distances. The little cabin, 
 its ridge-pole in a slant against the sky, with its forlorn 
 shanty of a barn, its few bee-gums awry along the rickety 
 rail fence, its scanty scaffolds of tobacco and drying fruit, 
 seemed all the more meagre for the splendid affluence of the 
 scene spread out before it on every side. " I kin see fifty 
 mile an furder in three States," Bowles, its owner, some- 
 timer boasted. 
 
 " I d ruther see fewer bushes an mo cornfield," his wife 
 as often retorted. 
 
 It was with none of the complacence of ownership that 
 she contemplated her share in his possessions. She often 
 satirically commented upon them, with a singular absence 
 of any sense of responsibility for them. Although she 
 maintained absolute sway in the household, she deported 
 herself like an alien. 
 
 The interior was alight with a dull red glow, for the cook 
 ing of supper was in progress ; and while she waited for 
 the baking of the johnny-cake she sat upon the step of the 
 rickety little porch and looked about her with an idle, cas 
 ual glance, devoid of any consanguinity with the objects 
 upon which it rested. She was some twenty years of age, 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 15 
 
 perhaps. She had a clear olive complexion, and dark brown 
 hair smoothly drawn away from a broad low forehead. 
 Her eyes were small, dark, and bead-like, and held a laugh 
 ing twinkle in them. She had a blunt nose, and flexible 
 lips that showed two rows of teeth, large, strong, and white. 
 She was accounted good-looking, and had the neat and 
 orderly appearance common to people of that repute. Her 
 compact and well-rounded figure was tidily bestowed in a 
 blue and white checked cotton dress, and from the " tuckin - 
 comb " at the back of her head no loose ends of hair es 
 caped. Her husband had esteemed himself singularly for 
 tunate to win such a prize, handicapped as he was in the 
 matrimonial race. He felt himself elderly at thirty-five ; 
 he was a widower, poorer than his fellows, and burdened 
 with three children. It was rumored in the Cove that she 
 had married Benjamin Bowles to spite another lover, with 
 whom she had quarreled. It is to be hoped that this 
 unique revenge smote with due force its intended victim, but 
 Mrs. Bowles had times of great depression of spirit, and it 
 may be feared that her chosen retribution had given her a 
 backhanded blow in its recoil. 
 
 It was with much urbanity that she received the con 
 stable, who was her cousin, and who had chanced to be 
 called up into the mountain on official business, and had 
 stopped to spend the night at his relative s house. She evi 
 dently entertained some anxiety that a flattering report of 
 the match she had made, and her content therewith, should 
 go down to the Cove, and for this she exerted her tact. She 
 was smiling and brisk as she served the supper, which was 
 savory enough, for she was a good housewife, bland and 
 kind to her step-children, decorous and deferential to her 
 husband ; but her manner to his brother was singularly null, 
 which indication Eli Strobe did not fail to notice. There 
 was antagonism here, and each was strong in a way. 
 " Fight dog, fight bar," said Eli Strobe, chuckling to him 
 self. 
 
16 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 It titillated his sense of humor to remember how anxious 
 she had been that Jepson should join his cattle and sheep 
 and household gear to her husband s stock, when his mother 
 had died, and his home in the valley was thus broken up. 
 It had been a provident and profitable arrangement on her 
 part. 
 
 " Ef she jes could hev got the vally o the stock thout 
 the bother an contrariousness o hevin Teck in the house, 
 would n t she hev been happy ! " Strobe silently jeered. 
 
 They sat around the open door, after the meal was con 
 cluded. The high air was chill ; the influence of the stern 
 wilds, with the lonely moon upon them, with the silent mists 
 vagrant in the valleys, was vaguely drear, but the red flare 
 of the smouldering fire within was genial to see, and har 
 monized with the sense . of home. A minty sat upon the 
 doorstep, with the yellow cat in her arms ; it was wakeful, 
 eying the moonlight, and now and then the flickering gos 
 samer wing of a cicada s short flight in a few hop vines at 
 one side of the porch. The old dog lay at length and 
 drowsed ; but a puppy found an absorbing interest in a toad 
 hopping along the road, and now sat and gazed at him with 
 knitted brows and an intent attitude, and now smote him 
 with a festive paw and treated him to a high callow yap. 
 How the leaves of the oak acorded with the moonlight ; how 
 they lent their glossy surface to the sheen ! The shadows 
 flecked the road with dusky intervals and interfulgent glit 
 ter, and the great crag that jutted out a little way down the 
 slope was half in the gloom and half in the light. Mrs. 
 Bowles s needles clicked, as she knitted, and gleamed in the 
 red glow of the fire. 
 
 "Miss me enny in the Cove, cousin Eli?" she demanded, 
 flashing her beacllike eyes upon him. 
 
 Strobe thrust his hands deep in his pockets, swayed him 
 self far back in his chair, and surveyed her with a sort of 
 burly jocosity. 
 
 " Waal, / ain t missed ye ncne," he averred. He looked 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 17 
 
 steadily at her, as if to watch the effect of this statement, 
 and she, apprehending a jest, returned his gaze expectantly. 
 " I lowed ez Peter Bryce war competent ter miss ye about 
 all the missin ez ye war entitled ter. Ho ! ho ! I reckon 
 he lows ez Bowles air ez lucky ez a wishbone." 
 
 And Benjamin Bowles, feeling somehow thrust out of 
 the conversation at his own fireside, so that he could think 
 of nothing to say, made haste to glibly laugh too, to show 
 his triumph in his prize ; for Peter Bryce was the rejected 
 suitor. 
 
 Mrs. Bowles looked quickly at her husband, as if to 
 supervise the due exhibition of gratulation ; then laughed 
 coquettishly, with a great show of teeth. " Oh, nobody 
 expec s ye ter take ter jokin ! Ye air so sober-sided, 
 cousin Eli." 
 
 She dropped a stitch, and bent forward to catch the light 
 of the flames upon it. She drew back with a sharp cry. 
 
 " Who put that thar stick o ellum wood on the fire ter 
 burn ? Who s burnin ellum ? " she exclaimed, pointing 
 at it. 
 
 " T ain t ellum, air it ? " Her husband bent over in 
 quick anxiety to see. 
 
 " Ellum ! " said cousin Eli laconically. " I seen it ez 
 soon ez I kem in." 
 
 " It air a sign o bad luck ! " she protested, at once flus 
 tered and angry. 
 
 " Ellum," said cousin Eli Strobe ruminatively. He 
 leaned forward, with his elbows on his knees, and gazed 
 into the fire with his heavy-lidded eyes. " Ellum," he re 
 peated, his pipe between his set teeth. " They makes coffins 
 out n ellum, an that s why they low that burnin it air a 
 sign o death." 
 
 Mrs. Bowles looked at her husband for a moment, aghast. 
 
 " Sim mus hev put it on," said Bowles, weakly seeking 
 to shield himself. 
 
 Sim was a "small carrot-headed boy, whose sullen, watch- 
 
18 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDCE COVE. 
 
 ful eyes and manner, at once cowed and resentful, intimated 
 some harsh dealings of Fate. 
 
 " It don t make no diff ence ef Sim did," said Teck 
 Jepson. 
 
 Mrs. Bowles looked at him angrily, apprehending the 
 defiance, but silently ; he returned the gaze with steadfast 
 intentness, and she flung petulantly away. 
 
 " Sim air a bad aig," she remarked. " I dunno what 
 ailed that oman " thus she always referred to her pred 
 ecessor " ter raise her chil n ter be so mean an spiteful. 
 She war a fool, sure ! " 
 
 " Waal, waal," said the husband and father uneasily, " I 
 reckon she done the bes she could." 
 
 It was all he dared say in defense of the dead, but urgent 
 conscience constrained this. He often thought of her, 
 far more often, doubtless, than if his second marriage had 
 been a smoother fate, and of the terrible winter that she 
 died, when the mountain was sheathed in ice and impas 
 sable ; no man could come up or go down, and he was iso 
 lated in his sorrow. A ghastly gray day it was when he 
 hollowed out with his own hands a shallow grave in the 
 frozen ground, and laid her in it, with only the three bab 
 bling children to stand by. It was in some sort as an offer 
 ing to her memory that he occasionally admitted to himself 
 that his second marriage was a mistake. Sometimes he 
 tried to look upon it as a sacrifice : the children would have 
 frozen stiff, would have starved, would have run wild, with 
 no woman to look after them, he said to himself. And in 
 this half-hearted matrimonial bargain there was a set-off 
 for Mrs. Bowles s spited lover. 
 
 The influence of the burning elm was very perceptible 
 in Mrs. Bowles s manner after that ; for a time she was 
 silent and preoccupied, and roused herself only to rebuke 
 the children, unmindful of the story that would go down to 
 the Cove. Sim and A minty were quick to note the change 
 of mood, and deported themselves with a dodging expec- 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 19 
 
 tation ; but Bob, a boy of four, sat before the fire, now 
 broadly smiling, and now nodding and dozing in bis chair. 
 He was plump and ruddy, his big eyes were hazel and bright, 
 and his hair, cropped in a unique manner by perverse 
 shears, heightened the grotesque callowness of his aspect. 
 The dogs walked casually over him ; the cats climbed upon 
 him, and made him convenient to reach the bowl of milk 
 on the table ; the chickens did not scruple to perch upon 
 the arms of his chair, or even on his knee, or his hand, or 
 his head. The world was not easy to small Bob Bowles, 
 but his was the temperament to make it easier. A good- 
 tempered, docile creature he was, for he had no sensitive 
 sentiments to assuage when the smart to his flesh had 
 ceased. 
 
 The talk fell among the men, and presently Teck was re 
 counting his garbled version of the preaching he had heard 
 at the camp-meeting in the Cove. The speed that Jehu 
 made, as he so gallantly drove into Jezreel, had impressed 
 him deeply. " I wisht I knowed edzac ly how fas he trav 
 eled, an sech time ez he made," he said wistfully. " Pa son 
 never read that." 
 
 The seeming barbarity of the old chronicles, the poetic 
 justice meted out with so unfaltering a hand, had no morbid 
 effect upon his sensibilities. It was but the fit rounding 
 of the heroic tale. The ghastly details, however, were an 
 aggravation to Mrs. Bowles s darkened mood. " Air that 
 in the Bible ? " she would cry in dismay. " Waal, sir ! 
 I m glad them folks air gone ! I 11 be bound they made 
 a heap o trouble. They hed ter bar up the door, in them 
 days, / know. Wuss n the boys in the Cove." 
 
 She tried to change the theme. She rallied her amiabil 
 ity. She flashed her bead-like eyes at cousin Eli with her 
 old-time coquetry, and her renewed desire that only triumph 
 ant accounts might go down to the Cove was manifest in 
 her eager anxiety to put the small household belongings be 
 fore him in their best light. She seemed nearer akin to 
 
20 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 her household effects as she sought to gloss over any im-^ 
 perfection. Her recognition of their deficiencies had 
 hitherto been couched in the form of sneers, to acquaint 
 her husband with the damage " that oman " had done to 
 them. 
 
 " I dunno what ails that cheer ez ye air settin in ter 
 creak so, cousin Eli," she observed. " It s plumb strong. 
 T ain t goin ter let ye down." Her reassuring smile 
 showed her strong white teeth. Its suavity was gone be 
 fore its distention relaxed, as she turned suddenly to her 
 husband. " Did ennybody ever put one e-end o a coffin 
 inter it ? " she asked breathlessly. 
 
 Bowles started, with a wild glance about the room, as if 
 to identify the chair that had borne so ghastly a burden. 
 * " Laws-a-massy, naw, M ria ! That cheer air in the roof- 
 room. What ails ye ter ax sech ? " 
 
 " Waal," she said hastily, in much perturbation, " the old 
 folks low ez sech a cheer will groan an creak ever arter." 
 
 " T ain t disturbin me noways, cousin M ria," said cousin 
 Eli. "I ll die when my time comes." He seemed to 
 make an admission in saying this in a deep bass voice. 
 
 " I dunno what ailed me ter take up sech a notion," she 
 observed, with a forced laugh, as she resumed her knitting. 
 After this she succeeded in so steering the conversation as 
 to exclude Jepson and further reminiscences of Jezreel ; 
 and she was not sorry when, after sitting for a time in 
 brooding silence, he rose, put his pipe into his pocket, and 
 strolled out upon the porch, then down the path in the light 
 of the midsummer moon. 
 
 Somehow it seemed to share the lush splendors of the 
 August, the climax of ripening growths, of fair fruitions, of 
 rank and riotous blossoming. Never before, he thought, 
 had it worn so rich and radiant a guise as it hung above 
 the purple mountains ; a gilded bloom rested upon its disk ; 
 this fine and delicate efflorescence softened yet did not dim 
 its lustre. Far, far, he followed it amidst the great trees, 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE, 21 
 
 draped from their stupendous heights to the ground with 
 the luxuriant cables of the grapevines, the fragrance of the 
 fruit perfuming the air. The laurel was done with bloom 
 ing, but the clew lurked in its bosky tangles, and sent out a 
 scintillating glimmer. How few the stars were ! few and 
 faint, for the night was the moon s. He paused in a rocky 
 rift in a great gorge, that he might look up to see one afar 
 off, with a dim glitter ; and the tracings of a coil that he 
 knew, but not as Scorpio ; and in a gap in a Carolina Moun 
 tain a planet that was rising. How long ago they were kin 
 dled, these stars ! How many eyes had turned to them ! 
 The prophets saw them. And as he tended sheep and lay 
 on the hillsides with his flocks, David himself had known 
 these lucent splendors. And Moses, familiar of the high 
 mountains, in whose fastnesses he spoke with the Lord as 
 man with man, they surely shone upon that hidden place 
 where the great lawgiver lay. 
 
 " A powerful strange buryin ," he meditated, " the Lord 
 himself chief mourner." 
 
 He paused, pondering, with a sort of solemn pride that 
 poor humanity should ever have been thus cherished. 
 
 The thought of death in the gaunt gorge, with the loom 
 ing cliffs on either side and many a black chasm below ; with 
 only the starveling shrubs to grow, and the moon to light 
 the stark spaces as of a desert world ; with the white mists 
 to hide the familiar valley, and a dark mountain to gloom 
 afar, while the lonely sky bent above, induced a strangely 
 isolated feeling, and the recollection of a certain forlorn fate 
 came ghastly and drear into his mind. It was a long time 
 ago, he said to himself, and men die daily ; why should he 
 think, with a numb chill upon him, of Samuel Keale ? He 
 glanced upward among the black shadows of the jagged 
 rock, sharply outlined in the moon s light upon the gray 
 sandstone. Suddenly a moving shadow was among them: 
 a wolf, black and grisly, with a lowered tail and a keen 
 
22 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 muzzle, stood upon the summit, and looked curiously, with 
 doubtful glittering eyes and a quivering snuffing nostril, at 
 the motionless figure below. The cowardly animal sprang 
 back affrighted, when Jepson stirred. He had drawn a 
 broad-bladed knife, and passed his hand quickly along its 
 keen edge. But until his stentorian halloo roused the sleep 
 ing echoes with a thousand weird shouts, the animal showed 
 sign of flight. It crouched like a frightened dog ; then 
 turned, and ran cowering and silent along the summit, paus 
 ing only once to cast a swift glance backward, and so out 
 of sight. 
 
 " Ef ye hed been hongry, Mister Wolf, ye d hev kem 
 down hyar ter see what I be made out n. Too many good 
 sheep an yearlin cattle pastured round them thar moun 
 tings fur ye ter git fightin hongry till winter-time." 
 
 He put up his knife, but his mind was tenacious of its 
 impressions. The wolf had added another grim suggestion 
 to the idea of death alone among the mountains, in the 
 depths of the unexplored, inaccessible cave. 
 
 " T ain t fur from hyar-abouts, I hearn tell," he said. 
 Then he took himself to task. . " I hev got ter quit this hyar 
 way o lopin in the woods like I war bereft. I 11 git teched 
 in the head, ef I don t mind. Folks are beginnin ter laff 
 at me, ennyhows, bout talkin so much bout them in the 
 Bible. Las time I war at the Settlemint, them boys thar 
 at the store axed me, How s Solomon, an Mrs. Solomon ? 
 Durn em ! I d hate, though, fur Moses an David an them 
 ter kem back, ef they could, an find me so beset an tuk up 
 bout them an thar doin s. I 11 be bound they would n t 
 take ez much notice o me." 
 
 As he sought to assume his place on this basis of mutual 
 indifference, he noted a rock lying before a niche in the 
 cliffs. It had been cleft by some freeze of the past winter 
 perhaps ; the fragment had fallen down the chasm at some 
 distance, and he could dimly see the black interior of the 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 23 
 
 fissure. Once again, the idea of death recurred to his per 
 sistent mind. This was like the burial caves of the Bible, 
 with a stone rolled to the door of the crypt. He sat down 
 near at hand ; he was trembling with the intensity of his 
 interest. He gazed at the place with an excited fascination. 
 He wondered if any one could have been buried here. But 
 no, he would have heard of it. Besides, he was surprised 
 now that he could have thought it, the place was too con 
 tracted ; a full-grown man could not have been entombed 
 in this niche. 
 
 His interest flagged upon the prosaic summons of fact. 
 He rose to turn homeward. Then he stopped suddenly and 
 looked back. In shifting his position he saw the rnoon full 
 on the place now, on the broken stone that had been rolled 
 to the niche ; shining through the rift, blanching the sand 
 stone, and showing distinctly, too, some dark object within. 
 
 He did not understand his motive afterward. He fell 
 upon the rock in a sudden fury ; it yielded to his strength, 
 and rolled crashing down the gorge, rousing a wild clamor 
 in the silent mountains. He did not hear. He did not 
 heed. 
 
 The niche was smaller even than he had thought. There 
 were no ghastly relics, no bones, no hair ; only a man s hat 
 and coat, quite fresh and well preserved, the usual jeans 
 coat, the white wool hat common in the mountains ; but as 
 he unrolled them, there was some vague air about them that 
 was familiar, and he knew them for the missing man s. 
 When were they hidden here? His quick imagination 
 could answer, could paint the scene in every minute detail. 
 He saw the skulking, guilty creature coming down the gorge 
 laden with these garments, warm then from the form chill 
 ing fast, perhaps, in some icy subterranean <. current. The 
 niche was a ready hiding-place, the grea* rock close at 
 hand. And here they had lain concealed till the essential 
 moment when the freeze cleft the rock and rendered up the 
 
24 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 evidence, the new evidence, so long buried where the 
 criminal had hidden it. And as Jepson held the garments 
 aloft a recollection of his experience in the courts came to 
 him. " A man shall not be placed twice in jeopardy of his 
 life for the same offense," said the lawyer. 
 
n. 
 
 THE undying grandeur of the mountains, their solemn 
 fixity, the mystery that hangs about them, and their sombre 
 silences impose upon the mind a sense of immutability, and 
 in their midst human life seems a fluctuating, trivial thing, 
 and men come and go with the transitory ineffectiveness of 
 a shifting vapor. 
 
 Something of this was in Teck Jepson s thoughts, as he 
 stood on the river bank at the baptizing in the valley, and 
 looked about him at the close-circling purple heights. He 
 remembered many who had known them, and whom they 
 would know no more ; and he fancied that others half 
 fact, half figment of his ignorant imagination had made 
 their homes here, who had never trod these rugg ed ways. 
 And he took note, too, of the vanishing presence of the In 
 dian and those dim traditional pygmy dwellers in Tennessee, 
 far back in the fabulous perspectives of time, still vaguely 
 known in rural regions as the " little people." 
 
 A dusky bloom was upon the vast slopes, for a black 
 cloud overspread their summits and portended rain. All 
 the landscape was in the sullen shadow, and wore this dull 
 purple, or a deep, indefinite gray and brown, save that upon 
 one of the minor ridges about the base of the Great Smoky 
 the sun s rays fell diverging from a rift in the clouds, a 
 yellow fibrous slant on the illuminated emerald tint of the 
 foliage below, indescribably brilliant in the sudden contrast. 
 The stream, closely begirt on one side by frowning crags 
 and lower rock-bound banks on the other, was black and 
 swift and sinister, with here and there a white flash of 
 foam. It might have suggested Styx rather than Jordan, 
 
26 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEBGE COVE. 
 
 but for the congregation standing on the pebbly margin 
 where the county road came down in a cleft in the rocks to 
 a doubtful ford, the landing being effected on the oppo 
 site side, so far up stream that it was barely visible, and 
 but for the weird baptismal hymns and the echoing psalm 
 ody of the heathen rocks. 
 
 The assemblage had a melancholy guise : the elder men 
 grizzled and grim, with broad-brimmed hats and clad in 
 jeans, and the women with pallid, ascetic faces, barely 
 glimpsed under their long tunnel-like sunbonnets, and wear 
 ing straight-skirted homespun dresses. Only in the rear 
 of the crowd some of the languid young mountaineers 
 showed signs of latent but fitful levity. There were al 
 ways voices enough to carry on the sonorous hymn, though 
 under its cover remarks in an undertone were often ex 
 changed. Above on the slope were hitched the ox-wagons 
 and saddle-horses that had conveyed the company hither, 
 but in the defile between the crags were two horsemen, still 
 mounted, gravely watching the rite administered. 
 
 It was an impressive moment when the old preacher, his 
 white hair and his lined face ghastly in the unnatural light 
 of the day, forged out into the current, leading a young girl 
 by the hand, and crying out in the silence, for the song 
 had ceased, " This is the river o death ! Come down, 
 my sister, and be buried with Christ in baptism." 
 
 A flickering glow of lightning, broad and faint, ran over 
 the clouds, and illumined her pale face and her coils of fair 
 hair, as she was slowly laid backward into the depths of the 
 black water. The next moment she rose, dimly descried in 
 the dun light of the gray day, exclaiming that she had risen 
 from the dead, and crying, " Glory ! Glory ! " in an ecstatic 
 frenzy, as she struggled, with dripping hair and garments, 
 to the shore. 
 
 All the rocks echoed the shrill, rapturous cry, and " Glory ! 
 Glory! " sounded far and faint up and down the river. 
 
 " On Jordan s stormy banks I stand I " The chorus was 
 
THE DESPOT Or BROOMSEDGE COVE. 27 
 
 renewed, its wistful, subdued spirit contrasting with the joy 
 ful exclamation, * Glory ! " that still pierced its cadences. 
 
 Suddenly a sturdy, stout young man with short cropped 
 black hair, a bullet head, and an intent manner, and clad in 
 copper-colored jeans, plunged into the cold water and waded 
 out alone, not waiting to be met by the parson ; for when 
 the old man turned about, the candidate was standing in 
 the middle of the river. 
 
 " Ye notice how turrible brash Josiah Preen be, can t 
 wait fur pa son ter summons him," one of the horsemen in 
 the gorge observed to the other, k but needs ter dash out in 
 the ruver that-a-way, ez ef thar warn t water enough ter go 
 roun , an he d miss his chance o gittin glory." 
 
 " He be goin ter save his soul hisself ; he ain t goin ter 
 wait on the slow arm o the Lord," commented the other. 
 
 " He s ez awk ard ez a peeg caught in a gate," returned 
 his companion. " I ain t s prised none ef he gits flustrated, 
 an drowns in that shallow water." 
 
 And indeed there was a vigorous scuffle, as the candidate 
 misunderstood the direction and manner in which the stal 
 wart old clergyman proposed to lower his robust bulk. He 
 was under water longer than the usual interval. It splashed 
 and surged above him, and finally he came up, seemingly 
 in an athletic struggle with the parson, choking and sputter 
 ing and meekly submitting to be led to the bank, shuffling 
 and hindered by his heavy water-logged garments. 
 
 The congregation solemnly resumed the chant, as if the 
 rite had been administered in its most decorous method ; 
 but its mishaps occasioned great though -suppressed joy to 
 the young sinners in the rear and to the two men on horse 
 back in the defile. 
 
 Most of the candidates were young people, some mere 
 children, for the elders had "got religion" long years ago. 
 The " perfessin members " looked on. at the ceremony with 
 retrospective eyes, wise in experience. 
 
 " Ye low ye air comin up inter a new land ! " cried out 
 
28 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 one of the brethren suddenly, expressing, perhaps, the 
 thought of many of the congregation. The exhorting voice 
 had a strange staccato effect in the midst of the chanting, 
 which diminished gradually and quavered into silence, 
 " inter a new Ian , whar godliness finds a smooth path an 
 needs no staff fur its steppin out strong, an the way is 
 plain, an the end in view ! Oh, my frien s, this ain t 
 Canaan, an nuthin like it ; jes old Kildeer County, whar 
 the devil loves ter roam an rage. An now s yer chance to 
 show yer heart air changed ! Ye 11 find yer besettin sins 
 like tares in the groun , an Satan a-waitin in the briers ter 
 tempt yer steps. The day is dark, an the way ah ! is 
 long ah ! an no man kin see whar it leads ah ! 
 Oh, be not a cast-away ! " His voice rose into song and 
 the docile chorus followed : 
 
 Oh, be not a castaway, 
 Ye whom Jesus loves. " 
 
 A heavily built man of forty was one of the exceptions 
 to the prevalent youthfulness of the candidates. He went 
 down in a hesitant and circumspect manner, and he entered 
 the cold water so slowly as to suggest reluctance. 
 
 " He ain t used ter that thar kind o liquor," one of the 
 unregenerate horsemen observed, in a low tone. He had 
 crossed his right leg over on the pommel of his saddle, and 
 he leaned his elbow on his knee, and rested his chin in his 
 hand as he talked, looking between his horse s intent ears. 
 " An he ain t got no real interns in the Ian a-flowin with 
 milk an honey. He d git mighty happy, now, though, ef 
 somebody ez knowed could make him b lieve they hed a 
 quiet leetle still hid up in one e-end o Canaan." 
 
 " What ailed him ter git religion, ennyhow ? " demanded 
 the other, whose horse was restive, bowing down his head 
 and tossing his mane, and from time to time lifting his fore 
 foot and pawing impatiently. 
 
 " His wife died, an that reminded him he war mortial 
 hisse f. His religion 11 las him jes bout ez long ez he 
 members his wife." 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 29 
 
 " An that 11 be till he kin git him another one ez ain t 
 dead," rejoined his co-cynic. 
 
 The candidate assumed a port of religious joy, as he rose 
 with a commotion of the water that reached in concentric 
 circles from bank to bank. A yellow flicker glanced along 
 the dark ripples, for the sharp blades of the lightnings cleft 
 the clouds. The wooded slopes, the crags, the level reaches 
 of the valley, were lifted, with all their tints distinct in this 
 unnatural, dream-like light for a moment, then sank into 
 the dull purple monotony of the overhanging cloud. His 
 bearded face and wild eyes were illumined for the instant, 
 as he came struggling to the shore, hoarsely shouting that 
 he had viewed heaven and was risen from the dead, while 
 the faint, sullen thunder muttered among the mountain- 
 tops. 
 
 The next moment a thrill ran through the assemblage 
 other than the fervors of religion, or the natural curiosity 
 elicited by the developments hitherto. A man, for whom 
 the pastor was waiting in the stream, was coming down the 
 bank, a man with that singular pallor acquired by years 
 of indoor life, and known as * jail bleach ; " a tall, thin fig 
 ure, clad in brown jeans that hung loosely upon him. He 
 had bright, quick, gray eyes, black hair that lay straight and 
 close about a narrow, thin head, and clear-cut, regular fea 
 tures ; the profile showed with onyx-like distinctness against 
 the clouds and the dark river, in the lurid light of the day. 
 It w r as Jake Baintree, the man who had last seen the miss 
 ing mountaineer, and who had been tried for his murder 
 and acquitted. 
 
 The congregation had forgotten to sing. It was in dead 
 silence that he went down to the typical flood to wash his 
 sins away. 
 
 Hoof-beats smote suddenly the tense and stormy stillness. 
 The horsemen were riding down the rocky defile to hear 
 what might be said, reining in at the rear of the crowd ; 
 one standing erect in his stirrups, to look over the heads 
 
30 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDCE COVE. 
 
 and down into the dark current, the other kneeling on his 
 saddle. 
 
 It was not the parson who met Jake Baintree. A fig 
 ure like Saul s, taller by a head than all his fellows, with a 
 long supple step, an imperious erectness, and a manner that 
 would not be denied, interposed on the bank of the river, 
 laid a hand on the candidate s breast, and held him back. 
 
 " Wait, Jacob Baintree ! " exclaimed Teck Jepson. 
 " Wait till ye hear how the rocks hev cried out agin ye. 
 They would not hold thar peace, though the jedge an the 
 juries let thar hands fall, an jestice dwindled away. An 
 what did the rocks say ? " 
 
 He stood alert, tingling in every fibre, his hand still on 
 the man s breast, who had put up both his own hands to 
 pull it down. But there they rested upon it, as if palsied, 
 while he fixed his startled, fascinated gaze upon the fiery 
 eyes of the other. 
 
 " The rocks say, Sam l Keale s coat ! : Jepson held 
 up a dark garment, shaking it in the air. A tremor ran 
 through the crowd ; a low, inarticulate exclamation burst 
 from it. The candidate s hands fell from the arm he had 
 sought to clutch. He winced perceptibly, and Teck Jep- 
 son s grasp closed on his collar. He should hear ; they all 
 should heed. " An then the rocks say, l Sam l Keale s 
 hat ! Jepson held it aloft. " I fund em in a hollow, 
 ahint a rock, folks, a rock ez would n t hide em, for the 
 freeze split it, an revealed the gyarmcnts ter my eye. 
 Now," he flung the man from him, " go ter yer bap 
 tism in brimstun an wrath, whar the worm dieth not, an 
 the fire is not squenched ! " 
 
 He turned, and was lost in the crowd, many shrinking 
 away in horror from the garments he held in either hand, 
 and from his furious look and manner. For there was some 
 sympathy for the man whom he left trembling on the bank, 
 and attentive ears, and minds open to conviction, were lent 
 to Baintree s words as he exclaimed, 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 31 
 
 " I can t holp it, brethren. I dunno what Sam l done 
 with his old clothes, nor why he hid em in a rock. I dunno 
 ef they air SamTs, an Teck Jepson don t nuther. But " 
 he subtly felt the strength of his argument " he sha n t 
 bender me ! The devil sha n t bender me ! I hev got my 
 religion. Oh, grace is mine ! I hev got my sheer ! " he 
 sang tremulously. 
 
 Somehow the excited people did not join, and he went 
 down into the black water to the music of his own quaver 
 ing voice. 
 
 The parson stood as if petrified in the midst of the 
 stream. The lightning illumined his white hair, and the 
 thunder rolled once more. The clouds were in motion ; 
 there was a dank smell of foliage in the air ; rain had begun 
 to fall somewhere in the mountains, a matter ordinarily 
 of interest to an unhoused crowd so far from any shelter or 
 habitation. But they all remained motionless, watching the 
 young man as he waded out to meet the venerable pastor. 
 
 Suddenly the parson s figure stirred. He lifted his arms ; 
 he was sternly waving the candidate away. " Until ye con 
 fess, until ye confess!" he cried, striding toward the 
 bank, presently lifting his voice into song, mechanically 
 joining the rejected aspirant s refrain, " Oh, grace is mine ! 
 I hev got my sheer ! " unconscious of any satiric meaning 
 the words conveyed. 
 
 The crowd took up the chant fragmentary, amidst the 
 pealings of the thunder and the sharp dartings of the 
 lightning ; it was broken, too, by their movement, for as 
 they sang they were turning toward their wagons and 
 horses. The fircfc heavy drops of rain were falling as 
 Jacob Baintree reached the rocky bank, scrambling up its 
 rugged slopes into the very drear scenes of this world as 
 he knew it. 
 
III. 
 
 THE energy of a persecutor for conscience sake is a 
 robust endowment. Untrammeled by the sense of any per 
 sonal shortcomings, by doubts, or extenuations, or denials ; 
 devoid of compassion or sympathy ; insistent, blind, un 
 reasoning, it affords unique opportunity for the display of 
 consistency. 
 
 Teck Jepson, as he strode along the red clay road toward 
 the purple slopes, to meet a dun-colored mist rolling down 
 from the black cloud, bore a strong heart within him, and 
 the testimony of a conscience essentially his own. He en 
 countered rebuke, or remonstrance from those trudging on 
 in company by the stalwart declaration, " Ez the Lord bade 
 me, so I did act ! " His manner implied a fierce elation, 
 and his tall massive figure, his free strong gait, his erect 
 head, were conspicuous in the midst of his more slouching 
 companions. He flung the sonorous phrase over his shoul 
 der, heedless whether it were answered or how, and often 
 the interlocutor was silenced by this assumption of a subtly 
 delegated authority. But there sometimes ensued excited 
 argument among the portion of the congregation that 
 chanced to go his way. In it he took no part ; now and 
 again he lifted his voice in the final chant of the meeting, 
 " Grace is mine ; I hev got my sheer ! " joining the refrain, 
 as it was sung afar off amongst groups wending northward 
 or southward. Sometimes only a white-covered wagon was 
 visible in the distance on some high slope, rounding a pre 
 cipitous curve at the verge, and then disappearing in the 
 dense foliage ; and again the presence of the dispersing 
 worshipers was merely intimated by the song rising faint 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 33 
 
 and far from the deep coverts of the mountain, mournfully 
 ringing from crag to crag, and now and then accentuated 
 by a crash of thunder. 
 
 Often the comments of his companions assumed the third 
 person, so imperatively did liis manner imply the with 
 drawal of his attention : 
 
 " I say, Ez the Lord bid him ! Shucks ! The Lord 
 ain t studyin bout Teck Jepson," declared Joe Bassett, one 
 of the horsemen who had watched the scene from the de 
 file. " The Lord hev fairly f urgot the critter war ever cre 
 ated," he continued, thus arrogating also intimations from 
 above. " An hyar s Teck jes a-settin back an purtendin 
 ter be gifted with wisdom from on high ! " 
 
 He swung his feet in a disparaging manner in and out of 
 his stirrup-irons, arid rolled about in the saddle with an air 
 burlesquing exaggerated importance. He was a tall, good- 
 looking fellow, with a bronzed face and ** sandy " hair and 
 beard. 
 
 But when Parson Donnard rode by, the respect for Teck 
 Jepson s views was enhanced by the reminder of the pastor s 
 acquiescence. He cast his excited light gray eye upon Jep 
 son. The young man glanced up, not with the manner 
 of seeking countenance or needing support ; it was with the 
 confident expectation of approval that he said, ; Ez the 
 Lord bade me, so I did act." 
 
 " Follow the voice of the Lord, brother," responded the 
 parson s deep bass tones, and so he rode on. 
 
 He had an ascetic visage, with a hollow temple, a thin 
 hooked nose, a long, firm upper lip that closed with a fixed 
 expression upon the lower, which was equally as thin and 
 straight. He was keen on doctrinal points, and had severely 
 elective theories as to admission through the golden gates. 
 In fact, heaven would be somewhat deserted and sorry as a 
 final resort, if Parson Donnard s passport were essential. 
 He drove a hard bargain in salvation, and there were those 
 of his flock who feebly sought to resign themselves to dam- 
 
34 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 nation, so imminent did it seem under his ministration. 
 He rode a big gray mule, that lifted him high above his 
 people, amongst whom he deftly threaded in and out. His 
 progress was unlike that of the ox-wagons ; the burly teams, 
 with their swinging gait to and fro, preempted the narrow 
 spaces of the red clay road, and caused the passing pedes 
 trians to betake themselves to the heavily gullied slopes on 
 either side. Numbers of dogs, partakers in all mountain 
 excursions, trotted demurely along under the wagon-beds, 
 or followed close at their masters heels. More than once 
 a terrible forked blue flash of lightning rent the clouds, with 
 a simultaneous detonation, significant and sinister. Some 
 tree on the heights had been struck, but only the horses 
 were restive. The women sat, unmarking, crowding the 
 wagons ; here and there one, young and slender, rode be 
 hind her cavalier on horseback. The rain fell in large, 
 heavy drops, then ceased, arid the primitive procession 
 wended its way, under the black clouds, toward the great 
 steeps. It had gradually scattered, dwindled, and the 
 horsemen were far in advance of the others, when Teck 
 Jepson turned into the ragged little bridle-path that led up 
 the mountain. He could distinguish, as he stood here alone, 
 far along the curves of the road, figures whose guise was in 
 some way familiar to him, and thus to be recognized. They 
 suggested to him pilgrims and strangers journeying through 
 life in forlorn and mournful ways. The mountains tow 
 ered above. A great bird, buffeted by the rising wind, was 
 fain to drift with it across the black sky. The river s re 
 flection of a flash of lightning, writhing through the valley, 
 betokened the presence of the watercourse among the tim 
 ber ; and suddenly the clouds began visibly to descend, 
 shred by the wind, and here and there slanting into myr 
 iads of lines of rain. A hesitating drop fell upon the wide 
 brim of his hat, and then the world was lost in the tumul 
 tuous downpour. Naught could be seen but its serried, 
 dun-colored fibres, save when the lightning flashed through, 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 35 
 
 revealing vague shapes of looming mountain, or rock, or 
 forest. In one of these illuminations, Teck Jepson, walk 
 ing blindly on, came to a place that he knew. He turned 
 aside, and climbed up a rugged slope toward a great sand 
 stone cliff which jutted out so far that the space beneath 
 must be dry, he thought, while the wind held to its mood. 
 He kept along the sides of the sheer sandstone walls for a 
 time, helping himself by the outspread boughs of the laurel 
 or a pendent vine, till suddenly a great rift in the rock was 
 at hand. He could see the jagged edge of the crag beetling 
 high above ; could hear amidst the stormy dash of the rain 
 the slow patter of the drops, falling by twos and threes from 
 the eaves-like ledges. A tall bull-weed, that swung, purple 
 and burly, among the rocks, was dry, and as he turned into 
 the great niche, chill and .white and sheltered, he became 
 aware that others had sought the refuge before him. In 
 the depths within a child was standing, and a young girl 
 sat upon a ledge, a great dog beside her, her elbow on her 
 knee, her chin in her hand, her eyes fixed on the surging 
 storm without. His cursory glance made sure only that 
 she was a stranger. He hardly noted her start of surprise, 
 her intent gaze suddenly fixed upon him, her murmured 
 response to his succinct salutation, " Howdy ! " He sank 
 down on a bowlder that lay near the entrance, leaning back 
 against the ledge above, his elbow on it, and supporting his 
 head in his hand. He, too, looked out at the rain surging 
 before the entrance, enveloping all the world in its dim and 
 misty veil ; the bull-weed swayed ; the drops that fell on the 
 edge of the stone flooring, as it were, of the niche rebounded 
 slightly, shimmered with a steely glitter, and fell once more. 
 The roar, the aggregated accentuation of every separate 
 drop, was a distinct sound, easilv distinguishable from the 
 swirling frenzy of the wind, or the mutter of the thunder, or 
 the turmoil of the noisy rills summoned into existence by the 
 conformation of the slopes. He was as still as if he were 
 carved in stone ; a massive figure, not devoid of a certain 
 
36 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 grace, despite the rude garb of jeans, the high boots drawn 
 over his knee, the drooping curves of his broad hat. The 
 girl had not again glanced toward him, but remained 
 motionless, her chin in her hand, her elbow on her knee, 
 absorbed in her own thoughts. The manners of the ancient 
 hound were less reflective. He sat upright on the ledge, 
 looking out at the chill descent of the rain, elusively com 
 mingling with the mist, now and again swayed hither and 
 thither by the pervasive gusts ; and as he looked he shiv 
 ered in every limb, and yawned shrilly and loudly. The 
 inarticulate tones reverberated from the roof of the con 
 tracted space, and were repeated unmusically from wall to 
 wall. Teck Jepson glanced up at the disaffected animal, 
 who found this detention so dull, as the dog once more 
 yawned to an unprecedented extent, stretching himself to 
 his extremest length, and rasping his long claws on the 
 stones. 
 
 " Hush up ! " cried Jepson, in momentary inadvertence. 
 
 But the old hound, glad of conversation on any terms, 
 wagged his tail good-hurnoredly, and came down off the 
 ledge to lick the stranger s hand. The girl s face bore a 
 shade of displeasure, although she made no sign that she 
 had heard. Jepson s eyes fell upon her again. He sat 
 gazing at her, a slow surprise kindling in his face. She 
 took no heed, but looked out at the null mists and the 
 monotonous rain with eyes that seemed as if they never 
 could be dimmed by aught on earth, so pensively lustrous, 
 so crystal clear, they were. They had long dark lashes, 
 and were of a rich brown color, a tint that was repeated in 
 her curling hair, and suggested to his homely experience 
 the gloss and tone of a chestnut fresh from the burr. Her 
 hair waved backward with a deep undulation, which he 
 called a " cow-lick," from a brow smooth and white and 
 broad. She had no color in her cheeks, but her lips were 
 deeply crimson and delicately cut, and there was a fine free 
 line drawn from the lower one, defining the chin and her 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 37 
 
 slender throat. Her dark blue homespun dress draped a 
 tall, lithe figure, and the full skirt afforded sufficient ampli 
 tude for the old dog to ensconce himself upon its folds and 
 lie wheezingly down, looking out once more at the rainfall, 
 and then closing his eyes in a sort of blinking resignation. 
 Before long he nodded, his lips languishing from their 
 habitual position : his expression would have seemed a 
 clever caricature of himself, if it were intentional. Still 
 she supported her chin in her hand, slightly bending for 
 ward, her elbow resting on her knee, her foot, in its little 
 low-cut shoe with its leather lacing, on the stone below. 
 And still Jepson gazed. 
 
 " I dunno ez I ever seen ye afore," he observed pres 
 ently. 
 
 Her eyes turned slowly, as she gravely surveyed him. 
 
 " I hev seen ye. a-many-a-time, at preachin ," she ad 
 mitted naively, " at the church-house, and at camp, too." 
 
 Her voice was keyed low, and it had a soft and hesi 
 tating accent, as if she were solicitous for the impression 
 conveyed. 
 
 "Waal, I don t see nuthin at meetin ," he observed, with 
 prideful piety. " I be all tuk up with the Word." 
 
 " I m a perfesser," she hastily stipulated, sitting upright 
 and looking animatedly at him. " I hev been perfessin a 
 right smart time ; but I ain t leastwise " she hesi 
 tated, " the sperit ain t never hendered me from seem 
 some ez air a-goin on, though I ain t gin over ter lookin r 
 bout, nuther." 
 
 " Ye ain t hed much pourin out o the sperit, then," he 
 remarked ungraciously. 
 
 " Mebbe not," she admitted. Then with a sudden thought, 
 " I jes tell ye, though, thar d be a mighty fallin off in 
 religion ef the saints could n t consort tergether somewhar, 
 an see one n other, an talk an laff, arter the preachin s 
 over. Heap o fun goes on at camp, too." 
 
 " Them ez enjyes tharse fs at camp won t low t war sech 
 
38 THE DESPOT OF BROOUSEDGE COVE. 
 
 ticklin fun whenst they gits ter blisterin in hell, I 11 be 
 bound," he declared, with pious relish. 
 
 She replied uneasily, " Mebbe not." Then she looked 
 off a little drearily into the rain ; for he had a coercively 
 convincing manner, and perhaps she was reviewing with 
 gloomy forebodings the fun she had had at camp-meeting. 
 
 It was hardly mercy that prompted him to change the 
 subject or any disposition to mitigate the terrors of future 
 retribution as revealed to him. But he was a young man, 
 and his mundane tendencies were none the less strong be 
 cause unrecognized. 
 
 " That thar yer dog? " he asked trivially. 
 
 She responded with brightening interest to the more famil 
 iar theme. 
 
 " Naw," she said; "he s jes a sorter a sorter frien 
 o mine." She laughed a little, a fascinating, elusive 
 gleam upon her grave face, like the flitting presence of a 
 sunbeam in a solemn and solitary place. 
 
 " Neighbor s dog ? " demanded Jepson. 
 
 " Naw." Once more the smile rippled across her red 
 lips, showing her even white teeth. " His owner lives toler- 
 ble fur, over ter Chilhowee ; but this hyar dog kem a-visit- 
 in along o him, an he kem right off n, an the dog got 
 purty well treated, till now the dog comical old critter," 
 she laughed, with her hand on the hound s head " kerns 
 thar ez ef we war expectin of him, an sets up by the fire 
 like folks. I never seen the beat ! " 
 
 There was a sudden gleam in Jepson s eyes ; the blue iris 
 had a lighter tint. His lip curled. 
 
 u His owner got purty well treated," he said, with per 
 verse and intentional misunderstanding. 
 
 " The dog ! " She was fluttered in her haste to correct 
 him. " The dog got purty well treated." 
 
 " Ef he kem so all-fired often," he observed, " the owner 
 mus hev kem a-courtin ." Then he looked quickly at her. 
 
 She flushed to her temples ; her eyes were alight with 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COTE. 39 
 
 anger ; she seemed on the verge of an outburst. Checking 
 herself, she said demurely, "/ never thunk so, for one. 
 His owner air eighty year old." 
 
 Teck Jepson had seldom known the twinge of ridicule. 
 He looked away convinced that she was secretly laughing 
 in triumph at his discomfiture because of this adroit turn 
 of the conversation. But when he again glanced at her she 
 had relapsed into her former attitude, her chin in her hand, 
 her foot on the stone, looking out silently and dreamily. 
 Her aspect was little that of a doughty opponent in a war 
 of words, and he took heart of grace. 
 
 " That s fust rate fur a perfessin member," he declared. 
 He did not fail to observe that she winced. " I 11 b lieve 
 that whenst I see that thar frequent vis tor s white scalp, an* 
 no sooner/ 
 
 For a moment it seemed as if she might laugh again. 
 Then she turned upon him with genuine anger, not less se 
 rious that it was sudden : 
 
 " I ain t able ter see what gin ye a call ter meddle in it. 
 The frequent vis tor ain t wantin ter be baptized, an ain t 
 a-ondertakin ter go ter heaven along o you-uns or enny 
 other survigrous saint. Ef he kin git the folks he wants 
 ter sociate with in this worl , the Lord 11 hev ter poke him 
 up with a mighty sharp stick ter make him keer ennythin* 
 bout the nex worl . That s the state o the frequent vis 
 tor. Whenst I see ye kemin in this place, whar me an 
 my little sister, Is bel, hed got fust ter keep dry, I d hev 
 made ye stan outside, ef I d know d ye hed no mo man 
 ners than ter ax me who kerns a-courtin an who don t. I 
 lowed, though, from the way ye cavorted down yander ter 
 the baptizin , ez ye war powerful perlite an pious, bein 
 sech a Christian, an yer mind war n t set on courtin . Talk- 
 in bout courtin ter folks ye never see afore ! " 
 
 " I 11 be bound I know jes who ye air, yer dad an 
 all yer folks," he declared, in hasty self -justification. 
 " T ain t ez ef ye d met up with a stranger, somebody 
 
40 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 from North Ca liny, or the Lord knows whar. I mus hev 
 seen ye agin an agin, ceptin I jes don t take much notice 
 o young folks," he added, in a staid, middle-aged manner. 
 "Is bel," he leaned forward and addressed the child, a 
 tousled headed, barefooted, wiry little lass of ten or twelve, 
 who had been listening silently and staring at him, 
 ; what s yer dad s name ? " 
 
 " Eli Strobe," piped out Isabel. 
 
 " Thar, now ! " he exclaimed triumphantly. " Eli Strobe s 
 cousin married my half-brother, an I hev got ez much right 
 ter talk bout courtin ez enny frequent vis tor." 
 
 This conclusive logic seemed to daunt the girl. She of 
 fered no further reproof, and there was a sort of diffidence 
 in her defeated mien, the more as he continued : " I be 
 mighty keerless o who air in this worl ; my interus air in 
 them ez hev gone afore. Pears ter me thar ain t none 
 lef like em none like Sainson, an Daniel, an G liath." 
 
 A vague solemnity dawned upon her face, at the mention 
 of these names. She sat listening in brooding silence, her 
 crystal-clear eyes on his face as he talked. 
 
 " I wisht I hed lived in them days, herdin sheep, or suth- 
 in ," he added. 
 
 " Ye M be dead now," she remonstrated. 
 
 " Air ye one o them ez cling ter this mortial life ? " he 
 demanded, in rebuke. " It s jes a span, a breath, a mist 
 fur the wind ter scatter." 
 
 " Waal, it be powerful comfort ble whilst it lasts," she 
 argued. 
 
 He glanced at her and shook his head, and then relapsed 
 into silence. The continuous rain was now glimpsed through 
 the mist, and again sounded dully from out the invisibilities 
 of the vapors. Its monody accented the increasing chill of 
 the air. A broad flicker of lightning, diffused through all 
 the fine gray lines, showed the distant looming mountains 
 and cliffs without, and illumined her pensive face. 
 
 " Yes, sir," he declared, shifting his position, his stalwart 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 41 
 
 figure tense and alert, " none like em now. I could n t 
 holp thinkin , whenst I war a witness in the court down 
 yander in Glaston, what pore shakes that thar jedge war 
 compared ter Sol mon. Sol mon, now, would hev put 
 Jake Haintree through, he d hev fund out a way tev fix 
 his guilt on the sinner. Member the time," he cried viva 
 ciously, " Sol mon hed ter jedge twixt them two wimmin ez 
 claimed one hahy ? " 
 
 She nodded doubtfully. The event was not to her in the 
 nature of a reminiscence. 
 
 " Lord I " he exclaimed excitedly. " I war afeard fur 
 about three minits ez that thar leetle critter would git cut in 
 half ! I never war so all-fired skeered." 
 
 He fell into silence, revolving in his mind the animation 
 of the scene, the splendid hall in which the kingly judge 
 pronounced sentence, the crowds of soldiers and priests, the 
 tumult of applause at this vindication of his wisdom, this 
 brilliant exploit of his administrative genius. 
 
 How the spectacle allured the mountaineer ! How vacant 
 the modern voids ! 
 
 Once more he stirred and sig hed. 
 
 " Yer dad s runnin a^in fur constable," he said, a trifle 
 wistfully ; to such interests, forsooth, he must turn. 
 
 There came a shade of anxiety into her face. 
 
 " Yes, sir," she replied, the title a tribute to his arroga- 
 tions of seniority and to his piety, of a strange quality 
 though she felt it to be. She took one of the ears of the 
 old hound in her fingers and pleated it, as she looked con 
 sciously away. The sleeping dog, vaguely discommoded, 
 now and again lifted his head with a vigorous shake, and 
 then dropped it. 
 
 The face of Isabel suddenly seemed less youthful. It 
 too bore that anxiety so troublous and pathetic in women 
 and children when they can only suffer, and cannot help. 
 " They think Eli ain t goin ter be lected agin," he said 
 sagely to himself. " Suthin s bruk." 
 
42 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 " Waal, Eli s a mighty good man," he observed aloud, 
 his kindlier impulses uppermost. ** He s apt ter do his 
 best, an that s all the fur we kin go in this life. He stayed 
 up on the mounting along o we-uns one night, not long ago, 
 an he bruk the lonesomeness astonishin ." 
 
 The face of the elder sister was suddenly irradiated ; a 
 triumph was in her eyes all tenderly shining. 
 
 " Dad air a mos survigrous talker, sure," she assented 
 warmly. " Dad air powerful good comp ny. T ain t often 
 dad ain t got suthin ter say. I tell ye, it air wuth while 
 ter stop an cock yer ears, whenst dad begins ter talk. Dad 
 air ekal ter enny pa son, ef the truth war knowed, ain t he, 
 Is bel ? " 
 
 Isabel seemed almost profane in the eager precipitancy 
 of her assent. But it. was only " Laws-a-massy, yes ! " that 
 she said with so emphatic an accent. The child s face had 
 flushed beneath its freckles. She sat upright, bending 
 steadily on Jepson her concentrated gaze, its intensity re 
 doubled in effect by the very close juxtaposition of her 
 small, piercing dark eyes. 
 
 " That s a fac ." Teck joined the laudations, their ebul 
 lition of enthusiasm proving infectious. " Eli s a smart 
 man, an a good man, too." 
 
 " So good ter us chillen ! " cried the elder girl, her eyes 
 alight, " me an Is bel ; ain t he, Is bel ? " 
 
 " Laws-a-massy, yes ! " Isabel once more seemed to 
 swiftly take her oath upon it. 
 
 "Why, ef ennything goes wrong thar at home, the 
 cow gits inter the corn, or the gate swags off n the henges, 
 an dad gits ter ragin bout n it, they hev jes got ter 
 say, T was Is bel an Marcelly lef the bars down, or The 
 gals war a-swingin on the gate. An like ez not we bed n t 
 been a-nigh thar. An dad, he jes cools down ez quick. 
 T war them leetle darters, war it ? Waal, " imitating 
 Strobe s slow bovine glance, " t ain t goin ter sturb me ! 
 But ef it hed been ennybody else, though ! " The elder 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 43 
 
 sister shook her head in a way that promised amplest retri 
 bution, and laughed again. 
 
 " Yer name s Marcelly, air it ? " Teck Jepson said pon- 
 deringly. 
 
 " Done fund that out, hev ye ? " she exclaimed. Then, 
 with a swift transition back to the paternal perfections, she 
 continued, " Dad s a tremenjious scholar, kin read an 
 write s prisin . Dad s been ter school, I tell ye, an what 
 he larnt thar war n t how ter ketch grasshoppers. Dad s 
 the bes shot in Brumsaidge Cove. Nobody kin shoot agin 
 dad, though, bein constable," her voice fell with the se- 
 dateness of her logic, u he ain t gin over ter shootin - 
 matches, like he war. An dad kin arrest ennybody" she 
 declared sweepingly, " bein constable. The sher ff ain t 
 got no mo power over folks, sca cely." 
 
 " An dad lows the sher ff be made out n dough, besides," 
 said Isabel suddenly. u Dad say a biscuit hev got ez much 
 backbone ez that thar sher ff." 
 
 Her sister flashed a warning glance at her. Then Mar- 
 cella s own bright face fell. " I reckon that s one reason 
 he hev got a better chance o bein lected agin than dad 
 hev. Some folks low ez dad hev set too much store by the 
 law," she observed, lowering her voice, and allured into a 
 confidential mood by Jepson s apparent appreciation of 
 " dad." " Some say ez dad hev whetted the law s scythe 
 powerful sharp, whilst his own hev been lef ter rust. He 
 hev been mo tuk up with seem arter the law, than gittin 
 lected agin, an an " she hesitated "folks air agin 
 him, an bound ter git him beat." 
 
 Isabel fixed an eager electioneering gaze on Jepson s 
 face. " Do you-uns vote down in Brumsaidge ? " she inter 
 rogated him. 
 
 u I kin vote fur him ef I wants ter," he said, a trifle 
 waggishly. " But I ain t a-goin ter let ye buy iny vote, so 
 ye need n t try." 
 
 " I dunno ez I be a-tradin ," said Isabel shortly. 
 
44 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 " Is bel, hush up ! " exclaimed the repressive elder sister, 
 glancing apprehensively at Jepson to note the effect of the 
 child s curt speech. 
 
 But as he lounged upon the ledges of the rock, his head 
 supported on his hand, he was looking with languid good- 
 humor at Isabel, and had evidently taken no offense. 
 
 " Dad say it be powerful aggervatin ter run fur office," 
 resumed Marcella. " He say he don t mind sarvin the peo 
 ple, that s mighty easy, fur the law be laid down plain, 
 an he sets a heap o store by the law ; but it s a powerful 
 differ ter please this man an not git that one set catawampus, 
 an mos of em air goin ter be middlin mad, no matter 
 what he does or don t do. An he say sometimes he feels, 
 whenst he be axin em ter vote fur him, like fly in roun 
 an kickin em all right an lef, an goin home fur good." 
 
 " Waal, I ain t never seen no candidate fur office do sech 
 ez that yit, an I d be powerful glad ef I war lowed ter 
 live till I did see it," he retorted, the sensibilities of the suf 
 frage with which he was endowed becoming roused at the 
 suggestion. 
 
 She looked at him a trifle deprecatingly ; then, with that 
 daring impulse which often furnishes a false step with stum 
 bling sequelae, she pursued the subject : " Granny lows it 
 fairly sets her teeth on aidge ter hear me a-honin an 
 a-moanin bout the lection, an dad s chances, an voters, 
 an the office, an sech. An she say t ain t nowise perlite 
 an sensible for wimmin-folks ter spen thar time in sech ez 
 they ain t got no business in. I can t holp dad nor hender. 
 But I jes feel like ez ef I could take a rifle an stan at the 
 polls, an shoot down them ez don t vote fur dad ! " Her 
 eyes flashed, albeit she looked half laughing at him. 
 " T other night thar war a man at our house ez don t b long 
 somehows ter dad s party." 
 
 " Which party ? " demanded Jepson, smiling. 
 
 " Dunno. Dad s. An this man, he said : * I be pow 
 erful sorry I can t vote fur ye, Eli, kase ye air on the t other 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 45 
 
 side. An dad he say, ez slow an onconsarned, * Don t 
 vote fur me, ef ye d ruther not. It ain t goin ter kill me 
 ter git beat. An I jes spoke up, an I say, * Naw, it air 
 goin ter kill me ! ; 
 
 " Ye look toler ble live yit," commented Teck Jepson. 
 
 " Granny lowed she war so shamed o me, she could hev 
 made soup out n me, or minch meat, ez onconsarned ez ef 
 I d been a Shanghai." 
 
 AVhat did Eli say?" 
 
 " Oh, nuthin . Dad lows ez everything I do air right 
 an jes so me an Is bel, don t he, Is bel ? " 
 
 " Laws-a-massy, yes," Isabel affirmed, without hesitation. 
 
 The rain was gradually subsiding. One could see beyond 
 the jagged roof of the niche, far across the valley, the gray 
 lines sparsely falling with a free motion and an effect of 
 vast lengths, reaching as they did to the zenith. The dreary 
 mists were gathering themselves together to coalesce in 
 some uncomprehended symmetry of vaporous form, and in 
 silent march were betaking themselves thence with reluc 
 tant and exiled mien. Dissimilar, as of a different texture 
 and an alien origin, was the vague gray haze, hardly dis 
 cernible, rising from the dank earth, and suspended only 
 a few feet above. Suddenly the sun smote it, and how it 
 glistened, now amethystine, now pearly, now a gilded gauze ! 
 The wooded mountain-side was splendidly green again, at 
 testing that the rich, ripe August was still straying along 
 the slopes. A sense of renewal, revivification, was in the 
 silver-shotted misty intervals. The moist leaves, glossy and 
 emerald, stirred in the air. Every blade of grass about the 
 portal of the grotto wore globular gauds, as the raindrops 
 caught the light where they swung. A quail called and 
 called down the wet, briery tangles, sweet vibrant tones ! 
 And all at once, that splendid apotheosis of color, that 
 supreme triumph of light, the rainbow, was set in the 
 clouds. How far it reached, how far ! from sombre 
 Chilhowee to the Great Smoky Mountains, and the vast 
 
46 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 landscape beneath was spanned by the glowing arch. And 
 now it was dimmed, as the light fluctuated, and again it 
 glowed in pristine brilliancy and softness ; for albeit the 
 rain still fell, the sun shone. 
 
 Teck Jepson watched the change with meditative eyes. 
 The old dog took note of it, too, yawning with an expan 
 sive expression, and coming down off the ledges, dragging 
 one slow foot after the other. He sat down on the wet 
 grass, heedless of the drops that fell upon him, and gazed 
 gravely about as if he appreciated the scenery. 
 
 " Look at old Watch, now," commented Isabel. " Arter 
 takin so much trouble ter keep hisself dry an out n the 
 storm, he air goin ter git ez wet ez ef he lied been in the 
 thick of it. Ain t that jes percisely like a dog ! " 
 
 " Waal, Watch ain t got no call ter be like nuthin else." 
 Marcella spoke absently, hardly heeding what she said, only 
 mechanically defending her canine friend. She was leaning 
 back amongst the vines that hung down dry and even a 
 trifle dusty within the rift, and trembled above her head and 
 rested on her shoulder. Her eyes seemed to share the pen 
 sive brilliance of the hour, so full of a dreaming light, so 
 softly shadowed by the melancholy droop of the long lashes, 
 they were, as she looked, unseeing, into the illuminated sun 
 set, through the soft falling of the" glittering rain. The 
 spirited pose of her delicate head on its slender throat was 
 hardly less marked, in this moment of languor, than when 
 held alert and upright. All her lithe and slender figure was 
 relaxed, as she leaned back in the bower that the vines 
 wove for her, and toyed with a tendril in her hand. 
 
 Jepson gazed long and silently at her, as she sat there, 
 wondering again that he should never before have seen her. 
 He felt now as if they had often met, and he became sensible 
 of the repetitious impression in a sort of doubting amaze 
 ment. Her characteristics he seemed to have long ago 
 conned. He was prepared for every turn of her alert head, 
 every sudden uplifting of her definite arrogant eyebrows 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 47 
 
 above those soft eyes. He even felt a fostering familiar 
 regard for the wish nearest her heart, and in the fullness of 
 a warm partisan impulse he abruptly spoke : 
 
 " I 11 tell ye right now what s doin Eli mo harm with 
 the voters o the deestric n ennythin else. It s this hyar 
 everlastin uphold in o Jake Bain tree." 
 
 " It s the law s upholdin Jake Baintree ! " said Marcella 
 quickly. 
 
 The dream-light had fled from her face ; she looked at 
 him with a shifting spark deep in her clear eyes, betokening 
 a disquieted spirit and a touch of anger. 
 
 He changed his attitude, and glanced out over the land 
 scape. " I never expect ter spend my time argufyin with 
 enny gal-folks," he said in an offhand way, and with a 
 laughing sneer. " But ye kin set it down, ef ye air minded 
 ter. Yer dad s cavortin roun an upholdin Jake Baintree, 
 kase this leetle old yearthly jedge down yander did n t hev 
 sense enough or law enough ter fix his sin on him, air a-goin 
 ter defeat Eli, besides all else folks hev got agin him. 
 Ye mark my words." 
 
 " Waal, I dunno but they hed ez soon take the jedge s 
 say-so ez yourn." 
 
 She resembled her father, when she gave herself to argu 
 ment ; the slow, calculating glance that she bent upon Jep- 
 son. as she turned her head, was singularly like the look she 
 sometimes mimicked. 
 
 u I ain t a-settin up my say-so agin the jedge s," he 
 responded, quickly. * It s the fac s. He can t git around 
 em. An Eli can t git around em. An the folks in the 
 rfeestric can t git around em. The storm will burst some 
 day, though. The Lord will repay." 
 
 There was an anxious flush on her usually pale face. Her 
 eyes were bright and restless. The irritation of not being 
 able to reconcile her father s opinions with the prospect of 
 success was smouldering in her manner, and suddenly flamed 
 out in words. 
 
48 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 " From all I hev seen, ye air likely ter take the Lord s 
 jobs off n his hands. He need n t bother bout repayin no 
 body in Brurnsaidge, whar sech a headin man ez ye air be 
 a-loose. Ye 11 repay. Ye would n t let Jake Baintree git 
 baptized, kase ye low he killed a man ez the jury say he 
 did n t kill, an kase ye fund somebody s old clothes hid some- 
 whar. Mebbe he 11 never git ter the baptizin p int agin. 
 He can t get the sperit whenst he wants it ; he can t whistle 
 it back like a dog that follows him." 
 
 " Ef he ever lied the sperit no man kin harm him. Did 
 he gin Sam l Keale time ter think on salvation ? Ez the Lord 
 bade me, so I did act," he protested. 
 
 She relapsed into silence. 
 
 " Jake Baintree be plumb cur ous," said Isabel, knitting 
 her brows, and laughing, a constrained demonstration that 
 had no mirth in it. She had wearied of the discussion, 
 which she scarcely understood, and resorted with a fresh 
 ened zest to gossip. 
 
 u How be he cur ous ? " demanded Jepson. 
 
 " Waal," said Isabel, twisting the corner of her apron in 
 and out of her fingers, " he looks cur ous. An he sets an 
 stare-gazes an stare-gazes the fire. An he kin read an 
 write. He larnt in jail. An his folks dunno what ter 
 make o him, nohow. He don t talk none, sca cely. They 
 low he war jes a boy whenst he went away, an now he be a 
 plumb differ, ez ef he war somebody else. Mebbe he air 
 somebody else." Isabel paused, with a contortion of the 
 countenance, showing all her jagged teeth, as if she sought 
 to express in some facial way the extreme curiousness of 
 Jake Baintree. 
 
 " How do ye know so much about him ? " demanded 
 Jepson, surprised. 
 
 " Marcelly, she useter go thar a heap, an I jes up an go 
 with Marcelly. Marcelly, she useter tote em things, whenst 
 they war so powerful pore an tormented how ter git along, 
 roastm -ears an taters, and helped em weave some. 
 She war holpin em weave whenst he kem home." 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 49 
 
 A sudden repulsion seized Teck Jepson. " He ain t the 
 frequent vis tor ? " he exclaimed. 
 
 Marcella drew back, with an abrupt cry. " Jake Bain- 
 tree ! she said in horror. 
 
 There was a moment of embarrassment. He had his 
 regrets that he had spoken, and she had hers that she had 
 answered. With a woman s tact, she would have passed it 
 by. But he made a blundering, clumsy attempt to better 
 the situation, and asked, with a feint of mirth, " Who be 
 that thar frequent vis tor, ennyhows ? " 
 
 " Ye kin hev that fur a riddle," she said, with a chilly 
 accent. She glanced loftily past him, as she rose. * Kem 
 long, Is bel; it s quit rainin , an we hed better be a-startin ." 
 
 She stood for a moment, tall, fair, erect, under the rugged 
 arch, which was massively imposed upon the clearing sky. 
 A red suffusion of light was over the valley. The moun 
 tains were darkling and purple. An inexpressible sense of 
 freshness blended with the eventide languors. All the 
 woods were vibrant with the ceaseless chirr of the cicada, 
 and the antiphonal chanting of frogj rose and fell by the 
 water-side. Pensiveness pervaded the hour, and melancholy. 
 Far-away cattle, homeward bound, were lowing and clank 
 ing their mellow bells. And the misty air ministered to 
 the sun s splendors, and bore its elongated rays far into 
 space in gorgeous amplifications. The ground was dank, 
 and Isabel s bare feet pattered along with a noisy sound, 
 and she was beset with forebodings. 
 
 * I 11 be bound the foot-bredge over the ruver air nigh 
 under water by this time, an I aiivt one o the swimmin* 
 kiud," Isabel observed with callow pertness. " I war n t 
 raised ter be a frawg." 
 
 Jepson had hesitated behind the two girls. Isabel s words 
 seemed to suggest his opportunity. " I mought ez well 
 g loug home with you-uns ez no," he remarked. " T ain t 
 out n my way none ter the Settlemint, an I 11 holp ye over 
 the log." 
 
50 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 They trudged along silently through the forest, with its 
 ceaseless pulsations of sound : Isabel in the van, the other 
 two walking side by side, and the dog of the " frequent vis 
 itor " following. Sometimes the shadows fell on Marcella s 
 fair face, sometimes the roseate glow of the west ; and Jep- 
 son found a fascination undreamed of before in noting their 
 fluctuations. Her expression betokened little favor toward 
 him, less, perhaps, than he realized. He had never 
 sought the approval of others, and disapproval he was not 
 quick to discern, since he had no self-disparagement to keep 
 his fears alert. 
 
 Long before they reached the river they heard the water 
 roaring, but the unhewn log that served as foot-bridge, 
 thrown from bank to bank, was not yet submerged, and the 
 two girls walked swiftly and lightly across, with no need 
 of assistance. Suddenly the woods gave way, and Broom- 
 sedge Cove lay before them, vague in the closing dusk. 
 Half a dozen log cabins were scattered at long intervals, 
 for this was "the Settlemint," their red lights growing 
 distinct since the day had so waned. The sky was crimson 
 above, and seemed to touch the gaunt, black, towering moun 
 tains that circled close about the sequestered nook. A star 
 was gleaming near the horizon. Voices rose fitfully and 
 fell to silence, and all was mute save tor the nocturnal song 
 of the woods, and presently a few strokes of an axe at some 
 wood-pile, that set the echoes all a-hewing. 
 
 They paused beside a rail fence inclosing one of the 
 cabins, where the flare of firelight flickered out into the pas 
 sage between the two rooms. Marcella s face had become 
 only a vague suggestion, white in the closing dusk, as they 
 stood together a moment at the gate. For she had spoken 
 at last, offering the customary invitation to come in and stay 
 to supper. 
 
 " I mus be a-travelin up the mounting," he drawled in 
 response. Then he hesitated. " This air the fust time I 
 ever seen ye, but I reckon t won t be the las ." 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE 51 
 
 He strode off then, and she watched him as he went with 
 his assured gait and singularly erect pose. A deft, swift step 
 he had, too, and she was presently gazing into the closing 
 obscurity where he had disappeared. 
 
 " I d jes ez lief t would be the las ," she said to herself, 
 I d jes ez lief." 
 
IV. 
 
 LOCKED in the stony grasp of the mountains was Broom- 
 sedge Cove. Rugged with sudden deep depressions and 
 abrupt declivities, heavily wooded here and anon broken by 
 crags and defying cultivation, this limited basin was all un 
 like the neighboring coves, those fair nooks of the ranges, 
 fertile and smiling, and level as a floor. The road, dry in 
 summer, was the bed of a stream in winter, and the deni 
 zens of Broomsedge then cared little to rove abroad. Cer 
 tain stretches of abandoned land, once cultivated, had given 
 the place its name, and down their slopes flourished the 
 graceless broomsedge, pest, poverty -bitten, blight. It 
 seemed to seek the manner of the worthier growths, to bear 
 itself like wheat, or rye, or oats ; it wore. the semblance of 
 a crop, as it shared with them the bounty of the sun and 
 the benediction of the rain. It waved in the wind, half 
 defiant, half forlorn. Wherever it encroached upon the 
 fields, the grace of utility and the guerdon of labor were 
 gone, and this flout of nature, this perversity of herbage, 
 prospered unwelcome in their stead. But Broomsedge Cove 
 could still boast a considerable acreage of grain, fair and 
 thrifty enough, the unripe green tint contrasting with the 
 red-brown tones of the sedge. 
 
 By daylight the Settlement was hardly so apparent to the 
 casual eye as at night, when each red light was the ex 
 ponent of a fireside. The houses, some of them a quarter 
 of a mile apart, nestling amidst their orchards, were quite 
 invisible while the foliage lasted. The inequalities of the 
 ground further masked the extent of the hamlet ; occasion 
 ally a blue curl of smoke from beyond a jagged hill gave 
 the only intimation that its further slopes were preempted 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 53 
 
 as a home. The blacksmith s shop was on the extreme out 
 skirts, beyond the fields and the abandoned spaces where the 
 broomsedge grew. The massive wooded mountain rose 
 close behind it ; the gorge narrowed just beyond it, and be 
 tween the cliffs a stream, with a swift arrowy motion, and 
 now and then a white flash, shot down the steeps. The 
 smith made it useful in his simple art, and its song was a 
 solace to his idle hours. But this was not the only chant 
 flung forth upon the air. Loud and long were the sounds 
 of revelry often issuing from the forge, and in a diminuendo 
 reaching even the ears of the far-away neighbors, who 
 thanked their stars that they were no nearer. The elders, 
 constrained alike by dignity and religion, were wont to 
 shake their heads, and sourly marvel what could be going 
 on at the forge ; and the younger men frequently found 
 themselves obliged to go over at once and investigate. The 
 forge was the resort of certain hilarious spirits, among 
 whom the smith himself was chief. Concerning these rois 
 terers grim reports were bruited abroad. It was averred 
 that a greasy pack of " playin -kyerds " was cherished there, 
 and that a " streak o luck " seemed to be more desired 
 than light on salvation. A jug of a portly grace had been 
 descried, one day, lurking behind the elevated hearth of the 
 forge, quite empty, it is true, but an aroma lingered 
 about its corn-cob stopper that was fresh and strong and 
 unmistakable. They often sang ; the blacksmith s burly 
 bass voice could be heard with the supplementing echoes 
 over many a furlong of his native wilds. They pitched 
 horse-shoes in lieu of " quates," and wrestled and measured 
 their strength in many good-humored combats. When the 
 great barn-like doors were open and the forge fire flickered 
 out into the night, the place under the overhanging ledge 
 of the mountain was like the mouth of some vast cavern. 
 To those chancing to look in from the glooms without, 
 while the white light fell here and there in a brilliant gleam 
 upon the faces within, and anon fluctuated, and then sank to 
 
54 TEE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 a red glow, and so to darkness, the hearty mortal fellows at 
 their turbulent sports were vaguely unfamiliar, and as un 
 canny as goblins, or gnomes, or troglodytes. And the Set 
 tlement seemed wise in wishing them no nearer. 
 
 It was a weird and isolated place, and with these im 
 pressions astir about it, there was little wonder that a wilder 
 fantasy should presently gain a circulation. 
 
 Teck Jepson heard it for the first time one momentous 
 August day. As he rode slowly along the circuitous ways 
 of Broomsedge Cove he was conscious that he surveyed the 
 scene with an interest which it had never before elicited. 
 The porch of Kli Strobe s cabin was vacant, but as he dis 
 mounted from his horse, and hitched him to the rack beside 
 the door of the blacksmith s shop, he glanced from time to 
 time across the fields at the house. The hop and gourd 
 vines hung motionless about it, for no wind stirred. 
 Through their screen his sharp eyes descried a spinning- 
 wheel idle and motionless. No face at the tiny window, 
 no flutter of a blue dress among the poultry in the door- 
 yard. The place might have seemed deserted save for the 
 tendril of smoke slowly curling out of the clay and stick 
 chimney, and the dog of the " frequent visitor," standing in 
 the door, wagging his tail, which he had a call to do, Teck 
 remembered, being " purty well treated." He momentarily 
 canvassed the dwellers on and about Chilhowee with a vague 
 desire to identify the owner, but the dog in no respect re 
 sembled his master, and Teck s musings were vain. Then 
 he turned away, and sat clown upon a log beside the black 
 smith s shop, and silently gazed at the blue mountains, 
 against which, in an oblique line, the roof of Strobe s cabin 
 was drawn. 
 
 There were half a dozen men lounging about the forge, 
 for it was seldom that Clem Sanders was alone ; and besides 
 his special cronies, the mountain gossips were wont to con 
 gregate here. The forge was silent ; the smith himself was 
 leaning against the anvil, his brawny arms folded across his 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 55 
 
 chest, his pipe between his teeth, his languid eyes fixed on 
 the majestic mountains without, dome on dome and range 
 on range, stretching far away into the distance ; while be 
 low, the sunlit valley smiled, with only the shadow of a fly 
 ing bird or an uncertain mist, vague and vagrant, to mar 
 the sheen. He was a tall, bluff fellow, with reddish brown 
 hair, straight dark eyebrows, and a broad low forehead. He 
 had many wrinkles in the corners of his eyes ; not from 
 age, for hewas only some twenty-four or five, but from per 
 sistent twinkling. They were brown eyes and bright ones, 
 not large, but long and narrow. He had a square face and 
 a flexible mouth with merry curves, the better revealed 
 since he wore no beard. His checked homespun shirt was 
 open at his throat ; the sleeve was rolled up, showing his 
 great hammer-arm ; its muscles were a source of perpetual 
 pride to its possessor. 
 
 He took little part in the conversation, the twinkling 
 wrinkles about his eyes expressing his interest when it 
 waxed facetious. Eli Strobe was leaning back against the 
 door in a rickety chair ; two men who were sitting on the 
 log moved slightly, to give Jepson more room. A tall, slim, 
 jeans-clad young mountaineer, booted to the knee and ac 
 coutred with shot-pouch and powder-horn, and having long 
 light hair showing a tendency to tousled ringlets, lay at 
 length on the grass outside of the door. 
 
 " Howdy," said Jepson, succinctly and comprehensively, 
 to the group. Then suddenly addressing the two men on 
 the log, u I seen ye two bucks thar on yer hoss-critters, at 
 the baptizin . Ye hain t got no right ter mighty nigh ride 
 down the saints that-a-way, mongst the congregation, an 1 ef 
 I lied noticed in time I d hev made ye light an hitch." 
 
 There was a momentary hesitation. Then one of them, 
 Gideon Dake, a languid, lank, loose-jointed fellow, observed, 
 with as little animation as if he were an automaton, " Oh, 
 shet up, Teck ! Ye air too robustious. Ye low ter fairly 
 rule the Cove ! " 
 
56 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 The other, Joe Bassett, spoke more briskly. " I ain t 
 afeard ter be a sorter sinner, now, Teck. The devil s got 
 his hands so full a-lookin arter Clem Sanders hyar ez he 
 ain t goin ter stop jes fur me. Hev ye hearn ez he war 
 viewed right hyar in the forge ? " 
 
 "Shucks!" said Jepson, incredulously. Then leaning 
 forward to look at the burly blacksmith within the shop, 
 " That ain t a true word, air it, Clem ? " 
 
 " Dunno," said the blacksmith cavalierly. * Let them 
 say ez seen him." 
 
 " Ef I do ride down the saints, I ain t never hed Satan 
 ter kem a-bulgin ter the Settlemint ter look arter me," pro 
 tested Bassett. 
 
 Jepson glanced about him doubtfully. " Who say they 
 seen him ? " 
 
 " Old Pa son Donnard," said Bassett, beginning to nar 
 rate the old story to a new listener with a relish propor 
 tionate to the rarity of the opportunity. " Old man war 
 comin from Piomingo Cove, whar he hed hed preachin the 
 day before. T war toler ble late. Thar war n t no moon, 
 an the dark, it overtuk him. Waal, sir, he kem nigh hyar 
 along o the water-side. An 5 he say all of a suddint he 
 seen this blacksmith shop like a yawnin mouth o hell, ez 
 ef the mounting hed opened. An the flames o the forge 
 fire, they le pt up, an sunk down, an flared out, kase Clem, 
 he d let one o them fool boys caper with the bellows. An 
 pa son, he see two o them boys a-wrastlin in that unholy 
 light ; an Jim Crane war a-dancin an a-shufflin , an 
 a-cuttin the pidgeon-wing ; an Buck Blake war a-playin a 
 reg lar dancin -chune on the fiddle ; an Clem hyar an Mose 
 Hull war a-playin kyerds, an a-bettin . Clem war a-settin 
 on the shoein stool, an Mose on a plow, an they laid 
 thar kyerds on the top o a bar l. An Clem war a-beatin 
 Mose. An wunst in a while he d fling back his head an 
 holler, bein so glad ! An suddint Pa son Donnard say 
 his eyes war opened. He seen settin in the midst, propped 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOVSEDGE COVE. 57 
 
 up on the anvil, Satan hisself. He hed horns, an he hed 
 wings, suthin like a bat s, looked sorter bat-wise, only big 
 ez a man. An Pa son Donnard say he kiiowed t war Sa 
 tan even before he tuk notice o his feet, one war a 
 huff, an the t other war a club-foot ! An he hed em both 
 propped up on the stump what the anvil sets on. An the 
 devil war a-lookin over Clem s shoulder at sech kyerds ez 
 Clem held. An when Clem would beat, Satan would jes 
 hug hisself, an rock back ards an for ards, an laff till his 
 teeth flashed fire. An sometimes Satan would lean over 
 and mighty nigh p int out ter Clem which kyerd ter play. 
 An pa son say his eyes war opened agin." 
 
 " Pears ter me they war stretched toler ble wide a-f ust," 
 grumbled Clem. Although this graphic detail was no news 
 to him, he was beginning to look much disaffected. He 
 mechanically moved away from the anvil upon which Satan 
 had made himself so much at home. He came and stood 
 outside, with arms still folded, leaning against the door. 
 
 " An pa son s eyes war opened anew," Bassett drawled 
 on. " An thar, he say, whilst the wrastlin war a-goin on, 
 an the dancer war a-dancin an a-shakin his foot all around 
 the floor, an the fiddler war a-playin an the fire war a-flar- 
 in red an a-flamm white over em all, an Clem war a-laf- 
 fin an a-hollerin , tickled ter death, an a-playin his 
 kyerds, an Satan war a-lookin over his shoulder an grin- 
 nin till the smoke shot out n his nose, an eyes, an ears, 
 an ye could see him spit fire wunst in a while, the back 
 winder o the forge opened slow. An thar stood on the 
 outside who d ye reckon ? " 
 
 " Oh, shucks ! " said Clem uneasily. 
 
 The others said nothing, and the narrator went on : 
 
 " The back winder o the shop opened, an thar, holdin* 
 the batten shutter in his han , plain, it bein so dark 
 a-hint him an so light inside, war Clem hisself ! Like 
 he mought look in death, white, an solemn, an stony, 
 a-gazin in on hisself ez he looks in life, hearty, an sun- 
 
58 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 burnt, an laffin , an a-playin o kyerds, with the devil, 
 tickled ter death, peepin over his shoulder. An pa son 
 say the bleached, white, dead Clem ketched his eye of a 
 suddint, an clap ! bang ! the winder war shet, an thar 
 war n t nuthin settin on the anvil, an Clem war a-gapin , 
 an a-stretchin his arms, an sayin t war bed-time, an 
 tellin that Jeemes boy ter quit playin the fool with that 
 bellows, else he d shoe him all round with red-hot horse 
 shoes." 
 
 Teck Jepson listened in silence, his absorbed eyes upon 
 the ground, now and then lifting them to the narrator s face 
 with a glance of excited surprise. 
 
 The person .most nearly interested in the chronicle spoke 
 abruptly : 
 
 " Pa son Donnard never see sech ez that, sure enough ; 
 he air sorter moon-eyed, ef the truth war knowed. An 
 ez the boys war a-dancin an a-cavortin , he jes lowed he 
 see it." 
 
 " Pa son Donnard would n t be the fust, ef he did see the 
 devil," argued Teck Jepson. " Plenty o them the Bible 
 tells about seen him." 
 
 The blacksmith s eyes had no merry twinkle in them now. 
 He looked off loweringly at the scene, so familiar to him in 
 its multitudinous phases, as he spoke. 
 
 " Waal, I don t b lieve pa son see nuthin . Satan don t 
 lope round in Broomsaidge none ginerally ; never war ceen 
 afore. Takes pa son ter view him. An I ain t dead," he 
 added, with a live insistence. " An yit he seen me dead." 
 
 " Ye will be some day," said Jepson bluntly. 
 
 Sanders looked down, darkly frowning. 
 
 "Why n t he take somebody else ter go lookin inter a 
 winder at thar dead se fs, stiddier me ? " he complained. 
 " I ain t the only mortial man in the Cove ! I jes did n t 
 know fur awhile what I war goin ter do bout n it. An at 
 las I went up ter pa son s house, an I called his son Jube 
 out. An I say ter Jube, Jube, ye an me hev been power- 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 59 
 
 ful frien ly since we useter play longside o one another in 
 the woodpile, fore we could walk. An I hope I won t 
 break none o yer bones ez ye can t spare or git the doctor 
 ter set agin right handy, kase I m useter hammerin tougher 
 stuff n ye be. But I m a-goin ter take yer dad s visions 
 out on ye, beiii ez I can t thrash a old man an a preacher. 
 Ye 11 see mo sights n ever he done." 
 
 " What did Jube do? " asked Jepson. 
 
 A dreary sense of futility was expressed in the strong 
 man s face. 
 
 * Flun^ his arm around my neck, an begged an begged," 
 he said, baffled. " He lowed his dad wanted ter break up 
 them meetin s at the forge, gredges we-uns our fun. He 
 never war young hisself. ye know." He attempted to point 
 the weak s-arcasm with a sneer. " But Jube sneaks off, an 
 kerns ter the forge every chance he gits. He war thar the 
 night o the vision. Old man war so bent on seein Satan, 
 an dead folks ez air live an hearty, he didn t see his own 
 son Jube mongst the sinners. An Jube war a-walkin 
 round on his hands, like a plumb catamount, with his heels 
 six feet high up in the air, a-wavin round." 
 
 " Mebbe that war why he did n t see Jube, his head bein 
 so nigh the groun ," suggested Jepson. " Jube don t giner- 
 ally kerry his heels a-top o him." 
 
 The blacksmith listened, but made no response. 
 
 " I told Jube," he resumed presently, " I d let him off, 
 ef his dad did n t put me in none o his preachin ." 
 
 " Ev ybody in Brumsaidge an the mountings round 
 knows bout n it, ennyhow," said Eli Strobe. "Ye needn t 
 be so powerful partic lar." 
 
 " Waal, ennyhows, t would in an about kill me ef he 
 war ter go ter blatin out in the church-house, fore all the 
 congregation, bout the devil a-laffin at me whilst playin 
 kyerds, an me dead, lookin through the winder at my live 
 self. Shucks ! " 
 
 This unique slander had sunk deep into Clem Sanders s 
 
60 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 good-natured heart. He looked so harried and hopeless 
 that he might well have excited sympathy, but the circum 
 stance had certain grotesque phases which Eli Strobe could 
 not fail to relish. 
 
 " Ye hain t done no work sence on that anvil, hev ye ? " 
 he demanded, with his slow side-glance and his air of burly 
 jocundity, which did not always commend itself to his in 
 terlocutor. 
 
 The blacksmith shook his head. 
 
 " Waal, sir," exclaimed Eli, bringing his tilted chair upon 
 its forelegs with an abrupt thump, and placing a hand on 
 either knee, " ef ye an that thar striker o yourn gits enny 
 mo afeard o that thar anvil n ye hev always been, all the 
 critters in the Cove 11 be bar foot fore long." 
 
 " Clem s jes a-purtendin ," said Gideon Dake. " He 
 war a-workin night afore las . What ails ye ter be sech 
 a liar, Clem ? Ye want us ter gin ye the credit o bein 
 convicted o sin an acceptin o warnin s, whenst ye air jes 
 sodden in the ways o the w r orl ." 
 
 " I warn t at the forge, night afore las , said the black 
 smith, flustered and uncertain. " What would I be a-doin 
 of, workin of a night ? I ain t kep busy in the day, let 
 alone bein obligated ter work of a night." 
 
 * I dunno what ye war a-doin of," said Dake, altogether 
 unaware of the significance of his disclosure. " I know the 
 forge fire war lighted, an the anvil a-ringin , an the bel 
 lows a-blowin , an the hand-hammer an sledge a-strikin , 
 fur I hearn em bout midnight, kase I war obligated ter go 
 arter the doctor fur granny, ez war tuk powerful bad, an 
 looked like ter die." 
 
 Sanders gazed at the speaker in blank amazement for a 
 moment. Then his color began to change. He grew as 
 pale as his swarthy tints might ever blanch, an ashen 
 pallor, like that white Thing, perhaps, which Parson 
 Donnard had beheld gazing into the window at its hale and 
 full-pulsed simulacrum. Was it this that repaired to the 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. ! 
 
 forge in the dead of the night, and kindled the fires and 
 beat out that metallic melody, as familiar to him as the 
 sound of his own voice ? 
 
 Who strikes fur me, then, I wonder ? " he said to him 
 self ; he was beginning to adopt this pallid, and joyless, and 
 solemn identity. A sudden recollection of the malevolent 
 presence on the anvil, a suggestion of an association with 
 him as striker, and all at once Clem gave way. * Move up 
 thar on that log ! " he cried, as he sank down by the other 
 men, outside of the forge where he had spent all his days 
 since first he was old and strong enough to strike for his 
 father, succeeding at last from the sledge to the hand-ham 
 mer, which the elder had laid down forever. He had never 
 thought to shrink from its very walls, to glance back over 
 his shoulder into its familiar dusky recesses, and wince in 
 prophetic dread of what he might chance to see. His heart 
 beat so loud, with so erratic and tumultuous a throb, that 
 he wondered the other men did not hear, did not notice 
 his agitation. They had not appreciated the significance 
 of this testimony to him who had been asleep at home on 
 that night and at that hour, when the forge fire was kindled 
 in the midnight, and the anvil rang, and so strange an 
 essence as that pallid identity of a live man so strangely 
 busied itself, and handled his tools, and aped his gestures, 
 and did his work. " Knows jes whar ter find things, 
 hammer, an nails, an swage, an tongs, I reckon." The 
 others were talking of trivial matters. How could they ? 
 he wondered. And then he was glad that they could, and 
 that they noted, him not, had forgotten him. 
 
 An old dog had trotted over from Eli Strobe s, the dog 
 which Teck Jepson had recognized as the property of the 
 " frequent visitor." He came along with the easy, confident 
 manner appertaining to both dogs and people who are more 
 highly appreciated than they deserve ; for he was not use 
 ful, being too good-natured for a watch-dog, and having no 
 particular nose for game and no compensating energy or 
 
62 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE, 
 
 joy in its pursuit, and he was by no means comely. His 
 long tongue lolled out, his eyes looked hot. He showed no 
 signs of recognition of any of the men, but sat down gravely 
 in front of them. 
 
 " I b lieve that thar old dog hain t got no owner," Jepson 
 said tentatively to Eli Strobe, with a craft of which he was 
 ashamed. " Yer darter tole me the t other day t war n t 
 hern." 
 
 Eli Strobe s slow side-glance was directed toward the 
 long-haired youth, who lay at length on the grass, and who 
 had not spoken. "Andy s," he said curtly, "Andy 
 Longwood s." 
 
 Jepson felt the blood mount to his face. So this was the 
 " frequent visitor," whose name she would not speak ; this 
 was the riddle she had left him to guess, this long-haired, 
 curly-pated creature. " I d shear him like a sheep," he 
 said contemptuously to himself. 
 
 The young man, at the sound of his name, turned up 
 ward a gentle, placid face. " Talkin ter me ? " he drawled 
 slowly. 
 
 Eli Strobe gave him a side-long glower, and shook his 
 head. 
 
 " Sheep, fur true ! " Jepson thought, scanning his mild 
 countenance. " I 11 be bound he kin say Ba-a ! : He 
 looked with an easy contempt after the young fellow, as he 
 rose and strolled away, the old dog at his heels. " Ef enny- 
 body war ter take a notion ter Marcelly Strobe, he need n t 
 mind that thar leetle chuckle -headed Woolly." Jepson 
 watched Andy Longwood take his way toward Eli Strobe s 
 cabin without one qualm of distrust or displeasure. This 
 the vaunted " frequent visitor " ! 
 
 So strong a factor is jealousy in sentiment at this stage 
 that, relieved of his unacknowledged apprehensions, Jepson s 
 sudden assumption that he had only a sort of paternal or 
 fraternal interest in Marcella, equally divided with the cal 
 low Isabel, was altogether sincere, and he was unaware of 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. C3 
 
 those subtle mental processes by which he was self-deceived. 
 He produced much the same impression upon himself that 
 he did on Eli Strobe, when he said with a casual smile, 
 He s a-danglin arter Marcelly, ain t he ? " 
 
 Eli Strobe sullenly nodded. " He mought ez well dangle 
 off, too." He cast an authoritative side-glance at Jepson, 
 which intimated the possibility of paternal interference in 
 matters of the heart. " Marcelly ain t sech ez ter take a 
 likin ter him, but somehows she can t git rid o the critter." 
 
 " I hev hearn," said Joe Bassett animatedly, " ez how 
 Marcelly and Clem " the blacksmith had strolled off, his 
 hands in his pockets, his hat pulled far over his gloomy fa^e 
 " hev been keepin company tergether." 
 
 There was no cloud now upon the paternal brow. But 
 Eli Strobe affected doubt or ignorance. " No countin on 
 gals ; no way ter find em out. They will ter-day, an they 
 won t ter-morrer, like the wind blows. Yes, sir." He rose 
 ponderously from his chair. Waal, Teck," he continued, 
 " I be powerful sorry ye won t bide along o we-uns ter- 
 night. I never done ye this-a-way, whenst I war on the 
 mounting." 
 
 For Jepson had declined his hospitality, and had expected 
 to ride up the mountain before dark. He hesitated now, 
 and glanced toward the gray little cabin, with its back 
 ground of a roseate sky and an amethystine mountain. A 
 flutter among the vines, a flitting blue dress, was it ? 
 How the grudging distance denied him ! 
 
 "Ax me agin ! " he exclaimed, letting his hand fall 
 heavily on his host s arm. And so they strolled toward 
 the cabin together. 
 
 Clement Sanders, moodily loitering along the river bank, 
 followed them with anxious eyes. 
 
 " All them cussed critters a-waitin on Marcelly ! She 11 
 take a notion ter some o em, whilst I m bein lured by 
 Satan. I reckon I ain t been doin right ; them kyerds 
 bed a snare in em surely. I never won nutbin sca cely, 
 
64 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 nohow, an it 11 go powerful hard with me ter lose Marcelly 
 at sech a game." 
 
 Everything spoke of approaching night. The long, low 
 nocturnal susurrus of the woods was already on the air. A 
 bat came noiselessly flitting past. The color was fading 
 out of the west. A whip-poor-will plained in the dense 
 foliage hard by. A wind, willful wanderer, had sprung up 
 somewhere, and was abroad in the slopes. The forge fire 
 had not been kindled that day, and the ashes were gray on 
 the hearth. He went within, despite some secret perturba 
 tion, and with the care characteristic of a good workman 
 saw that his tools were in place ; he closed the doors, fast 
 ened the shutters, and betook himself homeward. He 
 paused when he had nearly reached home and looked back. 
 How lonely was the dark little shanty, with the looming 
 mountain beetling above, how far from any other build 
 ing ! Anything might happen there. 
 
 The late moon came stealing into the broad, uninclosed 
 passage between the two rooms of his mother s house, be 
 fore he had finished his supper. He looked at it from the 
 dusky red glow of the room, but half illumined by the 
 smouldering fire, as he sat at the table, and strove to answer 
 his mother s chat, and to eat and drink with a normal 
 appetite. The sheen was melancholy and white, and the 
 leaves of the vines that it limned on the floor scarcely 
 stirred. A bird a wren, perhaps, some tiny, house-loving 
 thing had built in their midst ; a colorless simulacrum of 
 the circular nest, of the delicate shape within, the head and 
 bill distinct, was on the puncheons. But presently she put 
 her head beneath her wing, and then one might hardly have 
 distinguished amidst the tracery of the shadows the nest 
 from a leaf of the gourd vines or from the globular fruit it 
 self. When he strode up the ladder, presently, to the roof- 
 room, he found the moon there, too, in the homely and soli 
 tary place. The glittering square of the tiny window lay 
 on the floor ; a soft irradiation from it seemed to enrich the 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 65 
 
 narrow, tent-like space. He noted the glimmer on the white 
 bark of a gigantic poplar hard by, and the low hanging 
 branches of the beech. It was very still without : no dog 
 barked, no foot stirred, only the insistent cry of the 
 cicada, and the sylvan chant of the stream as it hied down 
 the mountain-side, in the lonely splendors of the night. 
 " Seems ef they war laffin an talkin at Strobe s, I mought 
 hear em hyar," he said. He longed to join them, and yet 
 he doubted. He was in no mood for company. " I be ez 
 mum ez a dumb one," he said. " I don t want ter set thar 
 tongue-tied, an let them other fellers show off talkin ." 
 And still he doubted. Mental perturbation wrought upon 
 his resources as toil could not. He sank down in a chair, 
 and bent his head upon his hand, while he cogitated. 
 
 Suddenly, he saw that the moon had changed in the sky. 
 The trees without caught the light from another quarter. 
 He had slept for hours. He sprang to his numb feet, and 
 bent down to the tiny aperture to look out. The next 
 moment his heart seemed to stand still. 
 
 Far along the broad moonlit vista between the mountain 
 and the cliffs of the gorge, he saw the little forge, with 
 the looming heights above ; and could it be that here and 
 there lines of red light gleamed through its ill-chinked 
 walls ? And did he hear, or did he fancy, vibrating in the 
 midnight, the clink-clank of the hammer and the sledge, 
 the sound he knew so well ? For one instant the strongest 
 feeling within him was the instinct of an outraged proprie 
 tor. And in that instant he reached out of the window, 
 seized the shining beech boughs so close at hand, and swung 
 down to the ground, having paused only to slip into his long 
 boot-leg a " shootin iron " for the intimidation of the un 
 known trespasser. He was on his feet and in the road be 
 fore he remembered that other self, his strange, white-faced 
 double, that lurked about the forge and opened the shutter 
 to look in upon its hilarious image. Not the first time had 
 It kindled the fires and wielded the hammer, he recollected 
 
66 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 with a chilly thrill. Had not the chance wayfarer noted 
 the uncanny sounds of forging in the night, while he, the 
 smith, was lying far away in a deep sleep ? 
 
 He was advancing mechanically along the road. Sud 
 denly he paused. He could not face It ; he would not en 
 counter Its gaze. What a frightful thing to stand and meet 
 It ! He fell to trembling, and with his sleeve wiped the 
 cold drops from his brow. How dark the mountains 
 gloomed ! With what a sense of silence was the moon en 
 dowed ! Pacing the woods in stately guise, like some fair 
 maiden, lily-crowned, who hath heard her step ? 
 
 He still stood looking forward uncertainly, his courage 
 faltering, his intention vacillating. All at once he lifted 
 his head to the sound of the forge, the clinking and the 
 clanking of the hammer and the sledge. Regular, sonorous, 
 unceasing, it was. " He oughter understand the biz ness," 
 he thought. And he rolled up his sleeve, and wondered if 
 the pallid resemblance wielded an arm like that. 
 
 He had turned about to go home. And yet he paused 
 in the way, looking back over his shoulder. The idea ex 
 erted a morbid fascination upon him. He hardly trusted 
 his resolve ; he knew that he was toying with a temptation ; 
 he expected to flee even when he advanced, as he turned 
 once more and ran fleetly, deftly, down the road toward the 
 place. What if he should meet It running too ! Would It 
 seem so horrible to him but for the thought of that solemn 
 pallor, that stony stillness, on Its face ? More than once 
 he paused and turned, only to change about again, and run 
 swiftly toward the forge. A new terror presently beset 
 him as he neared the building. He could no longer flee ; 
 he could not turn his back upon the forge, for the ghastly 
 fear of what might issue forth and pursue. Perhaps the 
 familiar sounds of the forging had unconsciously some bra 
 cing effect upon his nerves. He was near enough now to 
 hear the anvil ring and ring. Once he fancied a word was 
 spoken, and then only the crash of the sledge following the 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 67 
 
 imperative clink of the hand-hammer ; his practiced ear de 
 tected the difference in the vibrations when the smith smote 
 the face of the anvil instead of the metal in process of forg 
 ing, as a signal that the blows of the sledge should cease. 
 Jes like me ! " he thought ; and like any other smith, he 
 knew. The blows had quickened anew, and rang out re 
 sonantly when he was close at hand. Now and again the 
 heavy sighing of the bellows burst forth, and the light of 
 the fanned fire flared through the chinking. He stole cau 
 tiously to the window, the window, he remembered, 
 through which It had looked at him. His hand was upon 
 the shutter when he caught his foot in a vine of the dense 
 undergrowth, and came heavily to the ground, with a noisy 
 thud and a commotion of dislodged stone and gravel rolling 
 beneath his feet. 
 
 Instantly the place was dark and silent. He drew him 
 self up, bruised and shaken, and ran limping around to the 
 door. It was closed. He pulled it open, and the pale 
 moonlight fell through the broad aperture, revealing the 
 empty and dusky place. A few coals glowed slumberously 
 beneath the sooty hood. He could not at once remember 
 whether he had left fire here. He doubted his senses. 
 Had he seen aught, heard aught ? Stay ! the anvil, telltale, 
 was still softly ringing, ringing, fine and faint metallic 
 tones. He could hardly have said why this obedience to 
 natural laws should shake his superstition, but with the 
 conviction that the intrusion was of human agency, he ran 
 out into the night, and roused the echoes with his wild 
 halloo. How they tossed the word to and fro ! How they 
 hailed the further steeps, and how tlie savage heights re 
 plied ! And when he had listened until all had sunk to 
 silence, a far and faint " Halloo ! " from the vague upper air 
 startled him with a chill tremor. He suddenly began to re 
 flect that he had found both door and shutter closed, and 
 this place, sounding and alight one moment, dark and silent 
 and empty the next. As to the fire, he trembled to think 
 
68 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 where it might have been kindled. And the anvil, would 
 it not ring if that pallid simulacrum of a smith should smite 
 it ? With these thoughts he betook himself home, leaving 
 the forge silent and dark behind him, although he often 
 sought with a fearful fancy to think it alight once more, 
 and to hear the ringing of the anvil or the melancholy sigh 
 ing of the bellows. 
 
V. 
 
 MARCELLA was spinning on the porch, when Teck Jepson 
 and her father came through the corn-field toward the 
 cabin, spinning at the little flax-wheel, as she sat in a 
 low chair, her foot on the treadle. The jack-bean vines 
 that hung above her head blossomed lilac and white ; the 
 amethystine mountain looming behind the gray roof was 
 gradually turning a darksome purple ; the blue and curling 
 smoke that issued from the stick-and-clay chimney made 
 spiral progress up and up the slope. The zenith was a lus 
 treless golden hue, and the west was crimson and burned 
 with a passion of color, and the evening star was kindling. 
 The daylight lingered, nevertheless, and as the girl drew 
 out the long fine fibre of the flax, it glistened yellow, while 
 the wheel whirled, and she seemed to be spinning sunbeams. 
 Her face was serene, though unsmiling, and she sat silent, 
 while the swift wheel whirred and whirred, and a katydid 
 clamored in the gourd-vines hard by. Amidst their luxuri 
 ant tangles a firefly sent forth a fluctuating gleam. 
 
 It was some moments before Jepson noted Andy Long- 
 wood, the "frequent visitor," sitting on the steps of the 
 porch, or heeded the high, chirping voice of the callow Isa 
 bel, who evidently carried on most of the conversation. 
 The young fellow s fair hair floated down upon his shoul 
 ders in loose ringlets, as he leaned back among the gourd- 
 vines. He had a pensive brow, a long, curling dark lash, a 
 large and tranquil eye. 
 
 " Dad-burned purty little Woolly, I 11 swear," Teck Jep 
 son commented to himself, while courteously saluting Eli 
 Strobe s mother, who had instantly come to the door to re- 
 
70 THE DESPOT Of BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 ceive him, and had sat down in a chair in the porch, folding 
 her knotted hands peacefully in her lap. She was a thin, 
 active, wizened little woman, considerably below the average 
 height, and there were some sharp suggestions of mental 
 agility, as well as physical, in her quick dark eyes. Her 
 feet did not quite touch the floor, and as she stayed them 
 on a rung of the chair she seemed rather perched than 
 seated, and the instability of her position accented her tiny 
 proportions. Her tall, burly, and deliberate son bore no 
 trace of likeness to her, and she often observed, with the 
 manner of discarding all responsibility for him, that he 
 was " his dad over agin." This " dad " of his had evi 
 dently not been an ornament to his sphere, and if he had 
 met joy in his final estate it was well, since he had left peace 
 behind him. For thirty years his relict had worn that pecul 
 iar freshened, released aspect common to many widows, and 
 it was in Eli s most stubborn moods that she usually felt 
 called upon to mention the filial resemblance. 
 
 Teck Jepson strode up the steps, including the two girls 
 in the cursory glance which he bestowed upon the rest of 
 the party, and a succinct " Howdy." There was something 
 always impressive in his height, his gait, and his imperious 
 face, and Marcella was vaguely awed. Her hand trembled 
 upon the thread she was spinning, and it broke beneath her 
 touch. She did not have the voice, somehow, to join in the 
 soberly piped " Howdy " with which Isabel returned the 
 salutation. Jepson gave the "frequent visitor" no further 
 notice, and he held himself sedulously aloof from the 
 younger people, accepting a chair on the porch which Eli 
 Strobe tendered him, and looking over their heads at the 
 waning sunset-tide. 
 
 Waal, Teck," Mrs. Strobe observed, after the greetings, 
 " how d ye like livin up on the high mounting ? " 
 
 She turned upon him her bright eyes, set very close 
 together, like the small Isabel s, and her dry lips distended 
 in a faint smile, and then became speciously grave, as if 
 they meant to keep all the fun to themselves. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE 71 
 
 " It don t make no differ to me, Mis Strobe," he an 
 swered, his rich, melancholy voice seemed to constrain 
 the air to silence, and caused a remark of the " frequent vis 
 itor " to halt upon his lips, as he looked up with mute, 
 respectful curiosity at the new-coiner. " Whar the sperit 
 leads me I will foller." 
 
 Mrs. Strobe tossed her head aggressively ; she had scant 
 faith in any holiness save her own, and less patience with 
 its assertion. And thus it was that she herself spoke now 
 as one of the uncovenanted : 
 
 " Ef I war you-uns, I d wisht the sperit hed better 
 taste n ter lead me whar M ria Bowles hed set up her 
 staff. Ef the sperit could do no better leadin n that fur 
 me, I d jes turn in an blaze out my own road. Yes, sir." 
 
 She turned her head suddenly, and looked at him with 
 incongruous daring, like a reckless wren. 
 
 " Need n t tell me nuthin bout M ria Bowles," she con 
 tinued, taking her knitting out of her pocket, " she war 
 always a hard, tantrum-y gal, with the kind o good looks 
 ez I hed ruther be ugly than hev hed." 
 
 She twisted the yarn around her little finger to restrain 
 its presumable impetuosity, and the needles began to twinkle 
 as they moved. Then she proceeded, with triumphant dis 
 regard of logic : 
 
 " I tried an tried ter git Eli ter tell suthin bout n her, 
 arter he went a-visitin up in the mounting at Ben Bowles s 
 house. But Yes m an Naw m air all ez he hev got 
 fur his mother nowadays, bein ez I can t vote fur him. 
 Eli air so feared he 11 git somebody set agin him fore the 
 lection, by telling suthin he said or did n t say, he air 
 mighty nigh mum ! His tongue 11 limber out arter awhile, 
 though, ye mark my words. Time the polls air closed he 11 
 know whether his soul s his own or no." 
 
 Eli Strobe sat under this criticism with an impassiveness 
 that could have been attained only by long practice. He 
 gazed with somnolent, meditative eyes at the landscape, his 
 
72 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 broad-brimmed hat pulled over his brow, his elbow upon his 
 knee, his chin in his hand. 
 
 Marcella had flushed deeply. The spinning-wheel had 
 ceased to whir. She looked up, her brown eyes alight, the 
 broken thread in her hand. 
 
 " Ye mus hev furgot, granny," she said, her voice trem 
 bling with the effort at self -repression into due respect ; 
 " dad tole ye a heap bout the folks on the mounting." 
 
 " Till we war both tired out n with the name o Bowles," 
 put in the uncompromising Isabel. 
 
 " He tole ye Mis Bowles war good-lookin ez ever, an 
 her husband peared well-ter-do an mightily tuk up with 
 her," itemized Marcella ; " an he reckoned she treated her 
 step-chill n well, leastwise they war fat enough ; an she 
 seemed so ter say ez happy ez she ever war, some 
 lonesome, mebbe, bein on he mounting. He tole ye, an 
 he tole ye ! " 
 
 " Yes, he tole ye ! " said Isabel, with an unfilial flirt of 
 her tousled hair. 
 
 " An dad ain t holdin his jaw fur fear o settin the vot 
 ers catawampus." There were tears in the deep brightness 
 of Marcella s eyes. " He ain t afeard o not gittin lected. 
 He kin bide by the vote ez onconsarned ez ever. It s jes 
 me an Is lel ez hev sot our hearts on his bein lifted high, 
 above all the people. Dad ain t fearcl." 
 
 "Naw, dad ain t feard o nuthin ," declared Isabel, 
 tossing her head, in the pride of " dad s " courage. 
 
 The little old woman glared clown upon the youthful par 
 tisans of " dad " with an elaborate show of displeasure. 
 
 " Air Eli Strobe yer chile or mine ? " she sourly demanded 
 of the damsels. 
 
 This potent logic bereft them of all rejoinder. 
 
 " I hev lowed fur forty year an better ez he war my 
 chile," Mrs. Strobe continued, sarcastically. " Mebbe though 
 I hev been mistaken." 
 
 But while she folded her arms in a pose of important 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOUSEDGE COVE. 73 
 
 dudgeon, letting her knitting rest idly on her lap, she glanced 
 at Teck Jepson with a sort of internal chuckle, as if to call 
 his attention to the crushed champions. 
 
 " Mos folks would low ez I hed tuk toler ble good keer 
 o him without enny help from you-uns, an , bein ez he hev 
 throve toler ble, it mought pear like I war n t likely ter do 
 nuthin ez would hurt him sure enough, or make him seem 
 small ennywise. Eli Strobe hev made out ter git along fur 
 a good many year thout you-uns ter take keer o him, 
 fore Marcelly an Is bel war ever hearn tell on." 
 
 For the first time the bone of contention lifted his voice. 
 Eli Strobe wished to prevent further retort on the part of 
 his defenders. 
 
 " Shet up, chil n," he observed, in his calm, heavy tones. 
 * Shet up. Ye talk like ye ain t got no sense." 
 
 " Sense ! " cried the sharp little dame. " Sense don t run 
 in the fambly, ez fur ez I know it." 
 
 She did not include herself among those thus deprived. 
 She chose to consider her departed lord the head of the fam 
 ily, and herself as only an interloper. 
 
 " Naw, sir," she observed, after a pause, " Eli brung no 
 news home. I never knowed a man ez would. They 
 gredge news to wimmin folks. But law," she was knit 
 ting again with an appearance of great inattention to the 
 industry, looking about over the whisking needles, " the 
 gals air nigh ez bad bout -bringin news home, ef not wuss. 
 Ye see, Teck, I can t go bout much, bein rheumatic. Ye 
 mought low thar war n t enough o me ter commodate much 
 rheumatism, but I got more n I need. So only the gals wen 
 ter the baptizin. Sir, they hearn nare word o the preachin , 
 nare whisper o the singin , salvation seemed afar off, an 
 the gran jer o this worl war more ter them n the waters o 
 Jordan. Yes, sir ! Answer me no questions could they, 
 no text, no psalm, could n t even tell what saints war 
 tendin on the baptizin , nor who war saved nor who war 
 shoutin . Fur they war all set ter wonder over a strange 
 
 
 
74 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 man they met a-kemin home ; special good-lookin , accor- 
 din ter Marcelly." 
 
 " Granny ! " cried the girl, starting up from her chair, 
 overturning the spinning-wheel upon the surprised " Wool- 
 
 iy." 
 
 " Hold yer jaw whilst yer elders speak ! " exclaimed the 
 imperative old woman. " Good-lookin , it seemed, till Mar 
 celly could n t rest, but hard-hearted an cruel-eyed, fur all 
 he hed eyes blue an deep ez a well, accordin ter Marcelly ; 
 an she b lieved he hed no religion, though pious words war 
 on his tongue ! An I hed that man fur breakfus , an din 
 ner, an supper; an when Marcelly war plumb beat out 
 talkin bout him, Is bel tuk her turn." 
 
 " Granny ! " faintly reiterated Marcella, crimson and 
 faltering, and hardly heeding Andy Longwood at her feet, 
 as he sought to lift the wheel to its place before her, and to 
 disengage his elbow from the " spun-truck." 
 
 Isabel looked aghast from one to the other. 
 
 " Granny, it s that same man ! " she cried, with a facial 
 contortion of great significance, but which her aged relative 
 failed to interpret. Eli Strobe looked heavily on, a little 
 doubtful, but unable to understand the commotion. 
 
 " I know it s that same man I m a-talkin bout," Mrs. 
 Strobe observed with dignity. " Ye did n t know his name, 
 nare one o ye ; his looks war enough fur ye an Marcelly, 
 special Marcelly. An ez ter his, hard heart, an his cruel 
 eyes, an his bein a hypocrite, it s him ez hev got ter burn 
 in Torment fur that, not Marcelly ; so she rej iced an 
 j*ej iced in the handsome sinner, a-purtendin ter despise 
 him so ! " 
 
 Isabel, less daunted by the situation than her sister, found 
 strength to rise from the step where she had sat near the 
 " frequent visitor," and faced round upon her unconscious 
 grandmother. She relied now upon nothing less pointed 
 than her index-finger, and as she leveled it at Jepson she 
 declared, 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 75 
 
 " It s him, granny, him ez be a-settin thar in the 
 cheer I " 
 
 Mrs. Strobe s jaw dropped, as the realization of the social 
 enormity of which she had been guilty was borne in upon 
 her. She turned her faltering eyes upon Jepson, who sat 
 beside her motionless. He was outwardly calm. His brow 
 bore only a slight corrugation that could hardly be called a 
 frown. His face was impassive ; perhaps its imperious and 
 lofty suggestions were accented by a touch of disdain, but 
 in his eyes his anger burned undisguised. Mrs. Strobe ap 
 preciated now how deep they were, how blue, how full of 
 n re, how alive with a tempestuous spirit. His long legs 
 were stretched out before him ; his hat was pushed far back 
 from his brow, and he looked forth with a sedulous appear 
 ance of unconcern at the mustering shadows. She remem 
 bered in dismay the opprobrious epithets, cruel-eyed, 
 hard-hearted, no religion, and Marcella, the candidate s 
 daughter, despised him. 
 
 Now, for all that this old woman was so sharp of tongue, 
 the good of her household lay very near to her heart, and 
 her deeds were widely at variance with her words. More 
 over, her pride in her son was very great, and Eli himself 
 was not a more watchful and cautious politician than she, 
 when need arose. A breach of hospitality was not less ab 
 horrent to her than an infringement of the ten command 
 ments ; but hard upon the sense of her discourtesy came a 
 poignant and politic monition for the interests of the im 
 pending election. 
 
 "Teck! Teck ! " she cried, quaveringly, " t war n t ye 
 ez them two sillies met an lowed war a strange man ? " 
 
 " I tole ye, granny," declared the self-sufficient Isabel, 
 buffeted by the storm of emotions the crisis had roused, 
 but gallantly weathering it, "I tole ye he lowed ez he 
 did n t know me an Marcelly, but he knowed dad, an he 
 war kin ter Ben Bowles. Kin ter Bowles, I said it, an* 
 I said it." 
 
76 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 " Shet up ! Who knows ye an Marcelly, ennyhows ? 
 Marcelly hev shot up hyar like Jonah s gourd in a single 
 night, tall ez a bean-pole an seventeen year old. I 11 be 
 bound ennybody ez hed nuthin ter do but ter medjure Mar 
 celly would find an inch lengthwise onter her fur every day 
 she lives. Who knows ye an Marcelly, ennyhows ? Pow 
 erful fine folks ter know, I 11 be bound ! Teck," she 
 turned suavely to the visitor, " ye ain t tellin me t war 
 you-uns sure enough, what I hev knowed sence ye war 
 a-taddlin roun yer mam s knee a mighty good oman 
 she war, an the end she made war a sampler to the saints, 
 fur I war thar an see her takin off bless the Lord fur 
 the saints ! t war n t ye, Teck, ez them gals war a-makin 
 sech a miration over, ez ef they hed fund a mare s nest ? " 
 
 " Yes m," he assented quietly, " t war me." 
 
 She noted the heavy frown gathering in the shadow of 
 Eli Strobe s big hat, drawn far over his brow. He cast a 
 slow glance toward the group ; then maintaining his mute, 
 surly dignity, he gazed steadfastly forward at the glooming 
 mountains. 
 
 Marcella, still grave and silent, had risen from her chair, 
 more circumspectly this time, and the spinning-wheel was 
 not overturned, although the " frequent visitor " put up his 
 arm to guard against it. He had been greatly edified by 
 the disastrous commotion in the conversation, and had 
 briskly turned his placid face, lighted with an animation 
 that might have hitherto seemed impossible, from one speaker 
 to the other. A shade of regret crossed it as he noted Mar- 
 cella s movement, but it was in a jocose undertone that he 
 demanded, " AVhar be ye a-travelin ter, Marcelly ? " 
 
 " I be a-goin ter dish up supper," she answered stiffly, 
 and with her voice at its usual pitch. She held herself a 
 trifle more erect than usual ; some sudden defiant intima 
 tions of pride were perceptible in her manner, as she 
 threaded her way through the group, but in passing Jep- 
 son her long lashes swept her red cheek, for she could not 
 encounter his gaze. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 77 
 
 " I 11 be bound everything air burnt ter a crisp," said the 
 officious Isabel, but looking hopefully over her shoulder 
 into the dusky brown interior. It was lighted only by the 
 smouldering fire, that cast a gigantic shadow of the slight 
 Marcella upon ceiling and walls, and a grotesquely mag 
 nified and frightful image of the old hound. For the dog 
 of the " frequent visitor " was singularly accomplished in 
 accurately understanding the English language, and had 
 sprung up with much youthful alacrity upon the mere men 
 tion of supper. 
 
 He had followed the girl into the room, and sat beside 
 the hearth, watching with anticipative delight each dish as 
 it was borne to the table, licking his chaps with a zestful ex 
 pression ; now rising up suddenly, and then composing him 
 self to sit down again, while his shadow on the wall made 
 queer genuflections and obeisances to the table, with all the 
 ardent spirit of a gourmand. 
 
 Without, the old woman seized the opportunity. She sat 
 for a moment demurely silent ; then, shaking with her in 
 ternal chuckle, she said in a low tone to Teck, 
 
 " Marcelly s plumb outdone, I know, kase ye hev fund 
 out ez she war streck with yer good looks, Teck, an called 
 ye han some. Laws-a-massy, gals air mighty purblind an 
 foolish critters ; they think the men air gin over ter studyin 
 bout n em, an tryin ter sense what they mean, when the 
 fellers, mos likely, air jes standin with thar arms a-kimbo, 
 a-lookin at the weather-signs, an a-wonderin what the 
 chances air fur huntin ter-morrer." 
 
 She glanced toward Jepson with a laugh, expectant of 
 ready acquiescence. But there was upon his face, distinct 
 enough even in the closing shadows, an expression so 
 haughty, so aloof and unresponsive, that the little dame 
 was at first perturbed and troubled, but presently grew an 
 gered in turn. 
 
 " A spiteful sinner ! " she exclaimed to herself ; " mad 
 now, jes kase Marcelly lowed he hed no religion, an he 
 ain t got none." 
 
78 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 All her facile cleverness was roused, however, and she 
 was mindful, too, of the interests of the approaching elec 
 tion. Thus, although she struck, it was with a cautious 
 hand and a crafty insight. 
 
 " But I reckon mos ly," she said, lowering her voice 
 cautiously, " ez Marcelly war tormented, bein feared ez 
 Clem Sanders mought hear somehows ez she lied been streck 
 with yer good looks. I 11 be bound that skeered her." 
 
 She forbore for a moment to mark how her shaft had 
 sped. She sat motionless, her feet perched on the rung of 
 the chair, and she looked very small and unintentional, and 
 reflective, as she placidly contemplated the night scene. 
 The fireflies fluctuated in the dank shadows, that gloomed 
 duskily about the porch ; now close at hand, now a mo 
 mentary gleam far away in a bosky tangle, still multiplying, 
 till they seemed some elusively glittering network spread 
 as a snare for the darkness. The mountains had become 
 invisible in the blackness, save for their rigid summit-lines 
 against the sky. The frogs chanted by the water-side, and 
 katydids were monotonously shrilling in the orchard. The 
 grating of Teck Jepson s chair on the floor, as he abruptly 
 shifted his position, was the only sound that broke upon the 
 quiet with the jarring effect of interruption, and as Mrs. 
 Strobe turned she saw his face thrown into strong relief by 
 the rays of a tallow dip within, which Marcella had just 
 kindled. The white light streamed forth as far as the 
 great gourd-leaves behind his head, eliciting their faint 
 green color with the interstices of olive-hued shadows. His 
 face had relaxed ; it was haughty no longer. There was 
 an alert anxiety in the blue eyes which the mountain girl 
 fancied so deep. He had taken off his hat, and pushed 
 back his dark hair from his forehead. He was frowning a 
 little, and yet he hardly noticed the sudden flare of light 
 upon his face ; his compressed lips had softened, had 
 parted. He said nothing. Another voice came out of the 
 darkness : 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 79 
 
 " I dunno what Clem Sanders mought ondertake ter set 
 hisse f up ter git mad fur, kase Marcelly lows ez this one 
 or that one air good-lookin ," " Woolly " spoke up, with an 
 acrimony and a decision which showed that his discourse 
 was not exclusively confined to the placid " baa." Clem 
 Sanders hain t got no right ter say nuthin bout good-lookin 
 folks, the Lord above knows, all marked up with cinders an 
 soot ez he be. I 11 be bound Marcelly ain t a-goiii ter in 
 terrupt herse f studyin bout what Clem Sanders thinks 
 bout good looks." 
 
 " What ye talkin bout? Hev yer senses deserted ye?" 
 the grandmother remarked to the ** frequent visitor," with a 
 tart familiarity induced, perhaps, by the frequency of his 
 visits. " Ye can t expect a blacksmith ter be nuthin but 
 cindery an sooty, like folks ez plow gits miry. None 
 ter choose twixt em, I m a-thinkin ." 
 
 " I know that." Andy Longwood made a feint of acqui 
 escence ; then continued droningly, as one who has a griev 
 ance, * But Marcelly ain t mindin Clem Sanders, else 
 she ain t the gal I take her fur. Looks so grizzly an 
 sooty, I ain t s prised none ef the Satan ez Pa son Donnard 
 seen settin on the anvil in the forge war n t nuthin but 
 Clem hisself." 
 
 u Shucks ! " said the uncompromising Isabel. " He bed 
 wings an hawns, cordin ter pa son, an Clem hain t nare 
 one." 
 
 " Waal, I don t keer," growled " Woolly." " Clem s a 
 sight ter be seen, a scandal ter the jaybirds." 
 
 " That don t make no differ ! " cried the little old woman, 
 stanch in argument. " Blacksmithin air a powerful fine 
 business ; the folks in Brumsaidge could n t git along thout 
 Clem. An afore him, shucks ! way back in the Bible 
 times they lied smiths, an I reckon they war ez sooty an 
 cindery then ez now ; dirt ain t improved none noways, ez I 
 onderstan , sence them days. Thar war a man then, what 
 the Bible speaks respec fully of, by the name o Tubal Cain, 
 
80 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 a cunning workman, war n t thar, Teck ? " She ap 
 pealed to him with animation as to a Biblical authority, 
 expecting an eager and interested response ; but he only 
 said, " Yes m," with an evident effort, cleared his throat, 
 and was silent. 
 
 Eli Strobe had risen in obedience to some signal from 
 indoors. " Kem in ter supper." His big voice rumbled out 
 with all its wonted intonations of hospitality. If Jepson 
 had not been otherwise absorbed, he might have noted the 
 candidate s self-control remarkable in so tantalizing an epi 
 sode. It did not escape Mrs. Strobe s keen attention, and 
 she deported herself with a trifle of gay bravado, feeling 
 beyond the reach of retribution, since the dictates of policy 
 so hampered deserts. 
 
 "Waal, sir, eatin supper by a tallow dip, who ever 
 hearn the beat ! " remarked Isabel. " A leetle mo , an we 
 would all hev gone ter bed hongry." 
 
 " li; do be a powerful late supper." Mrs. Strobe had a 
 slightly harried aspect ; if conscience abode within her, it 
 wielded its power in her housewifely instincts. " Be ye 
 hongry, Teck, ye an Andy an Eli ? It s all Marcelly s 
 fault, a-furgittin ter dish up supper till nigh on ter bed 
 time. An me, too : I jes sot an talked, I will low, ez ef 
 my tongue war tied in the middle an workin at both 
 e-ends." 
 
 The feeble focus of the candle dully glowed in the centre 
 of the table, sending out a subdued glimmer upon the faces 
 that surrounded it amidst the encompassing obscurity. A 
 vague glimpse was had of the smoke-blackened ceiling just 
 above, with a rich dash of color where a cluster of strings 
 of red peppers hung. The walls darkly merged into shad 
 ows ; the fire was a smouldering, tawny-tinted coal ; the 
 ceaseless night sounds came through the open door, the 
 chirring of insects, the sigh of the woods, and the fret of 
 the torrent. As Marcella waited upon them, she was invis 
 ible most of the time in the dark periphery of the circle : 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 81 
 
 occasionally there were transitory visions of the fair dis 
 penser of hospitality, the white light falling on her delicate 
 face, and floating hair, and rounded arm, and deft hand, 
 as perchance she leaned forward and tendered the cracked 
 blue bowl of honey to one or the other of the guests ; then 
 only an alert, noiseless shadow, slipping about in the kin 
 dred gloom. 
 
 It was a silent meal, albeit the little old dame and 
 Isabel were among the partakers. When they all repaired 
 again to the porch, they found the moonlight there, with 
 yellow slanting rays and long, melancholy shadows, and the 
 distorted waning disk itself hung in the purple spaces above 
 the black mountain that the house faced. The fireflies were 
 quenched ; only now and then a feeble gleam stole forth 
 from a dark cluster of gourd-leaves. The perfume of the 
 orchard was sweet on the air ; the dew glittered on the low 
 summits of the old gnarled trees. The men and the old 
 woman lighted their pipes, and the coterie silently smoked, 
 while Marcella sat on the steps of the porch, in the full ra 
 diance of the midsummer sheen, her idle hands folded upon 
 one knee, her lustrous eyes turned upward to the moon, the 
 wind lightly tossing her curling hair. Within, the candle 
 still sputtered, while Isabel washed the dishes and pans, 
 this being her allotted task, and made a great clatter to 
 better express her industry. 
 
 It was all very still without ; a constraint oppressed the 
 group. Each had regrets in the premises, and harbored 
 resentments. The occupation of smoking, the meditative lan 
 guor which the consumption of tobacco warrants, precluded 
 the necessity for conversation, and afforded an interval 
 for the recuperation of the downcast spirits of the company. 
 Small wonder that Clem Sanders, listening from his roof- 
 room window, heard no laughing or talking at Strobe s ! 
 
 Suddenly the shrill clamor of a screech-owl invaded the 
 nocturnal quietude ; again and yet again, with its sinister, 
 mirthless chuckle supplementing and seeming to ridicule its 
 
82 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 own hysteric outcry. It grated upon the nerves of Mrs. 
 Strobe, already subjected to some unusual tension. 
 
 u Laws-a-massy, jes listen ter that thar n isy fow-e/. He 
 be a-goin ter screech thar haffen the night, I 11 be bound ; 
 an he air a sure sign o death, ter holler nigh a chimbly. 
 Jes listen at him, now, a-laffin at the corpse ! " Once 
 more the low, joyless, mocking merriment jarred the air. 
 " Take yer dad s gun thar, Marcelly, an run down in the 
 orchard, an fire it off at him. He be right yander in that 
 thar sheep-nose apple-tree." 
 
 Marcella rose slowly. " I 11 drive him off," she said, 
 " but I ain t a-goin ter fire no gun off at him ; the critter 
 hev got ez good a right ter live ez I hev. I 11 fling a sheep- 
 nose apple at him, an that be ez much ez I be a-goin ter 
 do ter him." 
 
 " Listen at the sassiness of the stiff-necked generation ! " 
 exclaimed the old woman, evidently the exordium of a ti 
 rade against the young folks nowadays. But Marcella was 
 already far down the grassy slope, and out of hearing ; and 
 with one scornful glance after her, Mrs. Strobe put her 
 pipe into her mouth, and sourly relapsed into silence. 
 
 The high grass, tasseled and rank, glimmered with dew. 
 The moonlit spaces wore a finer and a fairer lustre for the 
 deep romantic shadows that hung about the boughs. There 
 were long and glittering arches, where the fruited branches 
 interlaced, and in the dappling shade beneath, the boles, all 
 at regular intervals, had a colunmated effect ; and these ar 
 boreal aisles seemed endless. Even the homelier incidents 
 of the orchard shared the enchantment of the moonlight : 
 some blight that had fallen on one of the goodly branches 
 had bereft it of leaves and fruit, and a web that had been 
 woven about it shone, a refulgent gauze, and radiated a del 
 icate and fibrous splendor. Down these simple ways Mar 
 cella went, the light upon her face ; her hair fluttered with 
 the slight breeze ; her step was sure and free ; she seemed 
 so ethereal that she too might have been some embellish- 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 83 
 
 ing fantasy of the night. The bird of ill-omen had ceased 
 to cry, as if her very presence exorcised all evil fortunes. 
 She paused, gazing upward, the moonbeams full on her shin 
 ing eyes. She had lifted one arm and laid hold of a fruit- 
 freighted bough. It seemed strange that she did not see 
 the owl, so well she realized how it must look, up among the 
 boughs somewhere, demurely silent, shuffling down, and sup 
 pressing, as it were, its fearful identity among its mottled 
 feathers, its head askew as it watched her with its big yel 
 low eyes. She had her hand upon the retributive apple ; a 
 sudden footfall, Teck Jepson was approaching along the 
 dewy colonnade. 
 
 The owl was safe, very safe indeed : a pity that the 
 " fow-eZ " might not have known this, and have spared itself 
 the anguish of fright that it endured, as it sat almost within 
 arm s length, discreetly silent, refraining from stirring claw 
 or feather, and wisely looking down upon them. 
 
 The bough was shaking with more than the wind, for 
 Marcella s hand trembled on the unplucked apple. 
 
 Jepson s hat was thrust on the back of his head. His 
 face, too, was distinctly visible as he approached. Somehow 
 he had never seemed to her so tall, so imperious of temper, 
 so impressive, as now. But there was a trifle of embarrass 
 ment in his manner, and he only said, 
 
 " Whar s that thar ow-el ? " 
 
 " I dunno," faltered Marcella. 
 
 He did not seem to care. His mind was evidently little 
 concerned with the " fow-eZ." 
 
 He paused, looking steadily at her, as if he expected her 
 to speak again. But she still stood silent, the moonlight in 
 her lustrous eyes and on her upturned face, her hand on the 
 apple as it swung on the low bough. 
 
 " I never expected ter hear ez ye hed been talkin bout 
 me that-a-way ; I never looked fur it," he said. 
 
 The quick color surged into her cheeks ; her eyes flashed ; 
 she let go the bough so suddenly that, swinging elastically 
 
84 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 into its place, the little owl was almost dislodged from its 
 perch, and it tightened its toes and even slightly spread its 
 wings to keep its balance. It uttered a low sound, a sort 
 of mutter, that they might have heard had they not been 
 too absorbed ; and it was with a kind of resentful dignity that 
 it settled itself again in its feathers, and cocked its head 
 askew, and looked down at them with its round, bright eyes. 
 
 " An I dunno what sorter man ye kin be, ter kern mak- 
 in remarks ter me bout n it," she cried indignantly. 
 
 " I hev knowed ye sech a little time, I reckon nobody 
 would hev expected sech from you-uns," he resumed. 
 
 She stood for a moment in blank amazement. Then she 
 seemed ready to burst into tears. " I never said it cept 
 ter granny, an who would hev thunk o her settin up an 
 tellin it all ter you-uns, not knowin ye war the same one ? 
 Ye never tole we-uns yer name, that evenin . I jes lowed 
 ye war kin ter Bowles." 
 
 " I don t keer who ye said it ter," he declared, his voice 
 full of reproach. " I ain t keerin fur nuthin ceptin ye 
 thunk it, an I never done nuthin ter make ye think it." 
 
 Once more she looked at him, aghast. She put up her 
 hand again to the bough, now for the sake of support. 
 
 " Tellin folks, an settin out ter b lieve ez I be a hyper- 
 crite, an purtend ter be pious, an " 
 
 " Oh ! " she exclaimed, with a note of comprehension and 
 relief so marked that he paused abruptly, and demanded 
 sternly, 
 
 " What did you-uns low I war talkin bout ? " 
 
 She did not answer. Her expression had suddenly 
 changed, as she stood under the bough. No dryad, no ethe 
 real native of the tree, could wear a face more airily light 
 some, more elfinly gay, than she, looking out through the 
 sheen and the flickering shadow. 
 
 " Waal," said he, staring blankly at her, " What war ye 
 a-talkin bout ? " 
 
 She only shook her head in gleeful silence. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 85 
 
 " Ye never said mithin ," he resumed, seeking to review 
 the conversation that he might unravel its mystery, " cept>- 
 in I war a a " he stumbled at the word, "a hyper- 
 crite, an a sinner ; yes, an special good-lookin , but I 
 never minded that." 
 
 Her face had grown conscious again. " I reckon not," 
 she remarked dryly. 
 
 " Ye mind that, though," he said penetratingly, at last ; 
 " that s what ye thought I war talkin bout, hey ? Waal, 
 I jes mind ye callin me a sinner, an sayin ez I purtend 
 ter be pious." 
 
 He noted her instant relief at the change of the subject. 
 "Ye don t mind folks knowin ye called em sinners," he 
 continued, ** but whenst it comes ter handsome sinners " 
 
 He desisted, in pity for the look in her face. 
 
 " I tell ye now, Marcelly," he said gravely, as they me 
 chanically took their way together toward the house, " ye 
 may law ez I be hard-hearted, an cruel-eyed, an got no 
 religion, but I be a-goin ter furgive ye fur them words, 
 like a Christian ! " 
 
 It was the first wrong that he had ever overlooked. He 
 found forgiveness easy to be exercised, and very sweet. 
 
 She stole a shy look at his face. " That s powerful good 
 in ye," she said softly. I war jes a-talkin ter be a-talkin , 
 an " 
 
 Their shadows, close together, followed them over the 
 shining grass, and for a time they were silent as they ap 
 proached the group on the porch. 
 
 He paused abruptly, and looked down at her. 
 
 " An I don t want ye ter be aggervatin yerse f by lowin 
 ez I ain t goin ter do all I kin fur Eli in the lection. What 
 ye said ain t goin ter bender. I 11 vote fur him. an git all 
 others I kin ter do likewise." 
 
 Marcella began to experience a sensation as of coals of 
 fire heaped upon the head. She could only murmur, " I 
 war jes a-talkin ter be a-talkin ." 
 
86 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 That night, from time to time, as the hours wore on and 
 the house was still, the little owl in the apple-tree lifted its 
 voice and shrilled aloud, and laughed in sinister and chuck 
 ling mirth, while the moon slowly climbed the skies. And 
 Mrs. Strobe, turning on an uneasy pillow, evolved bitter 
 reflections concerning the inefficiency of the present gener 
 ation. 
 
 " Sen two hearty young folks one of em mos seven 
 feet high ceptin what s lackin down inter a orchard 
 ter fling a apple at a o\v-el an drive him off, an a boJy 
 would think they hed invited the critter ter bide ter supper, 
 an sing by me cbuues ar ter ward." 
 
YI. 
 
 WHATEVER might be the character of the nocturnal vis 
 itant of the forge, it seemed safe enough in the broad glare 
 of sunlight ; and as it was the voting-place of the district, 
 it was by no means deserted on that momentous Thursday 
 in August when the election was held. Marcella had felt 
 throughout the canvass the terrible strain of suspense, but 
 when the day had drawn near she was deprecatory of de 
 cision, and wished that if the worst must be it might not 
 be at once. 
 
 " A body would low, ter hear ye a-goin on, that Eli war 
 ter be hung ter-day," her grandmother remarked, tartly. 
 " He ain t los a ounce o flesh nor a hour o sleep sence he 
 war a candidate, an he went off from hyar this mornin 
 high-colored ez common. An look at you-uns big-eyed, 
 an pale-faced, an lean-lookin , an fluttery drapped the 
 blue bowl an bruk it in two ; an Is bel patterns arter ye, 
 till thar ain t no ch ice fur a fool twixt ye. Shucks ! I 
 mas be mistaken," sarcastically ; " they be goin surely ter 
 hang Eli." 
 
 From time to time, during the rich and dewy morning 
 hours, when the bees droned about the blooming clover in 
 the orchard aisles, and the birds were abroad in the high 
 ways of the skies, Marcella parted the sheltering vines on 
 the porch, that she might look forth unobserved upon the 
 voters gradually assembling at the polls. She knew many 
 of them by sight, and was informed concerning their dis 
 position toward her father s pretensions ; and thus her heart 
 weighed heavily or grew buoyant, as enemies or friends 
 were in the majority. They came chiefly on horseback, 
 
88 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 and there were rows of saddle-horses hitched to the rack 
 before the wide door of the forge, and to the houghs of 
 trees hard by, and even to the badly chinked logs of the 
 building itself ; sometimes they dully drowsed, sometimes 
 impatiently pawed, sometimes fell to bickering together, and 
 necessitated the interposition of their masters to readjust 
 their status. Many of the farmers had come in ox-wagons. 
 The teams had been unyoked, and were leisurely munch 
 ing the feed, spread out in the dappling shadows upon the 
 ground before them. Casting a vote, the inalienable right 
 of an American citizen, seemed a lengthy and serious mat 
 ter, and was not to be lightly discharged ; during the main 
 portion of the day it busied the denizens of the surround 
 ing slopes, and thus deliberately they saved the country. 
 The assemblage presented, therefore, something of the as 
 pect of an exclusively masculine picnic, for such women and 
 children as had been permitted to gratify a long-cherished 
 hankering to " view " the populous Settlemint had hied 
 them decorously to the houses of various relatives, the 
 tender ties of consanguinity thus utilized on this auspicious 
 occasion, and were seen no more during the day. Old 
 friends met, and smoked, and talked at great length. The 
 state of crops in various localities elicited anxious inquiries ; 
 old gossip that had been on its last legs suddenly developed 
 a new and brisk pair of limbs, and circulated like a fresh 
 scandal. Parson Donnard could not have failed to hear 
 his name excitedly coupled with that of the devil, as he 
 threaded his way through the crowd ; but mindful of his 
 vision, he placed no false nor sensitive interpretation upon 
 this association, and there was an elongation of his thin 
 compressed lips which in an ungodly man one might have 
 thought singularly like a smile of flattered vanity. The 
 heavy jeans-clad mountaineers reverently made way for 
 him, and there was a perceptible abatement of the guffaws 
 and slowly drawled jokes as he passed. But as in more 
 cultured communities, the observance and the feeling were 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 89 
 
 not always in close compatibility, and the criticism he en 
 countered was as if he were of this world. 
 
 " I dunno why pa son be lowed ter vote," said Joe Bas 
 sett, as he sprawled on the protruding roots of a tree ; two 
 mountaineers perched hard by on the ,tongue of an ox-wagon 
 from which the team had been released, and a third reclined 
 on a saddle which he had thrown upon the ground. " Pa 
 son can t run fur nuthin ," continued Bassett ; " he can t go 
 ter the Legislator , nor nuthin , nor be sher ff. They don t 
 let preachers hold office, nor butchers set on a crim nal 
 jury," thus seeking in his ignorance to reconcile the in 
 congruities and oddities of the law. 
 
 " Pa son oughter be a-studyin bout a seat mongst the 
 angels, stiddier gittin registered mongst the qualified vot 
 ers o the deestric ," said Gideon Dake, who always con 
 firmed Bassett s views, or added corollary matter. 
 
 " What be Teck Jepson a-bobbin bout fur, like a float 
 on a fish-line ? " demanded Bassett. " Actially a-stoppin 
 the pa son mighty nigh at the door of the forge. Looks 
 ter be a-wrastlin in prayer with the old man, in an 
 about goin ter save the pa son s soul, fust thing ye know." 
 
 " Hain t you-uns hearn," said Dake, quickly seizing the 
 opportunity to regale the professed gossip with a new story, 
 " how tumble smitten Teck Jepson an Marcelly Strobe hev 
 got, all of a suddint ? An Teck air a-workin fur the lec 
 tion like he war demented. I made him beg an beg me 
 fur nigh on ter a hour ter vote fur Eli, like I hed counted 
 on doin all the time. Now Teck s argufyin with the 
 pa son." 
 
 " Every time I hear o Marcelly Strobe she hev got an 
 other feller a-danglin . Pears like ter me she mus 1 be 
 a-foolin some o them boys," Bassett commented sourly. 
 
 " Laws-a-massy, jes look at Teck," said Dake, laughing 
 slightly, albeit his teeth were closed hard upon the quid of 
 tobacco in his mouth, " he hev gin the old man his arm an 
 air jes a-draggin the pa son up ter the polls ! Would n t 
 
90 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 trest the pa son s word ter vote fur Eli ; gone in ter see 
 the job well done. Waal, sir," he shifted his position 
 as the young and the old man disappeared together within 
 the door, " that s jes the way he done me. I could n t 
 hev got away from him, arter I hed promised ter vote for 
 Eli, ef I hed wanted ter." 
 
 There was a momentary hiatus in the conversation, when 
 a tall, lank man, some twenty-eight or thirty years of age, 
 with high cheek-bones and a sunburned, narrow face, joined 
 the group. He had a bright, quick glance, and a smoulder 
 ing spark of irritation aided its effect. His countenance 
 wore a ready and propitiatory smile, the candidate s smile, 
 that seemed automatic in some sort, and not subject to the 
 same springs that sufficed as motor for his other expressions. 
 He flung himself upon a pile of shucks and hay, the forage 
 of neighboring oxen, and he chewed a long straw as he 
 talked. 
 
 " Hy re, boys," he said, agreeably. " How do the chances 
 o the lection pear ter you-uns ? " For he was Joshua 
 Nevins, a candidate for constable, and Eli Strobe s much- 
 feared rival. 
 
 " Mighty well," said Bassett, reassuringly. 
 
 " Why n t ye go an vote, Dake ? " said the candidate, 
 leaning forward to scan Gideon Dake s countenance. 
 
 " Ye ain t goin ter try ter git folks ter vote twict, air 
 ye ? " said Dake, jocosely. " I hev voted wunst ter-day, an* 
 they tells me ez that be ez off n ez the law allows." 
 
 " I hopes ye voted the right way," said Nevins, with a 
 bland and mollifying demonstration of the candidate s smile. 
 
 The specious Dake nodded his head convincingly. " I 11 
 be bound I did," he said equivocally, and yet so unequiv 
 ocally that the momentary fears of the candidate were set 
 at rest. 
 
 The others, mindful of Dake s recent representations as 
 to the casting of his vote under Teck Jepson s tutelage, ex 
 perienced a certain embarrassment and preserved an awk- 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 91 
 
 ward silence, none arrogating the tact to innocuously con 
 tinue the conversation. If the candidate be a wily genus, 
 the craft of the voter is sometimes commensurate. 
 
 Nevins seemed the most innocent of men, as he himself 
 reopened the subject. He had approached the group with 
 the intention of merely commending himself by some timely 
 and jocose observations, and then strolling to other coteries. 
 He had, however, encountered unexpected opposition to-day ; 
 he had thought himself almost assured of success, and when 
 the doubt began to arise in his mind, untutored to jeopardy, 
 he felt himself losing his balance. 
 
 " What ails Teck Jepson, ter git so sot agin me ? " he 
 observed, anxiously. " He hev jes been a-bouncin aroun 
 electioneerin fur Eli ter-day like like a chicken with 
 its head off. I axed him awhile ago, I beckoned him off, 
 an I say, What ails ye. ter work agin me, Teck ? I ain t 
 done nuthin ter you-uns, hev I ? Air ye holdin a gredge 
 agin me ? An he said, Don t ye know I be kin ter Eli 
 nowadays ? My half-brother married his cousin, Teck say. 
 Shucks ! I know that ain t the reason." He glanced in 
 plaintive interrogation at the others. 
 
 " Waal, things turns out mos ly ez they air bid from 
 above," said one of the men, with an unexpected attack of 
 piety. 
 
 Nevins looked lugubriously at him. This was an arbitra 
 tion to which he was not prepared to submit. He was feel 
 ing exceedingly helpless in the hands of Providence. 
 
 u I dunno bout that," he observed. " Things in Brum- 
 saidge turns out mos ly ez Teck Jepson wills, an Prov 
 idence sings mighty small." 
 
 Then reflecting that this was a dolorous prognostication 
 on his own account, he gathered himself together as jauntily 
 as he could, and declared, " But Teck Jepson s rule is over. 
 Folks in Brumsaidge hev tried Eli Strobe, an he did n t 
 gree with em, he seen too much Eli Strobe, Big Man ! 
 in his office, ter suit em ; an now they air lookin fur a 
 
92 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 man what jes wants ter sarve the people, an that s my 
 bes wish." 
 
 The others sat and gazed solemnly at him, all medita 
 tively listening. For a moment there was no sound but the 
 munching of an ox close to him, as the beast pulled at the 
 pile of fodder on which he reclined. As the great horns 
 came threateningly near, he threw up his hand, and the ox 
 drew off with a muttered low of surly dissatisfaction. 
 
 " I can t onderstan Teck, though, I counted on him." 
 He returned to his grievance with a lapsing courage. 
 
 " Waal, ye mought ez well not," said an old codger, with 
 a grin. " Hev you-uns got a darter, seventeen year old ? " 
 
 The young man stared at him in amazement. 
 
 " Course I hain t." 
 
 " Waal, that s one o the special qualifications of a can 
 didate," continued the elderly wag. " A tall, high-steppin 
 darter, with long curly hair ; that s what ye need, ter run 
 agin Eli." 
 
 Nevins was silent for a moment, in painful consciousness 
 of this lack. He was a good-natured fellow, and had 
 thought his two small boys at home possessed of all the 
 filial graces and values, and he had never expected to be 
 summoned to covet a tall daughter of seventeen. He re 
 sorted to contradiction. 
 
 " That thar gal o Eli Strobe s ain t seventeen," he de 
 clared, " nor no higher n my vest pocket. I know her. I 
 useter see her constant." 
 
 " Waal, she s been agein an growin sence then. Least 
 wise, she s tall enough an old enough ter make Teck Jep- 
 son step around mighty spry. I ain t seen better election- 
 eerin fur forty year. I hed counted on the pleasure o hevin 
 Eli goin roun hyar with his finger in his mouth, but I m 
 feared o that gal o his n. Clem Sanders, too, war a-waitin 
 roun the forge fust thing this raornin , a-pinin fur nine 
 o clock, so ez the j edges would declar the polls open, an 
 let him put in his vote fur Eli. His ticket peared ter burn 
 his fingers till he got it inter the ballot-box." 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 93 
 
 " He in love with her, too ? " asked the candidate, drear 
 ily. He had never anticipated these potent odds. What 
 avail was it to parade the virtues of citizenship, to vaunt his 
 capacity and his will to serve the people in the office to 
 which he aspired, with tricksy Cupid afield ! 
 
 Nevins rose presently, the straw still in his mouth, his 
 hat pulled far over his brow, and sauntered down toward 
 the forge. The great red and white ox instantly planted 
 his cloven hoof where Nevins had sat, and took possession, 
 as it were, of the pile of forage, trampling it down, that it 
 might not afford further resting-place for loitering politi 
 cians. 
 
 The post-meridian sun was now a trifle aslant upon the 
 valley below ; purple shadows had begun to creep along the 
 green slopes. How warm was the fragrance of the grapes, 
 hanging upon a great vine that draped an oak from top 
 most bough to root, and which was pillaged as high as the 
 arm of man could reach ! The tall weeds were all resound 
 ing with the whir of acrobatic grasshoppers, now and then 
 leaping amazingly high into the air. Not a note came from 
 the birds now ; not a wing was astir. All the landscape 
 shimmered through the noontide heat. The forge, where 
 the three judges of the election sat with the precious, ballot- 
 box, of which they were sworn not to lose sight till the 
 polls were closed and the vote counted out, seemed a quiefc 
 and cool refuge, with its dark shadows, and its high, tent- 
 like roof, and its ill-chinked walls, affording glimpses of 
 the green vistas without. The little window at the rear, 
 into which that mysterious semblance of the smith had 
 stared, pale and reproachful, at its vigorous living self, was 
 wide open ; showing now a squirrel frisking by on the 
 mountain slope, and now only a devious winding path 
 amidst the greenth up the mountain-side, with the trumpet- 
 vine a-blooming scarlet over a gray rock, and in the low 
 branches of an elder-bush a bird on a nest. Now and then 
 faces were thrust in at this window, most often young 
 
94 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 and beardless, but sometimes old and grizzly, to curiously 
 scan the judges and the practical illustration of the theory 
 of election by suffrage. The judges, in rickety chairs, tilted 
 on the hind legs, demurely smoked their pipes, while the 
 clerk sat at the pine table on which the ballot-box rested. 
 The hearth was tireless, the hood smokeless, the anvil silent. 
 The stir outside came cheerily in, and when the line of vot 
 ers slackened, and no ballot had been deposited for some 
 time, and the interest of the proceedings seemed indefinitely 
 suspended, the judges looked wistfully through the open 
 door, and were not consoled for the dullness by their pre 
 eminence and responsibility and conspicuous honors. That 
 spirit of humor, always freakishly manifested in a crowd, 
 was quick to seize on the situation, and occasionally re 
 marks were made outside, pointed and personal, obviously 
 intended to be overheard within. 
 
 " Did you-uns know ez Jethro Peake war jedge o lec 
 tion ? " demanded one tousled-headed apparition, at the fa 
 mous batten shutter, of an unseen crony without. 
 
 " Never knowed he war jedge o nuthin ceptin jedge o 
 whiskey," the unseen crony replied. 
 
 And with these trivial incidents were bridged the inter 
 vals when it seemed as if all the district had voted that 
 cared to vote, and that there was naught more for the 
 judges but to sit in stately isolation, till the loitering sum 
 mer sun should dawdle down the western sky, and the hour 
 come when it would be lawful to declare the polls closed. 
 
 After a long time, when the stir of passing feet, the sound 
 of talking and laughter, the champing and whickering of 
 horses, had been more than usually marked to the tantalized 
 referees, whom the county court combined to honor, they 
 noted that an expectant stillness fell suddenly upon the 
 crowd. Then half a dozen men pushed into the blacksmith 
 shop, and turned about with excitement, as if to await and 
 watch an entrance at the door. Other men stood by with 
 out. There were half a dozen heads at the little window, 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 95 
 
 and the batten shutter was swinging. The bird had flown 
 from her nest in the elder-bush to a bough of a dogwood- 
 tree above, and perched there, with quivering, outspread 
 wings, and a feverish, excited eye, and a harsh, querulous, 
 ceaseless chirring. A ray of sunlight fell through a rift in 
 the clapboards like some splendid glittering lance, reaching 
 from the dusky, peaked roof to the " dirt-floor " beneath. 
 The polished face of the anvil caught the beam and reflected 
 it, all else was dark and shadowy ; even through the broad 
 door the light was only a vista of deep green leafage and 
 harmonious gray commingling tones, hardly definite enough 
 to be called shadow, but of tender and modulating effects ; 
 and the plows left to be sharpened, and the wheels to be 
 tired, and the bar on which the smith s tools hung, were but 
 dimly descried. Thus stepping suddenly into this shaft of 
 light, Jake Baintree s figure was singularly distinct, but was 
 not instantly recognized by the judges. One of them slowly 
 brought down the forelegs of his chair to the ground, and 
 sat looking at him, one hand on either knee, and with a 
 round, red, wondering face and an inquisitive eye. So long 
 it had been since Baintree was familiarly seen in Broom- 
 sedge going thence a stripling, returning a man that 
 the certainty of his identity gradually dawning on their 
 minds was not recognition, but inference. Who else un 
 known would present himself to cast his vote in their midst ? 
 Who else wore so blanched a face but the jail-bird, long 
 shut in from the sun and the wind and all the familiars of 
 the weather ? He was very tall and slender, and in the 
 shaft of light in which he stood, the extraordinarily sharp, 
 clear cutting of his features was apparent. His hair was 
 black and sleek, and lay close to his narrow head ; it had a 
 fine and thrifty look, like the coat of an animal. He seemed 
 very meek, but for all that his gray eye was uncertain, it 
 glittered. He looked about him with a comprehensive un 
 derstanding, unlike the dawdling inattention of the mountain 
 eers. As he offered the closely rolled scroll, his vote was 
 
96 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 challenged by one of the judges, and he was quick and 
 ready and self-possessed, and took the oath which Jethro 
 Peake administered, with a steady manner, and evidently 
 with a deliberate intention. He wished, perhaps, the crowd 
 thought, to show that he was entitled to vote ; that what 
 ever they might say, the law held him innocent and denied 
 him none of the rights of citizenship. Still with one hand 
 on each fat knee, and sitting very upright, Jethro Peake, 
 his round, red face, with a bristly, unshaven stubble about 
 the chin, solemn with the sense of the dignity and impor 
 tance of the occasion, demanded, 
 
 " Air you-uns cit zen o Tennessee ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Twenty-one ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Reside in this county ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Resided hyar six months fore this day ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 As the vote, the first he had ever cast, was accepted, he 
 looked curiously on, while the closely rolled scroll was 
 dropped unread into the ballot-box. Somehow he seemed 
 unaccountably disappointed by the mysterious silence in 
 which his choice was enveloped. He walked slowly toward 
 the door, looking back over his shoulder at the guarded bal 
 lot-box. Suddenly he remarked in a strange, offhand man 
 ner, " I ain t keerin who knows how my vote be gin. I 
 scratched one name off n my ticket. / know how ter write 
 Eli Strobe." 
 
 There were the makings of a politician in Joshua Nevins ; 
 he answered instantly from out the crowd, " I kin spare yer 
 vote, Jake Baintree. An ef I can t I d ruther be defeated 
 than hold office by the favor o a scape-gallows." 
 
 There was a sensation in the crowd, and some " scratched 
 tickets " were presently deposited that might have shown, 
 if unrolled, another name written in, that was not Strobe. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 97 
 
 A change ensued in the atmosphere of popular feeling. It 
 was not definite, but Teck Jepson, with a thousand fine 
 fibres of sensitiveness, which he had not known he pos 
 sessed, became painfully aware of it, and fiercely complained 
 to Eli Strobe. 
 
 " I in minded ter fling ye over the fence, Eli," he said. 
 " Ef ye hed n t gin yerse f ter upholdin that thai 1 Jake 
 Baintree, ye would n t hev been lumped with a murderer 
 like him." 
 
 Eli Strobe rested his slow, pompous gaze upon his friend. 
 
 u He ain t no murderer. An ef he war, his votin fur me 
 don t lump me with him." 
 
 He turned his heavy-lidded, full-lashed eyes ruminatively 
 upon the landscape, and said no more. Despite his delib 
 erate burly dignity, however, there was a sense of trouble 
 and perplexity about him, indefinitely perceptible, and he 
 evidently listened needfully when his friend and backer 
 rejoined, 
 
 " Waal, his votin fur you-uns, an tellin it out that-a- 
 way, will make a heap o folks vote agin ye. I be powerful 
 glad it never happened no sooner in the day, an ye hev got 
 what ye hev got. What ailed the darned idjit ? " 
 
 "I reckon he lowed he war cloin me a favior," said 
 Strobe, with unexpected moderation. " He wanted me an 
 all the folks ter know ez he war fur my lection. He never 
 voted afore. An he hev been cooped up in jail so long he 
 don t pear ter sense much bout some things. An yit, bout 
 others he pears powerful sly. Pore feller ! " 
 
 " Poor fool ! " ejaculated Jepson, irritably. " What ails 
 him ter set his heart dad-burn him ! on yer Section ? " 
 
 He grudged Jake Baintree any sentiment that he shared. 
 
 u Waal," said Eli, hesitating, " the folks down ter my 
 house tuk some thought o his n whenst his trial an im 
 prisonment war goin on, an I reckon he feels thankful. 
 Marcelly air one o them kind ez can t rest enny ef she lows 
 ennybody air hongry, or lackin eiiny wise ; an she toted 
 
98 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 em gyardin truck whenst they never planted, an helped em 
 sew an weave whenst they hed no heart ter work. It s the 
 natur o Marcelly." 
 
 Jepson stood with his hands in his pockets, his brows con 
 tracting heavily over his blue eyes, that the candidate s 
 daughter had thought so cruel and yet so deep. His hat 
 was drawn down over his face, and the shadow of the beech- 
 tree, circumscribed nearly to its minimum by the almost ver 
 tical sunshine, was soft upon it. He turned mechanically 
 when others joined the group, and he listened with frowning 
 displeasure to the suggestions of defeat that seemed some 
 how to be suddenly and bountifully deduced. 
 
 " I be powerful afeard- 1 hev flung my vote away on ye, 
 Eli," said Gideon Dake. " I never looked ter see ye hev 
 sech a backer ez Jake Baintree," with a jeering glance. 
 " An some others say the same." 
 
 " An yit," said Jepson, feeling keenly the instability of 
 popular sentiment, " the t other day, whenst I purvented him 
 from gittin baptized mongst the saints, a body would hev 
 lowed ez haffen the church members could n t rest easy in 
 the fold thout Jake Baintree mongst em. Sech a haulin 
 over the coals ez I got ! An now ye ain t willin fur him 
 ter jine ye at the polls, whar the devil s vote would n t be 
 challenged ef he hed been livin six months in the county." 
 
 Dake made no defense of this lack of logic on the part 
 of the community, but fell to whittling a stick with a large 
 clasp-knife, as he leaned against the bole of the tree. 
 
 " That ain t what makes me oneasy count o Eli." put in 
 an elderly grizzled wight with an air of pleasure in fetching 
 cumulative disabilities into the prospect. " Eli hev been 
 too spry ez constable ; he hev been too keen ter pry inter 
 the doin so folks agin the law. Now Nevins, he mought 
 do the same, an then agin he mought n t. He hain t been 
 tried, that s the main chance. Nobody s got no gredge 
 agin him, dunno nuthin bout his doin s in office. But 
 Eli, he hev been too sharp-set ter administer the law." 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 99 
 
 " Look-a-hyar," argued Jepson, ye be a-takin arter the 
 man fur doin of his jewty." 
 
 The elderly interlocutor prefaced his reply by an astute 
 wink. " His jewty air ter please the people, ef he wants ter 
 git lected agin ! " a golden rule for incumbents. 
 
 Jepson relapsed into moody silence, and this choice rea- 
 soner proceeded with an illustration in point : 
 
 " Eli can t low sleepin dogs ter lie. He ain t got no 
 scrimination. He dunno who ter sot the law onter, nor 
 who ter muzzle it fur. Thar s old Jer miah Miles jes 
 drawed a pistol ter skeer some o them bad boys out n his 
 watermillion patch, an* Eli, passin by, druv the boys out n 
 the patch, an then ups an rests the old man fur kerryin 
 concealed weepons. Thar s fourteen o the Miles kinsfolks 
 kem hyar ter vote ter-day." 
 
 If the officer had done amiss, his punishment seemed 
 likely to be greater than he could bear. Like most people 
 brought into propinquity with the law, Eli Strobe sought to 
 furnish a precedent rather than a justification. k Waal," he 
 argued, barely lifting his eyelids, " Sam Blake " his pred 
 ecessor in office " would hev done the same." 
 
 " Shucks ! " exclaimed the other. " I kin jes hear Sam 
 Blake a-hollerin ter them boys, Git out n this million patch, 
 or I 11 be the death o ye ! I 11 jail ye fore night. " Then 
 dropping his rough voice to dulcet courtesy, " Mister Miles, 
 got enny o them fine cantaloupes ter spare fur my saddle 
 bags ? I say, arrest old Miles fur kerryin concealed 
 weepons ! Sam Blake would jes hev begged a few canta 
 loupes, that s all, an never seen no pistol." 
 
 Teck Jepson could ill adapt his intolerant and domineer 
 ing spirit to the prospect of defeat, even when the cause 
 was not his own. He had made to-day perhaps the greatest 
 sacrifice to his affection of which he was capable, bending 
 his pride to beg of the community favor for another which 
 he could never have been brought to ask for himself. He 
 was weary of it all, and depressed, and the continual col- 
 
100 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 lision, in which he must restrain himself rather than con 
 strain others, irked him. If, among the narratives upon 
 which he loved to brood, he had ever heard of aught so 
 modern as the romances of the Middle Ages, the idea of 
 a knight sallying forth in search of noble adventure and 
 deeds of prowess, whereby he might prove himself worthy of 
 the fair, would have commended itself as cheap and easy 
 in comparison to his devoirs to earn the gratitude of the 
 candidate s daughter. 
 
 There are times that come to all of us when the trivial 
 incidents of the world pall, when the presence of crowds 
 weighs upon the spirit, when existence seems petty and sor 
 did, and we look back to some period of solitude, rich with 
 quiet thought or chosen and .cherished labor, with a suddenly 
 awakened sense that then we were clothed in our true iden 
 tity ; in that interval we verily lived rather than merely ex 
 ercised the respiratory* organs, and went about in the outer 
 disguise that wears our name and is recognized of men. 
 
 Perhaps in human experience naught might more fitly 
 foster this repulsion of the world than certain stages of a 
 political canvass. Jepson stood with his hat in his hand, 
 feeling foreign among them all, looking now down in the 
 valley, and again up to the great heights ; wondering sub- 
 acutely if it were only yesterday that he had heard David 
 sing to the dulcet measure of the lilting harp-strings, and 
 watched the moody Saul listening on his couch, his dexter 
 ous hand toying with the stealthy javelin, ready to launch it 
 at the head of the singer, only yesterday that he had seen 
 the high-priest s rod blossom in the tabernacle, had heard 
 the waters gush from the rock that Moses smote. Still the 
 solemn clouds, as then, mysteriously communed with peak 
 and cliff ; the radiant sunshine wore a rich effulgence 
 among the lonely and far-away ranges, blue and unreal, 
 like some fine deceit of the senses, ineffably ethereal as they 
 withdrew into the unseen spaces. The valley, mute and 
 peaceful, lay far below, with here and there a harvested 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE- COVE. . 101 
 
 field a tiny yellow square an^l a flash of water ; and 
 further, a wisp of smoke that came frbni ati invisible ofcim-; 
 ney, the only motion in the supreme tranquillity of the scene. 
 Here, higher up, where the massive purple range yawned 
 with the wide deep interval called Broomsedge Cove, which 
 seemed to be in the valley as one looked at the vast steep 
 stretches of the mountains above, and seemed on the range 
 when one looked down at the valley below, the men wran 
 gled loudly, the oxen lowed ; there was a great clamor 
 among the horses, and suddenly Teck Jepson heard his 
 name called. He turned slowly, to see his mare s hoof in 
 the hands of the blacksmith, who from his leaning posture 
 looked up, and nodded to him to approach. 
 
 Clem Sanders, ejected from the forge by its conversion 
 to the public uses, was devoting the day to the pursuit of 
 art for art s sake. He had on his leather apron, and the 
 sleeve of his hammer-arm was well rolled back, showing its 
 swelling cords. He carried a hammer in his hand, and was 
 going about examining the feet of all the horses that had 
 been ridden to the Settlement that day. He seemed by 
 some means to recognize his own work, and he would stoop 
 down and take the hoof up, and tell when he had made that 
 shoe and had shod that horse, and boast to the little group 
 of idlers how his work lasted. His face was a study when, 
 in catching up a hoof, he would descry the work of another 
 smith, his alert joy to discern defects, or dismayed solici 
 tude to perceive craft as good as his own or superior. It 
 was a happy moment with him now when he had one of the 
 clay-bank mare s hoofs upon his leather apron, between his 
 knees, as he stooped. 
 
 "One more sech shoein ez this, Teck," he remarked 
 oracularly, " an yer mare won t have nare frawg ter her huff." 
 
 He dropped the foot, and snatched up another so suddenly 
 that he nearly pulled the creature down ; Teck caught the 
 bridle and stroked her head, for she was restive, and then 
 stood reassuringly beside her as he looked at the groups 
 about. 
 
1&2 THE JPESZQT. OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 The polls were almost /Jeserted. The crowd around the 
 barges, 4 h$cl,gro";vn ^denser. The general conversation had 
 a wider range than the blacksmith s remarks on the hoof, 
 and the frog, and the shoe, and the nail. Dake and a man 
 from North Carolina, a visitor and a cousin of a neighbor 
 ing farmer, were turning the interval to account in the way 
 of a horse-trade, and about them stood a breathlessly inter 
 ested coterie, all eager to witness how the negotiation should 
 terminate ; all ready to advise, to dissuade, to instill suspi 
 cion ; all marking with thrills of excitement that invariable 
 phenomenon of bargain and sale, when the buyer is will 
 ing, the vendor is reluctant and haggles, swinging back to 
 eager entreaties and persuasive logic when the trade seems 
 likely to fall through. Other wrangles now and then 
 drowned their voices, and usurped the popular interest in 
 the horse-trade. 
 
 " Listen at Teck, now ! " cried Jube Donnard, the par 
 son s son. " Teck lows that thar leetle mare o his n, ez 
 be sca cely bridle-wise, kin go all the gaits. Naw, sir ! Naw, 
 sir ! That mare can t pace. I know all about that mare. 
 She don t kem of pacing stock. Daddy trot, mammy trot, 
 colt can t pace ! " 
 
 Jube was in his own person the most pointed contradiction 
 of his assertion. Piety as it was expressed in Broomsedge 
 Cove proved itself there as elsewhere no hereditary quality, 
 nor possessed of any traits of consanguinity. In Jube, the 
 parson s son, was filially repeated the long, lank paternal 
 frame, the lantern jaw, the narrow head, the small excited 
 gray eye, and the thin straight lips, one compressed upon 
 the other. But the spirit which animated the youth was 
 devoid of any similarity to that of the solemn ascetic 
 religionist ; and as Jube went at large in Broomsedge, it 
 seemed a disrespect in some sort for him to look so like his 
 father. A jovial caricature : the parson s image with a 
 jocose swagger ; the enthusiast s eye, lighted with a dancing 
 leer or eclipsed by a flexible wink ; a mouth grotesquely 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 103 
 
 solemn and frequented by all the well-worn jests and songs 
 of Broomsedge Cove. Even the old man himself sometimes 
 paused to look wonderingly at this junketing blade, so 
 like, yet so unlike, his recognition of himself. 
 
 Jube stood now with his hands in his pockets, his hat on 
 the back of his head and all askew, his solemn face intent, 
 watching the action of the mare as Teck led her out into 
 the open space and stood holding her bridle, while she 
 snorted and pawed impatiently, and bowed down her 
 head, and tossed her black mane. She was a very ordi 
 nary specimen, good-looking only because she was young, 
 and fat, and strong, and frisky. She had had the best of 
 care, and perhaps made a finer show than the facts war 
 ranted. Some of the galled-backed, grass-fed old cattle 
 near her turned their heads to mark her airs, with a sort 
 of slow and surprised disapproval in their meek and jaded 
 eyes. 
 
 " I hev hearn that sayin all my days, daddy trot, 
 mammy trot, colt ca-a-nt pace," the parson s son reiterated, 
 with a long lingering twang upon the negative declaration. 
 
 " This filly kin," stoutly asseverated Teck. " She kin go 
 all the gaits. She kin pace. An she kin trot like a fox, 
 an run like a deer, an walk like a cat on a pallet." 
 
 ; I 11 bet ye a dollar an a half," said the parson s son, 
 " ez this hyar hoss-critter o mine kin beat her enny gait 
 she s a mind ter travel. I dare ye put her out now, an try 
 her along the road ter the sulphur spring toler ble level 
 all the way." 
 
 The hoss-critter was a bay, furnished with the usual 
 complement of ribs evidently, and with a tail and mane that 
 seemed sunburned a dull yellow, so unnatural was the color ; 
 but he picked up his feet well, he was about sixteen hands 
 high, and according to the mountain estimate of speed he 
 had a speedy look. 
 
 Teck had put his foot into the stirrup ; there was a stir of 
 excitement in the crowd. Half a dozen were backing the 
 
104 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 little mare, but the sunburned nag had his friends too, and 
 a spirited clamor arose. Upon it Eli Strobe s bass voice 
 boomed suddenly : 
 
 " I warn ye now, hoss-racin an a-bettin on it air agin 
 the law ; an ef ye boys ondertake ter bet yer money an 
 race yer bosses, I 11 ondertake ter arrest ye. I be con 
 stable yit." He had his hands in his pockets, and he strode 
 a few paces to and fro in the crowd, his hat pulled down 
 over his lowering eyes, from which shot now and then a 
 watchful surly side-glance. The young men were arrang 
 ing to start together from an oak-tree at the farther end of 
 the clearing. They gave no heed to the threat of the con 
 stable. An elderly farmer assumed the negative in the dis 
 cussion : 
 
 " Shucks, Eli, ain t I seen races run yander ter Glaston, 
 an* ain t they got a reg lar race-track thar ? " 
 
 " That s cordin ter law," said the officer. " The law s 
 mighty partic lar in the diff unces it makes. Racin at a 
 reg lar race-track ain t no harm, an bettin ain t nuther, 
 kase it s puttin suthin in the State s pocket, bein ez the 
 race-track folks hev ter pay fur a license. But racin on a 
 common road an a-bettin demau lizes the young men an 
 air agin the dignity o the State." He still stood with his 
 hands in his pockets, balancing himself alternately on the 
 heels and the toes of his boots. " The State s mighty 
 partic lar." 
 
 The singular logic of this utterance occasioned no sur 
 prise. Unsophisticated as his auditors were, they were far 
 too wise to reason with the law. They stood meditating on 
 this view, chewing hard, and looking vaguely about them, 
 hardly wondering whether the young men would balk them 
 of their sport in deference to the constable s threat, or 
 whether they would persist and ride a race on the common 
 road, thus doing a damage to the dignity of the State. 
 
 " Ye jes let em alone," remonstrated the old farmer. 
 " Ye air sech a stirrer up o strife, Eli, through tryin ter be 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOM^EDGE COVE. 105 
 
 sech a stickler fur the law. T ain t yer business ter be so 
 tarrifyin ter the kentry." 
 
 The horse-trade was complete, the exchange made, the 
 boot paid, and the stranger from North Carolina had left 
 the Settlement. Gideon Dake, satisfied with his acquisi 
 tion, mounted the roan steed and trotted about for a time, 
 showing its paces to the crowd. Presently he dismounted, 
 and looked the animal over. Some of his friends came up, 
 and, with the unerring perspicacity of that genus exerted 
 upon the new purchase, their comments roused his anxiety. 
 He turned from them in alarm, after a few minutes. 4k Eli," 
 he said, in confused haste, do ye know ennything bout n 
 a horse s eyes ? I be sort n feard he ; s moon-eyed, or 
 suthin . Don t his eyes look cur ous ter you-uns ? " 
 
 Strobe took hold of the headstall, and the horse, uneasy 
 at being stared oat of countenance, tossed his head hastily 
 backward. 
 
 " I can t see the critter," said Strobe, once more pulling 
 the animal s head down to his own shorter stature. 
 
 " He could n t be blind, or lacking eyesight, could he, 
 Eli ? Hey ! Hey ! Hello thar ! Hev that thar North 
 Ca liny fox gone ? " Dake called out to a man near the 
 blacksmith shop. " He hev gone ! He hev gone," in fren 
 zied accents, " He hev gone ter I dunno whar ! with my 
 sound mare an five dollars boot ! " He made a pass with 
 his hand before the eyes of the animal, who winked vio 
 lently and tossed up his head. But that might have been 
 only because he felt the wind of the motion. His unwilling 
 owner moved back a pace, and taking his hat from his head 
 a large dark object passed it quickly up and down, 
 too far for the animal to feel the stir in the air, yet near 
 enough to alarm or surprise him if he could see it. The 
 constable stood looking on with interest, awaiting the result 
 of the experiment, when a sudden thunder of galloping 
 hoofs smote the air. 
 
 He turned to see in full progress the race he had inter- 
 
106 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 dieted. Along the sandy slope Jepson s little mare led five 
 others, bounding under whip and spur, her head stretched 
 out long and straight, her tail and inane flying, her body 
 close to the ground, the dust rising in clouds beneath her 
 hoofs. 
 
 It was a rash thing to do, and Eli Strobe, one of the most 
 reasonable of men, would perchance never have risked it 
 save for the applause that greeted her ; one quavering voice 
 arose, then the rotund swelling of cheers. He could not 
 endure to see the race run and applauded in open defiance 
 of the law. He rushed out to meet the animal, and spring 
 ing at her neck he caught the bridle, throwing his full 
 weight upon it. The mare, frightened, reared, despite the 
 heavy burden at her head. She pawed the air with her 
 forefeet. Then, as she broke loose, the man fell with a ter 
 rible wrench, and away she went, with a cloud of dust skir- 
 rying after her like a witches dance. 
 
 Jepsoii reined up on the opposite rise, for he reached it 
 the next moment ; the other riders had not followed. He 
 saw their horses shy away, one by one, from the prostrate 
 figure that seemed a lifeless heap in the road. Did it stir ? 
 Or did the bystanders, rushing to it, move it in some way, 
 seeking to aid ? A bloody face was upturned ; the crowd 
 interposed, and he saw no more. 
 
 At one side of the road, unheeding the tragedy, stood the 
 man who doubted his horse s sight, still waving his hat up 
 and down before the creature s eyes, to discover if he would 
 flinch. 
 
VII. 
 
 IT was only for a short time that the wounded man lay 
 as one dead. His consciousness gradually returned ; his 
 eyelids fluttered and opened slowly ; he gazed about with 
 a dazed and fluctuating attention, while he still remained, 
 gasping and bleeding, upon the ground. Then by a mighty 
 effort he rallied his faculties ; with the recognition of his 
 own lapsed identity, his normal expression returned to the 
 quivering features, in lieu of the pallid, absent, alien look 
 they had worn. This was Eli Strobe again ; badly shaken, 
 but still Eli Strobe. He struggled to his feet, and, tremu 
 lous and silent, he took his way down the path toward his 
 home. A few officious friends strove to assist him as he 
 went, and they kept pace with his tottering gait. Others 
 lingered at the forge, looking vaguely after him, and then 
 at Teck Jepson, who was on the crest of the hill, under the 
 broad spread of the oak boughs, still mounted, and gazing 
 back upon the scene. The mare, so suddenly checked in 
 the race, was restive, and impatiently pawed and tossed her 
 head, then reared and plunged as the rider turned back. 
 More than once she bolted and tried to run, the recollection 
 of the race so abruptly cut short still rousing her spirit and 
 vibrating in her strong muscles. The curb held her to a 
 slow gait, but her ears were laid back, giving her a vixenish 
 look, and her full eye rolled as she came mincing sidewavs 
 down the hill, ready to jump at any moment, her whole as 
 pect oddly incongruous with the pale, anxious face of the 
 rider. 
 
 It was he, doubtless, that first of all the crowd saw a light 
 figure, swift and lithe, running at full speedy albeit the hill 
 
108 THE DESPOT OF BROOMS EDGE COVE. 
 
 was rugged and steep, to meet the wounded man, now 
 disappearing amongst the laurel, and again flying along an 
 open, level stretch ; her curling hair floating in the wind, 
 her eyes dilated, her face pallid, her breath coming in quick 
 gasps. She had seen it all from the porch, Jepson thought. 
 She must know that he was not to blame. He drew a long 
 breath of relief, and urged the mare down the hill toward 
 the men. He was near enough to hear her words, as she 
 dashed in amongst them. 
 
 " Leave him be," she said, with didactic composure. " I 
 be goin ter lead him home. I 11 keer fur him." 
 
 She offered to take the arm that the blacksmith held. 
 
 " Don t ye know, Marcelly, ez I be a heap stronger n 
 ye ? " remonstrated Clem Sanders. 
 
 " Naw ; Marcelly 11 take keer o me. Whar s Mar 
 celly ? " piped out Eli Strobe in a weak voice. " Whar s 
 Marcelly ? Marcelly ? " he reiterated, as if he clung to 
 the familiar name like a landmark amidst some strangely 
 wrought chaos, " Marcelly ? " 
 
 He leaned upon her arm, and he turned toward her now 
 and then with an uncertain look in his eye. u Marcelly ? " 
 he said, with the tone of one suddenly awakened. 
 
 " Hyar me," her soft voice responded. 
 
 The blank stare in his face gave way to an evident satis 
 faction. He nodded once or twice, and trudged on. 
 
 Presently once more an abrupt pause. " Marcelly ? " 
 again with a poignant uncertainty and interrogation. And 
 again " Hyar me," in dulcet, reassuring tones. 
 
 She could even conjure a smile into her pale face and a 
 glancing lustre into her distended eyes, while he looked un 
 steadily and doubtfully at her. But when he began to plod 
 on once more, the blood dripping from the cut in his head 
 clown upon his dust-grimed clothes, muttering now and 
 again "Marcelly?" as if this were some cabalistic phrase, 
 hard to grasp, and when once lost never to be found again, 
 a vague terror overspread her features and shone in her 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 109 
 
 wild and excited eyes. Once or twice she turned, and 
 looked an appealing, piteous inquiry at the men who walked 
 beside her, a blank, dull surprise on their faces. 
 
 When Isabel, who had followed her sister more slowly 
 because of the obstacles the sharp stones and briers fur 
 nished her bare, sunburnt feet, joined them, he stretched 
 out his hand gropingly, and laid it on her head. " Ye air 
 Is bel ! " he declared, with an evident effort of recog 
 nition. 
 
 " Laws-a-massy, yes," retorted the pert maiden. " I 
 would n t be nobody else fur nuthin ." 
 
 He kept his hand on her head as she walked beside him, 
 albeit she remonstrated that he pulled her scalp backward ; 
 and as he went he muttered, " Marcelly Is bel," and 
 again, * Marcelly Is bel." 
 
 It seemed a long time before they reached the bars of 
 the fence, and went down the broad turn-row of the field, 
 through the green and glistening Indian corn, to the door- 
 yard of the little cabin. 
 
 One might feel in these unshaded and loamy slopes the 
 full richness of the expending spirit of the summer sun, the 
 responsive climaxing ripeness of the herbage of the earth. 
 So broad, so glossy, were the great leaves ; so full of vigor 
 and grace, so definite and erect, the tall and stalwart stalks ! 
 And how somnolently melodious, how charged with languor 
 ous post-meridian sentiment, was the song of the cicada that 
 issued forth ! A lizard, swift and noiseless, slipped across 
 the path, his fine yet dull colors showing in the light. The 
 shadows of the chestnut-tree at the gate seemed black with 
 all this yellow glare. A cat slept on the rickety gate-post, 
 despite the enmity of the dog of the " frequent visitor," 
 who had spent his limited energies in barking and bound 
 ing about it, and now sat and besieged it in silent patience 
 and with a lolling tongue. The vines were fluttering about 
 the porch ; the passage between the two rooms was dark 
 and cool. Teck Jepson, following, watched the group dis- 
 
110 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 appear within the door. Then he dismounted, and hitched 
 the mare to the gate-post ; the dog of the " frequent visitor " 
 relaxed his vigilance to greet the new-comer with an amity 
 that expressed all the compliments of the season. Jepson 
 gave him no notice ; hut the mare shied violently and backed 
 her ears as he leaped about her, and the cat on the gate-post 
 took advantage of the opportunity, and ran up the chestnut- 
 tree. 
 
 Jepson hesitated ; he started slowly along the path 
 amongst the luxuriant grass and weeds, where a coterie of 
 turkeys and ducks were pecking about; then he turned 
 back, and stood leaning with one arm upon the gate-post, 
 his hat drawn down over a moody, anxious brow, now look 
 ing meditatively at the little house, as silent and as solemn 
 as the vast dark mountain behind it, and again vaguely 
 glancing toward the forge, where he could see the gossips 
 clustering around the door, the huddled horses at the rack, 
 the slow ruminative oxen unyoked and lying about in the 
 clearing, and here and there a cumbrous white-covered 
 wagon. Above were the great cliffs, beginning to show 
 a sunset glow ; and now and then might be discerned 
 in the forest the pathway of the invisible wind in the 
 fainter tints of the reverse side of the leaves, upturned 
 under even this light step, and marking a narrow line 
 amongst the dense and dark foliage, as it stole down the 
 slopes. 
 
 Suddenly, men silent and with grave faces came out of 
 the house. His heart gave a great throb their faces were 
 so like those that men bore at the little rural funerals that 
 had hitherto formed, in his experience, the chief expression 
 of the majesty of death, and the more terrible irrevocability 
 of opportunity, their manner so like the cumbrous, awk 
 ward show of respect and sympathy for the mourners. It 
 seemed strange to him that he should note at that moment 
 so vagrant are our thoughts, so little held in leash by 
 the will how still the mountain stood, how fairly the sun 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. Ill 
 
 shone, how freshly blew the wind, unmindful, unmindful ! 
 The soul is the alien on the earth, and the earth heeds not 
 the in-coming of this strange essence, nor the out-going. 
 A strong trembling fell upon every fibre. He looked sud 
 denly gaunt as he strained forward, whispering with pale 
 lips, " Dead ? Dead ? " 
 
 Their eyes with one accord rested upon him. Clem 
 Sanders slowly shook his head ; then turned to Bassett, as 
 if doubtful nevertheless, and desiring confirmation. Once 
 more Jepson s dry lips framed the word " Dead ? " but no 
 sound came. fc 
 
 " Naw," said Bassett, " not ez ye mought say dead 
 but " He paused, and shook his head. 
 
 " Naw, he ain t dead," said Dake hastily ; " he may be 
 like ter die, fur all I know. He be out n his head, an yit 
 he ain t out n his head. I never hear sech talk." Then 
 speaking to Bassett he added, " Ye mought tell Teck 
 a leetle quicker, kno\vin ez he hev got ter answer 
 fur it." 
 
 Jepson turned, with a flush and a flash of the eye. " Ye 
 low ez^ I be a-keerin fur that the answerin fur it ! Naw, 
 sir ! It s the doin o sech ez be a-killin me. I would n t 
 hev done it ! I would n t hev done it ! " He struck his 
 hands despairingly together above his head. Then his con 
 sciousness of their entertained eyes, which expressed a sort 
 of sub-acute unrealized pleasure in the painful excitement, 
 asserted itself, and he leaned passively against the post, 
 silent and unresponsive when they spoke ; and presently 
 they all passed through the gate, along the turn-row and up 
 the slope to the forge, to detail the news to the waiting- 
 crowd, and hear in turn the speculations elicited. 
 
 He stood as still as if he had turned to stone, his elbow 
 on the post, the mare s graceful head close to the broad 
 brim of his hat, the dog of the " frequent visitor," an ani 
 mal of facile allegiance, at his heavily booted and spurred 
 feet ; he did not stir even when he saw the door open and 
 
112 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 shut slowly, and Marcella, still pale-faced and large-eyed, 
 emerge upon the porch. She stood, evidently preoccupied, 
 for a moment amidst the luxuriant jack-bean blossoms, pur 
 ple and white, that overran the rickety little structure. 
 Then, although her eyes had rested on him some little time, 
 she seemed suddenly to perceive him. He could not inter 
 pret the expression on her face. Her light figure was 
 poised for a moment, as if she were uncertain whether she 
 might advance or disappear. Then she came to the verge 
 of the porch, leaning forward and lifting the blossoming 
 tendrils that she might look through at him. She stretched 
 forth her hand and beckoned him. His blood gave a great 
 bound in his veins. He felt the hot color in his cheek. 
 His heart was beating so wildly, so heavily, that he could 
 not hear the rustle of the lush grass as his quick strides 
 bore him across the yard, or the abrupt and frantic outcry 
 of the frightened poultry scuttling away. There were 
 unwonted tears in his eyes ; he could have wept in glad 
 humility for the joy of her generosity. He hastily stretched 
 forth his hand to clasp hers which held the vine, but she 
 withdrew it abruptly, and he only clasped the vines, warm 
 from the touch of her hand. As he looked up at her she 
 looked down at him, inscrutably. 
 
 " What war ye a-waitin thar fur ? " she demanded in a 
 low voice, and with an anxious glance toward the window 
 close at hand. 
 
 " Ter know ef thar be ennything I kin do fur ye," he 
 said. 
 
 She looked away at the refulgent golden-red glow of sun 
 set-tide, that filled all the air over the wooded valley and 
 the mountain above, till it touched the serene and colorless 
 east. 
 
 Then she said slowly, "Yes, ye kin do suthin fur me." 
 Her eyes met his. " Go up ter the mounting an kern 
 back no mo ! " Her voice was intense and low. Her 
 straight, defiant brows were knitted ; her eyes, once so oft ? 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 113 
 
 had a fierce glitter. " I never want ter see yer face agin 
 whilst I live." 
 
 " Marcelly ! " he faltered, amazed. 
 
 " Go up ter the mounting ! " she reiterated. " An when, 
 mebbe, ez the time goes, ye low I mought be changin my 
 mind, remember I tuk the trouble ter call ye hyar, an tell ye 
 thar never war a woman ez hated a man like I hate you-uns. 
 Some o em hated one another in the Bible, did n t they ? 
 Study bout n em. Fur none o em hated like me ! " 
 
 "Marcelly ! " he cried again, pleadingly. ** I never done 
 it a-purpose." 
 
 She let her hands fall on either side with a gesture of 
 indifference. " Ye mought ez well." 
 
 She knew her power. She saw his pain, and she rejoiced 
 in the retributive pangs. 
 
 " I war all day a-tryin ter holp him in the lection," he 
 protested. " I did everything I could fur him. T war his 
 fault, an ef ye seen it ye air bleeged ter know it." 
 
 She looked at him with disdainful eyes. " Mought save 
 yerse f from the court that-a-way, mought n t ye ? But ye 
 won t hanker fur Sol mon ter try yer case, will ye ? " 
 
 Her face was suddenly smitten with a ghastly look, as 
 she realized what that possible future for him involved for 
 her father. 
 
 " Marcelly ! " he cried, in pity for her, divining her 
 thought. 
 
 She recovered in a moment. She bore a stanch heart 
 within her. 
 
 " Go up ter the mounting ! " She lifted her hand, and 
 pointed through the flowers to the stern fastnesses against 
 the sky. " An ef I could hev it so by sayin Go out n the 
 world, I d say it ! " 
 
 She turned from the vines, a light step, the flutter of 
 a garment, the cautious closing of a door, and she was gone. 
 
 He waited for a time, believing that she would relent ; 
 she could but come back with some word of mercy, or par- 
 
114 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 don, or cheer for him. He still held the vines aside, and 
 looked through into the open passage of the house, fearful 
 that she might come forth and think him gone, not seeing 
 him here. It was strangely still ; presently a rooster, 
 bronze and red and yellow, sprang upon the puncheons of 
 the passage, and muttering inarticulately to himself strutted 
 back and forth, his claws ploddingly audible. And now he 
 was gone. Upon the post of the porch, close at hand, a 
 tree-toad began to shrill. Jepson saw the creature after a 
 little, a dull greenish-brown color against the weathered 
 gray of the unpainted wood. How acute his senses were ! 
 He was conscious of noticing the curious climbing feet of 
 the tiny reptile, as he stood. Women after a time came to 
 the house with baskets on their arms, containing infallible 
 domestic remedies or bundles, hoping to supply some house 
 hold deficiency. They looked curiously at him ; two or three 
 made a motion as if they would speak, then desisted, and 
 went their way. He cared nothing for his pale and agitated 
 face, his wild, eager eyes. His pride seemed spent. He 
 was glad they had seen him. They would tell her he waited 
 without. And surely she would then come with some word 
 to salve the wounds she had dealt. He would be grateful 
 for so little. He could wait so long. 
 
 Not so long as he fancied. There came through the 
 window the sound of an unfamiliar voice, he thought at first, 
 strangely mouthing, and presently rising into a dolorous 
 cry. He listened, trembling guiltily. It was Eli Strobe s 
 voice. And when he realized this he could hear no more, 
 his fortitude was overtaxed. He could wait for no re 
 ward, within the sound of those tones. 
 
 He turned, strode swiftly to the gate, flung himself upon 
 the restive mare, and the quick thud of her hoofs along the 
 beaten ways of the turn-row announced his departure to 
 those within. He was going up the mountain, as she had 
 bidden him. He was going he cared not where to 
 the mountains as instinctively as a bird might seek the 
 woods. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. Ho 
 
 They called to him, as he passed the forge, for news of 
 Eli Strobe. He shook his head ; he had no news to give. 
 The votes had been counted, and the local politicians, even 
 in this hour of stress, did not fail to communicate the fact, 
 and one or two triumphant souls shouted to him, as he 
 spurred away, that Eli Strobe was reflected. He did not 
 slacken his speed, for all the rough road, nor draw rein in 
 fording the plunging torrent. The mare s neck was vainly 
 downstretched toward the limpid swiftness ; its very breath, 
 the dank perfumes of its banks, indescribably refreshing 
 at the end of the sultry day. The sun was slowly with 
 drawing its fervid presence. The wind rode abreast up 
 and up the mountain. Jepson seemed to go to meet the 
 night, for the shadows trooped from the east, and only the 
 lengthening miles of valley and steeps behind him were 
 pensively splendid in the rich afterglow of the prodigal day ; 
 to meet the night, heralded in the melancholy gloom under 
 the pines, in the vague, indefinable pain with which we 
 loose our hold on each successive day, in the sense of quiet 
 and silence lacking in the gorgeous, albeit noiseless, pageant 
 of sunset-tide ; to meet the night, with its pensive presenti 
 ments of sorrow, its prophetic intimation of some longer 
 space of null and dark futurity. The mare climbed the 
 rugged ways now with a freshened will. Home, that even 
 the animals cherish, lay at the end of the road, and she be 
 gan to recognize her rider s intention thither. As she 
 threaded the tangles of the laurel, a faint, blood-curdling 
 sound smote her quick senses. A wolf was howling afar 
 off in these primeval fastnesses. She snorted as she went, 
 and trembled. A star was at the zenith. A great fir 
 seemed to touch it with the dark, slender line of its spire. 
 An open, rocky space, and Jepson could see the dark west 
 ern mountains, all glooming, the sunset faded out save for 
 a lingering red streak along the horizon, a dull and dusky 
 tint in the closing obscurity. Below, mists were a-stalking 
 down the valley ways, spectral in the vague light that barely 
 
116 THE DESPOT OF BROOMStiDGE COVE. 
 
 made them visible. They claimed that weird and ghostly 
 hour ; and now and then one peered out from amongst the 
 crags hard by, and drew back aghast, it might seem, at the 
 sight of a human being in these preemptions of solitude, 
 where it should meet only its own disembodied kindred. 
 The mare shied from them with dilated eyes, and chafed 
 at the bit, and plunged and fretted because of the momentary 
 pause. 
 
 Jepson marked, far as it was, the lights in the depression 
 where Broomsedge lay, like a skein of fireflies, and he 
 gazed down with a pained and throbbing heart, a troublous 
 remorse and a contradictory sense of self-exculpation, a 
 poignant sympathy with Marcella, and, nevertheless, a pul 
 sing, sensitive resentment. " T war a accident, nuthin 
 but a accident," he muttered to himself. And then he bit 
 his lip, remembering her caustic jeer of utilizing this inter 
 pretation. Once more the howl of the wolf, strangely 
 nearer than before. 
 
 " How them critters kin travel ! " he said. 
 
 Then even his strong hand had much ado to hold the 
 mare, snorting and plunging, and pushing now through the 
 laurel, now amidst the gaunt and sterile cliffs on the toil 
 some homeward way, whether he would or no. The rocks 
 echoed her hoof-beats ; she seemed to the listening ear the 
 first of a file of horse, a phantom file, for here and there, 
 where the road was open, and the dull light still showed its 
 curves, it was visibly vacant, for all the measured pace that 
 sounded between the crags. How lonely were these great 
 rocks in the wilderness and the vast silences ! With what 
 precipitate avidity they caught at a sound, repeating it from 
 one to another, as if it had some strange significance, some 
 prophecy, perchance, that they should hoard against its ful 
 fillment. Of all the forms of inanimate nature, they alone 
 seemed to him sentient in some sort ; and appealing from 
 their isolation, they alone sought to communicate with crea 
 tures endowed with a motor life, through those mysteries of 
 the elastic air, set vibrating with a word. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 117 
 
 " Marcelly ! " he cried out, with some wild desire to hear 
 the wilderness voice her name. The whole world seemed 
 to respond with a subdued acclaim. 
 
 " Marcelly ! " the mellow tone rang from the heights 
 above. " Marcelly ! " thU tender echoes of the valley re 
 plied. And now a crystalline fine vibration from the upper 
 atmosphere, " Marcelly ! " as if the magic word were spoken 
 in the strange scenes of that lucent and glittering star. 
 
 He recovered in a moment his normal stolidity. He would 
 have hushed, if he could, the voices he had summoned. The 
 mare quickened her pace anew. As he emerged from the 
 densities of the wilderness into the high vantage-ground of 
 Bowles s clearing, the vast splendor of the thickly instarred, 
 moonless sky was before him, so far and foreign it was, 
 so dark the earth lay beneath, so drear. And he hardly 
 cared that the dull orange glow coming from the notch was 
 the light of his hearthstone, although the young mare whick 
 ered gleefully at the sight, and went up the long, steep hill 
 at a prancing pace, and with sundry plunges that threatened 
 to unseat her practiced rider. 
 
 He took the saddle from her back as soon as he dis 
 mounted, none too quickly, for she instantly rolled over 
 upon the ground, her iron-shod feet awkwardly waving in 
 the air. Then, as she gathered herself up with a snort of 
 satisfaction, she set out for the barn and the water-trough 
 with a capable air, evidently used to serving her own sup 
 per and making her own bed. 
 
 As Jepson entered the firelit room, Ben Bowles, sitting 
 beside the hearth, his elbows on his knees, his pipe in his 
 mouth, roused himself from a sort of lethargy of idleness, 
 and a slow smile began to make more distinctly indented 
 the many wrinkles around his mouth and hay-colored beard. 
 His mild eyes shone with such pleasure as so definite a clod 
 might be presumed to feel, but he glanced dubiously at his 
 wife before he ventured to speak. 
 
 " Air that you-uns, Teck ? Powerful glad ter see ye 
 back hyar," he said cordially. 
 
118 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 " I ain t company enough fur him, Teck," said Mrs. 
 Bowles, with an assertive smile, displaying all her fine teeth. 
 
 " Laws-a-massy, jes listen at M ria, now ! " Her hus 
 band gallantly scouted the idea, but he looked somewhat 
 deprecatory of having laid himself liable to this interpreta 
 tion. 
 
 Jepson glanced about him, heedless of both. 
 
 " Whar s the chill ii ? " he demanded. " Gone ter bed ? " 
 
 " Whar ye reckon ? " retorted Mrs. Bowles, with a flash 
 of her bead-like eyes. " Ye s pose I hev made sassingers 
 or minch-meat out n em?" 
 
 " Ye air ekal ter it," her brother-in-law ruthlessly de 
 clared. 
 
 The mild Ben Bowles deserved, perhaps, a better fate 
 than the continual futility of his efforts to preserve the 
 peace about him. So much tact, so perfected by practice, 
 seemed wasted here. 
 
 " Ha, ha ! " He forced a laugh, affecting to interpret 
 facetiously the retort and the counter-retort. " Nare one 
 o em hev got meat enough on thai* bones ter be wuth the 
 scrapin , ceptin it air Bob. Ha, ha ! Bob s fat enough." 
 
 Jepson s only rejoinder was a glance of scorn. He strode 
 over to the shadowy corner where the children lay, and 
 looked down at Sim s pale, unhappy face, with its marks of 
 sullen sorrow all undispelled, even in its absent, far-away 
 expression. Aminty s had the solemnity of sleep upon it, 
 and her tossed and tangled hair about it. Bob s wide-open 
 twinkling hazel eyes shut instantly in feigned slumber the 
 moment they encountered Jepson s. The diplomatist of 
 four snored gently. 
 
 Jepson made no comment, but turned back to the broad 
 hearth, slowly divesting himself of his powder-horn and 
 shot-pouch. The firelight glanced upon his full blue eyes ; 
 the fairness of his brow contrasted sharply with his sun-em 
 browned cheeks, and had a definite line across it where the 
 brim of his hat had ceased to cast its shade. The spurs on 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 119 
 
 the heels of his long boots, that reached to his knee, gave 
 out a dull metallic glitter. His brown jeans coat was begirt 
 by a broad leather belt, and his massive, well-formed figure 
 seemed taller than usual, since the others, seated, were fain 
 to look up. Mrs. Bowles s eyes had a certain speculation 
 in their bead-like brightness, as she sat silently gazing at 
 him for a time. 
 
 Then suddenly, Ye need n t be holdin yer jaw, Teck. 
 I know jes ez well ez ef I hed seen him ez that thar Bob 
 air a-lyin thar broad awake, like a fox, or possum, or 
 suthin , though he hev been tole forty times " she lifted 
 her voice that the youth should hear " ez the devil will 
 kem arter him an ketch him ef he waits ter go ter sleep till 
 the house be dark. 1 tell ye now what I m a-goin ter do. I m 
 a-goin ter put him out n doors, ter keep company with them 
 t other night rampagers, bars, ez eat fat boys, an painters, 
 an sech. An Bob 11 feel powerful lonesome out thar in 
 the dark mountings, a-tryin ter git away from em, this 
 road an that. His legs air short, an he can t run fas . An* 
 he be so fat he mus be toler ble heavy ter hisself ter tote." 
 
 There was a vague stir under the quilts. Even the small 
 stoic could but writhe a little in prophetic anguish at this 
 prospect. 
 
 Jepson turned abruptly, strode again to the bed, caught 
 the child by the collar of his nightgown, and the next mo 
 ment Bob was sitting in his chair before the fire, looking 
 very rotund in his straight garment, and gazing with wide, 
 apprehensive eyes at his step-mother, expectant of the blow 
 that always came when she was thwarted. She did not 
 deal it now. She was constrained by the eye of the man 
 as he stood once more on the hearth, busying himself with 
 the strap that held his powder-horn. 
 
 "An when enny bars, or painters, or devils, or folks 
 take arter ye, Bob, jes call on me, sir. an I 11 tend ter em." 
 He glanced down, and nodded convincingly. 
 
 Bob looked up at the big man with a grave and plump 
 
120 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 countenance. He gave a little sigh of relief, but he did not 
 venture upon words. His pink toes were more rosy in the 
 light of the fire, and now and then curled in the enjoyment 
 of the warmth, for the night was chilly on the mountain. 
 His great wakeful eyes dwelt on the flames. He filled his 
 little armchair very comfortably, and his hair, standing up 
 straight in front, gave him a quaintly grotesque look. 
 
 Ben Bowles skillfully preserved an air of unconsciousness 
 of the clashing in the domestic circle. Mrs Bowles seemed 
 for a moment likely to acquiesce without demur in the rule 
 of the stronger. Then a flush rose through her clear olive 
 skin, and overspread her blunt features. Her strong white 
 teeth showed in a satiric smile. That added significant 
 glitter in her small dark eves struck Jepson s attention. As 
 he held the powder-horn in his hand he paused, and looked 
 down intently at her. She noted his glance. Her desire 
 to harass was strong, but she could not restrain her caustic 
 tongue, or she might have baffled his curiosity. 
 
 " Keep on, Teck," she said sarcastically, " keep on the 
 way ye air a-goin . Set pore leetle Bob up thar ter ketch 
 his death o cold, an take an axe an hack me an Ben up, 
 an set the house afire, an ennything ! Ye air ekal ter 
 ennything arter what we hev hearn ter-day." 
 
 " Hearn what, ter-day ? " he asked, marveling how the 
 news of the disaster had reached these untrodden, secluded 
 wilds. 
 
 " Oh, nuthin ," she said, flashing her eyes at him. 
 
 " Laws-a-massy, M ria," Ben Bowles ventured to remon 
 strate, he would fain have ignored the whole incident, 
 " let Teck tell us just what did happen. Mought be some 
 mistake." 
 
 She laughed, and sneered too. "Toler ble large-sized 
 mistake, sartin, ter kill Eli Strobe jes kase his darter 
 would n t marry ye turned ye off ! Gals air choosers 
 one time in thar lives, ennyhow." She tossed her head 
 with a lively relish of this limited ascendency. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 121 
 
 Jepson was shaken with a wild fear that they had had 
 later news from the Cove than he. Then he remembered 
 that no one had entered or left the room since his return. 
 
 " Eli Strobe war n t dead whenst I left Brumsaidge," he 
 replied calmly. 
 
 " Thar, now, M ria, what did I tell ye ? " expostulated 
 Bowles. 
 
 <k Ye tole me," she perversely retorted, " ez Teck war too 
 sharp an smart ter git inter enny sech trouble, even ef he 
 war n t none too good fur it." 
 
 Jepson recognized the facile temporizing of Bowles in. 
 this, and he noted the quick flush on the cheek of the master 
 of the house, attesting the veracity of bis wife s speech. 
 
 Jepson did not resent it, for he had a certain scornful 
 indulgence of the cowardly amiability of his half-brother, 
 and a contemptuous pity for the hardship of his position in 
 his own house. He quietly hung the powder-horn and shot- 
 pouch upon a prong of the deer antlers that formed the rack 
 for his gun. Then he sat down before the fire, his eyes on 
 the blaze, his legs crossed, bringing one of his heavy boots 
 so near Bob that the fat baby could not refrain from lean 
 ing forward, and with both chubby hands making the rowel 
 whirl. His teeth shone, his eyes gleamed, he chuckled with 
 glee, till, catching Mrs. Bowles s gaze, a sudden gravity 
 settled upon his open mouth, and he leaned back in his arm 
 chair, affecting to rub his eyes, but now and then glancing 
 furtively at her. The cat came and purred about him, and 
 rubbed against his dimpled legs ; then, suddenly bethinking 
 herself, stood erect on her hind feet and put her forepaws on 
 his knees to beg. He was not eating, but she watched for 
 some moments with stern and vigilant eyes every movement 
 of his chubby hands, that they should not undetected convey 
 some unshared delicacy to his lips. Finally even feline 
 patience was exhausted, and with an inaudible motion of 
 mewing once or twice she sprang into the child s lap, curled 
 up, and composed herself to slumber. 
 
122 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 Bowles moved uneasily in his chair. The aggressive 
 silence weighed hardly less heavily upon his spirit than the 
 more active expressions of antagonism which he had sought 
 to avert or annul. Now he glanced at his wife with an ur 
 gent remonstrance in his face, of which he was unaware, or 
 he would have suppressed it in his timorous policy, and now 
 at Teck Jepson with an air of appeal. 
 
 Presently, in desperation, he broke the pause : 
 
 " War ye a-axin jes now, Teck, who fetched the news 
 hyar ? I war n t pay in much tention." 
 
 Jepson did not take his eyes from the flames. " Naw, I 
 didn t ax," he said. 
 
 Bowles subsided into silence, and his wife turned and cast 
 a contemptuous glance upon him, which he comprehended 
 as a rebuke that he should interfere. 
 
 The fire burned the freer and the clearer for the draught 
 from the open door ; the circle sat well back from the hearth 
 in the alternate red flare and white fluctuations ; the dark 
 night looked in through the black aperture of window and 
 door ; the awful solitude of the unpeopled mountain was 
 close without. Sometimes a dallying white presence was 
 visible, and one might know that a mist was skulking close 
 at hand, clearing away again to show the glimmer of a lonely 
 star through a dark pine bough. A tree-toad trilled ; the 
 woods sighed, and lapsed again to soundless solitude. 
 
 Mrs. Bowles, too, chafed at the silence. Once or twice 
 she visibly restrained herself. Then returning to her first 
 impulse, she observed, " Teck don t want ter know, Ben. 
 Them ez he don t like he jes won t see nor hear, an it does 
 him mighty nigh ez well ez ef they war dead. He knows 
 somehow ez t war Jake Baintree ez hev been hyar this 
 evenin " 
 
 Jepson lifted his head. " Jake Baintree ! " he ejaculated, 
 in evident surprise. 
 
 Mrs. Bowles rejoiced in her opportunity. " Yes, sir, t war 
 Jake Baintree." Her dark bead-like eyes flashed. She 
 smiled flexibly ; her white teeth glittered. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 123 
 
 "What call hed he ter kern hyar?" Jepson demanded, 
 puzzled. 
 
 " What call hed n t he ? " Mrs. Bowles retorted. " He 
 be a free man ! He travels the mountings whar his will 
 leads him, same ez a fox or a deer. He be ekal ter them 
 dumb sinners, ennywise, I reckon, though he ain t lowed 
 ter git baptized." 
 
 She relapsed into silence, with an obvious satisfaction to 
 have shot this arrow. She expected him to inquire further. 
 But he only rose, looked on the rude shelf, that served as 
 mantel-piece, for his pipe, filled it, scooped up a coal from 
 the edge of the fire, and smoked thoughtfully, with no show 
 of desire to hear more ; and this stimulated infinitely Mrs. 
 Bowles s intention to continue the detail of the visit. She 
 leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, gazed smilingly 
 into the fire, apparently meditating on these things, and 
 once she broke out " Waal, waal ! " as if in reminiscent 
 wonder and interest. 
 
 Her husband, always alert to take an acceptable part, 
 looked first at her, with her patent bid to be interrogated, 
 and then at Jepson s impassive and lofty face, with its proud 
 indifference. He reflected that Jake Baintree was in one 
 sense his half-brother s enemy, and in another the object of 
 his persecution, and he said nothing. 
 
 Mrs. Bowles flushed with a dull red glow, but still per 
 sistently smiled and gazed into the fire ; then shaking her 
 head slowly and gently, she presently broke forth again : 
 
 " Waal, waal, I never hearn the beat o Jake s talk ! He 
 peared plumb rej iced over the happenings in the Cove. 
 An I lowed ter him I said, I 11 thanky ter remember 
 it be my cousin yes, sir, own blood relation ez Teck, 
 Jepson hev murdered, so don t git ter glorifyin over it 
 hyar. An he say, I can t holp it. Mis Bowles. I m 
 sorry fur Eli an his darters, but t ain t mine ter question 
 the Lord s devices, nor what He lows that a day shell 
 bring forth. The Lord suffered it, he says, so Eli urns 
 
124 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 submit, an his kinfolks too. But, he says, the Lord 
 hain t done nuthin so much ter my taste fur the las ten 
 year ! We-ims 11 see how the mate o Daniel will look 
 in a cage hisself , Jake say ; no other lion nor other wild 
 cattle thar, but he kin cavort around an rage fur twenty. 
 We-uns will see how the friend o Moses, the Lawgiver, 
 will stand agin them lawgivers down ter the criminal court. 
 We-uns will git a chance ter rest our ears bout them folks 
 in the Bible fur one while, sure, fur the livin will gin Teck 
 all he kin tend ter, thout studyin on them ez be dead an 
 gone so long they oughter be furgot, ef they ain t. An I 
 ax Jake, I jes riz up an axed him, ef he war n t shamed 
 ter talk that-a-way, whenst he purtended ter hev got reli 
 gion. An he lowed he lied got through with wantin reli 
 gion. Whenst the pa son declared he would n t baptize 
 him, it jes kern on him like a flood o light ez he hed ruther 
 go ter hell n ter heaven along o sech Christians ez pa son 
 an Teck. An sence that minit his soul lied troubled him 
 no mo ." 
 
 Jepson slowly blew the smoke from between his lips ; the 
 hand that held the corn-cob pipe did not tremble. There 
 was no suggestion of anger in his dark blue eyes, the color 
 of the iris distinct as he gazed meditatively into the fire. 
 The flicker of the flames fluctuated upon his regular, defi 
 nite features, and he showed no consciousness of his sur 
 roundings save that he kept his former attitude rigidly, in 
 order that Bob, leaning forward with the excited eye of 
 achievement and the quick breath of effort, might triumph 
 antly accomplish the feat of unbuckling and taking off the 
 large spur. The child s posture incommoded the slumbers 
 of Aminty s yellow cat that lay in his lap, and she held her 
 green eyes half open that she might guard against the dan 
 ger of being too much compressed as he bent over. More 
 than once she put up her paw against the breast of his 
 nightgown, with an admonitory claw extended ; but he only 
 peremptorily caught it and put it down, and went on with 
 his enterprise as before. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 125 
 
 Mrs. Bowles seemed disposed to despair and desist, as 
 she gazed speculatively at the impassive Jepson. Her hus 
 band stirred uneasily, and then remarked non-committally, 
 " Some say Jake Baintree air a bad aig." 
 
 His wife did not often condescend to a dialogue with him 
 alone. But this was the only prospect of covering her re 
 treat with dignity, as she relinquished her attack on Jepson. 
 She turned her face with a commingling animation and 
 benignity toward her husband, and rejoined in a tone of in 
 terest, " Yes, folks say so ; but what s prised me war the 
 cur ous way he behaved hyar this evem n . I wisht ye or 
 Teck, one, hed been hyar, jes ter see how he peared. He 
 sot thar in that cheer, t war gittin on toward dark, 
 an his face war sharp an clear, somehows, an white, an 
 his hair so slick an shinin , an his looks so keen, like he 
 war studyin bout a heap he never would tell in this woii . 
 An he say, I ain t got no mo use fur religion, Mis Bowles. 
 
 I hev got no use fur rivers, ceptin ter go swimmin in em. 
 An I say, Hev ye traded off yer soul, ez ye don t pear 
 ter low ye hev got none ter save ? An he say, Ye look 
 out fur me at the Jedgmint Day. Mis Bowles, an* ye 11 
 Mow I stan toler ble high amongst the n angels. He say, 
 
 I 1 hev got suthin else ter look arter now. Folks in the 
 mountings dunno ez much ez they think they do, Mis 
 Bowles. I fund that out whilst I war in jail in Glaston an 
 larnin so much o town ways. An I say, It s good ye 
 air pleased with yer smartness, Jake, fur ye air the fust one 
 I ever hearn accuse ye o sech. An I jes uped an set 
 about gittin supper, an lef him thar ter brag by hisself. 
 An whenst I looked at him, arter a minit, he hed tuk a 
 paper out n his pocket an war a-purtendin ter read. His 
 eyes war jes set sorter cross-eyed outer it, an his lips 
 a-movin like he war a-talkin ter hisself, an he looked so 
 plumb foolish ez I jes drapped the bowl what I war stirrin 
 batter in, an hollered an laffed. An he say, * Ye don t 
 b lieve I kin read, Mis Bowles; jes listen, an I 11 read ye 
 
126 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 bout a man what got tired o livin in the world, an got 
 outer a raft on the ruver. An sure enough Jake did." 
 
 Jepson suddenly lifted his head. " What did the man 
 do ? " His eyes were alert with the interest of the incom 
 plete suggestion, the promise of a narrative ; he held his 
 pipe in his hand ; the feeblest tissue of smoke stole upward 
 from it. He had forgotten her antagonism. 
 
 She broke into a discordant laugh. " Laws-a-massy, ye 
 reckon I kin remember all that thar ! Naw, sir. I did n t 
 mo n half listen, bein all tuk up ter see Jake readin like a 
 preacher ! An Jake say, I reckon ye won t see Teck no 
 mo , Mis Bowles, bein as they mus hev rested him by this 
 time. Else I would n t hev kem inter this house, it bein 
 sorter his n, ez he lives hyar an hev put his stock with 
 yourn. An 1 11 say ye air mighty well rid o him, in my 
 idee. Arter that he went." 
 
 She had unburdened her mind. She had spent her 
 quiver, not a barbed shaft remained. She was glancing 
 about the room, meditating upon certain arrangements to be 
 providently made over night for the early breakfast ; now 
 and again her gaze rested on Bob, still serenely awake in 
 his nightgown, and holding up before eyes that squinted 
 in the eager intensity of their interest the spur which he 
 had taken from the boot. 
 
 She was altogether unprepared for aught of moment 
 when Jepson said slowly, " Ye lied better lay off ter milk 
 the cow-critters sooner n common, ter-morrer, M ria, kase I 
 be goin ter drive my stock off from hyar by daylight. I 
 hev hed in an about enough o this place." 
 
 Her small eyes dilated ; she changed color ; her jaw 
 dropped. Her lethargic husband was suddenly tense and 
 alert, looking at Jepson with a dismayed deprecation, aghast 
 at the prospect of this collapse of their partnership. Mild 
 as he was and weak, he was man enough in this emergency 
 to upbraid his wife. 
 
 " Thar now, M ria ! " he said, temperately, however. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 127 
 
 It was the first rebuke he had ever given her, and he 
 quailed as the words passed his lips. But she took no heed 
 of them ; her sense of loss was so poignant as to dull all 
 resentment. " Why, Teck ! " she exclaimed, her voice 
 cordial with persuasive intonations, " ye goin ter leave us 
 jes kase I tole ye what that thar black-hearted Jake 
 Baintree say bout our bein well rid o ye ? I did n t go 
 ter hurt yer feelin s. Ye ain t goin ter leave us fur sech 
 ez that ! " She smiled at him, her eyes and her teeth glit 
 tering in the glow of the fire. 
 
 " T ain t fur nuthin Jake Baintree say," he disclaimed, 
 still placidly gazing at the blaze, with none of the excite 
 ment and instability of an unconsidered resolution in his 
 face. k * I jes be a-goin fur good." He seemed un pliable 
 enough to daunt persuasion or appeal. 
 
 " Laws-a-massy, Teck I " Ben Bowles exclaimed, lantern- 
 jawed, and pallid, and disconsolate. The inflections of his 
 voice had such dreary suggestions that Jepson glanced at 
 him, as he sat pulling at his hay-colored beard, the deeply 
 indented grooves and wrinkles in his face growing more 
 definite and multiplying, his weak blue eyes appealing and 
 forlorn. He might have seemed in terror of being left 
 at the mercy of his wife, who sat beside him, the picture 
 of discomfiture, and swift repentance, and anxious forecast. 
 
 The survey evidently suggested to Jepson some modifi 
 cation of his plans. 
 
 " I 11 leave old Spot an her calf, bein ez yer cow air 
 dry, so ez the chill n kin hev buttermilk an M ria kin 
 churn ; an ," after a moment s pause, " 1 11 leave one o my 
 horses, so ye kin git along better puttin in craps nex 
 spring. Ye kin keep em ez long ez ye 11 feed em." 
 
 " Why, Teck ! " cried Mrs. Bowles, in a pained yet cor 
 dially insistent tone ; she forgot what she was about to say, 
 for there surged in upon her the recollection of his " stock," 
 for which they had besought him to abide with them, and 
 which benefited infinitely the housekeeping and the farming 
 
128 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 in a thousand ways. He possessed only a few head of the 
 commonest variety, but they seemed much when once within 
 her grasp, and it had been as if she owned them. " Why, 
 Teck ! " she exclaimed once again, at a loss how to con 
 tinue. 
 
 " Ye need n t say nare word," he declared. " I in goin 
 by daybreak." 
 
 He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, put it in his pocket, 
 rose, and strode out on the porch. He had not contemplated 
 one of his long mountain jaunts, only a turn or two in 
 the solemn stillness of the night, to be alone with his 
 thoughts, to be free from the presence of his fellows. This 
 was contrary to his usual custom, and he knew that she 
 thought him far away when he saw her through the open 
 door rise up by the hearthstone, and heard her say im 
 pressively to the forlorn, stooping, and disquieted Ben 
 Bowles, 
 
 " Ye mark my words," she lifted her arm and shook 
 her fore-finger at him, " Eli Strobe ain t dead mebbe, 
 but he will be soon, an Teck air aimin aforehand ter git 
 out n the kentry with all he hev got ; he 11 flee the State, 
 an that ter-moirer mornin ." 
 
 Bowles listened with plaintive, hopeless, upturned face. 
 The small Bob had become rigid with propriety of de 
 meanor the instant she lifted her arm, and sat with his 
 bright hazel eyes fixed expectantly and deprecatingly upon 
 her. The man outside in the darkness watched the group 
 for a moment, and then turned away into the black night. 
 
VIII. 
 
 THE events of the day were peculiarly edifying to Broom- 
 sedge Cove. That moralizing tendency rife among rural 
 gossips did not fail to utilize so promising a theme. One 
 might have culled choice apothegms as to the sterility of 
 ambition, failing oft in the very moment of seeming frui 
 tion, suggested by the fate of Kli Strobe, lying at the point 
 of death in the flush of success. Others evolved reflections 
 upon the overbearing spirit that would brook not even the 
 control of the law, and certain nice points of ethics arose 
 as to how far a man is warranted in holding his own con 
 science as monitor, or in subjugating his prerogative to 
 judge of right and wrong. 
 
 Kevins still lingered amongst the group about the door of 
 the forge, chewing a straw the while, and seeking to main 
 tain the air of genial acceptance of defeat, and a certain 
 indifference, which all candidates, who have come to grief, 
 more or less successfully attempt to achieve. His face, 
 however, betokened the relaxation of suspense, for the ner 
 vous strain that he had undergone was telling upon him now. 
 There were vague blue circles and a flabby fullness under 
 his eyes, which looked hot and were restless, but they held 
 a distinct expression of resentment, and his face was cov 
 ertly cynical, albeit his replies to the bluff and not alto 
 gether good-natured banter were couched in a conciliatory 
 and still politic spirit. 
 
 " Plenty o comp ny, Nevins," suggested one. Candi 
 dates fur jedge, torney-giiieral, sher ff, an mo besides mus 
 hev got the go-by, too, this day." 
 
 For to-day was held the general midsummer election of 
 civil officers throughout the judicial circuit. 
 
130 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 Another strolled up, and observed, " Hain t seen ye, 
 Nevins, sence the woods war burnt." 
 
 " It mus seem powerful hard," commented a Job s com 
 forter, " ez ye could n t hev the office, sence Eli can t hold 
 it now he hev got it." 
 
 " Leastwise, Josh," said another, with a grin, " yer hide 
 be whole yit." 
 
 " Josh would n t keer how his hide war chipped or tore, 
 ef it hed a constable inside o it," chimed in an adverse 
 elector. 
 
 The defeated candidate, thus rallied, made shift to smile, 
 although somewhat grimly. He was evidently bent on 
 keeping up his reputation for pluck, but he might have 
 found it far more difficult if Eli Strobe, robust, and florid, 
 and hilarious, had been lingering too at the voting-place, 
 shaking hands with his supporters, receiving the congratu 
 lations of his friends, and crowing over his enemies. The 
 aspects of defeat were sufficiently abashing and depressing, 
 and he knew that much was spared him in that the Gorgon 
 face of his competitor s success was withheld. Although 
 the physician, who resided some fourteen miles distant, had 
 not yet arrived, and no professional opinion had been pro 
 nounced, there was no doubt expressed that Eli Strobe 
 would not live to enjoy the honors and discharge the duties 
 of the office he had so hardly won, for by reason of the 
 rigors of his previous incumbency the race had been ex 
 tremely close. More than one of the gossips, full of gloomy 
 forebodings, animadverted upon the lack of " spunk " in 
 the Settlement that it had permitted Teck Jepson to ride by 
 unmolested, and take his way up to the impenetrable fast 
 nesses of the mountain, to issue thence when it should suit 
 his pleasure. 
 
 " He onghter hev been arrested, yes, sir ! " said Jethro 
 Peake, who, having concluded his duties as judge of the 
 election, now entered upon the larger field of censor of the 
 community in general. His round face was red with the 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 131 
 
 influence of a certain beverage innocently believed to be 
 neither sold nor given away on election day ; his fat cheeks 
 shook with the energy of his discourse. " An ef I lied n t 
 hev been inside the forge I d hev done it ez he rid by ! 
 Laws-a-massy ! ter ride by a blacksmith shop, whar the 
 three jedges appinted by the county court air jes finished 
 a-countin out the ballots cordin ter law, ride by in the 
 open light o day, an nobody arrest him ! Ef I hed been 
 hyar ! " He shook his head threateningly, thrust his hands 
 into his pockets, and walked a few short steps hither and 
 thither ; manifesting now a prideful elation in his authority 
 that had not been apparent throughout the day, and was 
 probably " set free," chemically speaking, by the action of 
 the whiskey. 
 
 " Then we d hev lied another cracked head round hyar/ 
 observed Bassett, " T war tryin ter arrest Teck fur racin* 
 ez got Eli hurt. I don t reckon nobody air goin ter meddle 
 with Teck ez ain t bleeged ter." 
 
 ki I reckon Marcelly would hev liked ter hev hed Teck 
 arrested," said Dake. " Teck peared skeered ter go inside 
 o the cabin count o Marcelly. Laws-a-massy ! that gal 
 looked like she hed two live coals fur eyes, whenst some 
 body spoke up his name, tellin Eli s mother how it hap 
 pened. Marcelly looked plumb like a painter I seen up 
 ter the mounting wunst. I hed got the critter s kittens 
 out n a hollow tree, an lowed I d take em home an see 
 ef they d tame an pet. An I looked round whilst kemin 
 down the mounting, an thar war that painter crouchin on 
 a high rock over my head, sleek, an strong, an light, an 
 supple, sir, ready ter spring. I hed no gun, an I jes tuk 
 one look at her eyes, an I knowed that thar beastis hed 
 grit enough ter f oiler me ter hell. I jes sot them two leetle 
 painters on a flat rock, an I fund out what the Lord gin 
 me feet fur. I put em ter right smart use fur bout a mile." 
 He paused for a moment, in silent reminiscence of this 
 speedy descent from the great steeps above. Then he re- 
 
132 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 sumed, " I ain t thunk bout that thar painter in I dunno 
 when, till Marcelly s eyes reminded me o hern." 
 
 " Waal, now, I reckon that 11 put an e-end ter Teck Jep- 
 son a-settin up ter Marcelly," said Clem Sanders, hopefully. 
 He was within the forge, leaning against the elevated hearth, 
 feeling a certain inhospitable relief that the shop had been 
 restored to its normal uses, and the judges and the ballot- 
 box, the clerk and the table, and all the paraphernalia of 
 suffrage, animate and inanimate, had been removed. He 
 was not ill-natured nor malicious, but the disaster augured 
 demolition of his rival s hopes, and his own sprang up re 
 vivified by the prospect. His heart had not been so light 
 for many a day, not since he had played cards gayly and 
 victoriously with Mose Hull, all unconscious that Satan 
 perched on the anvil behind him to overlook his hand, while 
 the window-shutter was drawn ajar, and an uncomprehended 
 entity looked in, solemn, dismayed, aghast. Since then the 
 forge had been deserted after nightfall. No longer the 
 mountain youth congregated here. No longer the cliffs 
 echoed the hilarious songs and outbursts of rotund and rol 
 licking laughter. No longer athwart the solemn obscurity 
 of the brooding night were flung fluctuating shafts of red 
 and yellow light, summoning out a trembling glimpse of the 
 gigantic trees, or broad, lucent stretches of the river, and 
 making the grim, immovable old crags seem to advance and 
 retreat at the whimseys of the breathing bellows. Parson 
 Donnard himself could not have desired the shop to be more 
 solitary and silent than it was now since its admonished fre 
 quenters were fain to be dull and quiet about the domestic 
 hearth. 
 
 " From all I hev hearn, she war jes a-foolin Jepson, ter 
 git him ter work fur her dad in the lection," Nevins ob 
 served ; he cast the merest suggestion of a glance at Clem 
 Sanders as he lifted his eyes, adding, " I reckon thar war 
 a good many in the same boat with Teck, too. I never 
 hearn afore of a gal takin the lection ter heart same ez 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOVSEDGE COVE. 133 
 
 men folks. Ginerally gals dtmno what thar kinfolks air 
 runnin fur, an pays mo tention ef the hen-house war 
 Mowed over in a high wind, or a mink hed throttled the 
 fow-els, n ef thar dad air lected or beat. Wimmen gin- 
 erally dunno ef jedge air higher n sher ff, or sher ff n con 
 stable. I never hearn tell o sech a gal ez this hyar Mar- 
 celly Strobe." 
 
 He spoke with acerbity, recognizing her as a potent and 
 perhaps decisive adverse influence, the majority being so 
 small. 
 
 " Marcelly dunno nuthin ," Clem Sanders remarked loy 
 ally, defending her against the imputation of a knowledge 
 of politics. " She jes lows ez her dad air the biggest man 
 in the Newnited States. Laws-a-massy, I don t wonder 
 Teck Jepson war afeard o her." He strove to adjust his 
 countenance to a proper sense of calamity, but he was a 
 simple fellow, and frank with himself, and albeit he deplored 
 the misfortunes and distresses of his friends, he saw his own 
 gain, and its prospect of cheer was in his square face and 
 his bright and narrow eyes. " I hed no sheer in it," he 
 observed half aloud, recognizing his own state of mind, " an 
 I know I hope an pray to God ez Eli won t die." 
 
 No ; matters should remain as they were now, adapted 
 to the best interests of those most worthily concerned. Eli 
 Strobe should recover, but with this breach between the 
 handsome Jepson and Marcella, Clem Sanders felt that no 
 grass should grow beneath his feet while he put his fate to 
 the test. 
 
 " I useter be sorter feard o Marcelly, but ef I war gin 
 jes one mo chance I d do some sech all-fired quick courtin* 
 t would stonish the kentry." 
 
 It was not often that Parson Donnard figured as an apolo 
 gist. But in common with all the country-side, as well as 
 Teck Jepson himself, he had mistaken the Biblical enthu 
 siasm of the young man for religion, and had often felt 
 moved to publicly rejoice in the gracious outpourings of the 
 
134 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 spirit so strikingly manifested here. As he and his son 
 stood amongst the group, he was accosted by Nevins, whose 
 uncharacteristic causticity was sharpening with his sense of 
 loss ; for the shock of the first realization of the result had 
 resolved itself into a continuous ache, that would always 
 stir and thrill again so long as his memory might rouse his 
 pride. 
 
 " This hev been a toler ble hard day fur the saints, pa - 
 son," he ventured. His once pleasant smile was a politi 
 cian s sneer, that did not match the obvious meaning of the 
 words he spoke. " Seems sorter stonishin fur one o the 
 Lord s elect ter git ter bettin , an horse-racin , an resistin 
 arrest, an run down an crack the skull o the off cer o the 
 law, ez kem a-bulgin an a-runnin out in the road afore 
 the horses huffs, mad ez a bull o Bashan, though he war a 
 shinin light hisself." 
 
 The thin ascetic face flushed slightly, thus attesting that 
 the parson s blood was red and warm. But he proved 
 equal to the emergency. 
 
 " Thar s a lesson in it, brother," he returned fervently. 
 "The best mongst us kin only lean on the Strong Arm. 
 An when we lose our hold, brother, ef it s only fur a 
 minit, ah ! then, brother, we fall, saint or sinner, brother, 
 we fall ! Lean on the Strong Arm, brother, an be up 
 held ! " 
 
 There was a reverential attention accorded him while he 
 spoke, his rotund voice rising into the elocutionary effects 
 of rural exhortation, and ringing out into the quiet evening 
 air. Silence succeeded in the group, and when presently 
 one of the men coughed and cleared his throat, and a slight 
 motion made itself apparent amongst them, it was like that 
 gradual recall to mundane sentiments and stir which follows 
 with a jarring impression after praise or united prayer. 
 
 Parson Donnard, not unmindful of effect, was not slow 
 to take advantage of this opportunity of leaving the field 
 with all his colors flying. And indeed there were evi- 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 135 
 
 dences of disintegration in the crowd momentarily becom 
 ing more marked. Gaps in the row of horses intimated 
 how many had already gone ; continually the tramp of fresh 
 departures rose on the air, and the hoof-beats sounded hol 
 low and with cavernous echoes from the little bridge beyond 
 the forge. Here and there in the valley, or where the 
 winding road up the mountain-side became visible amongst 
 the dense leafage, a great canvas-covered wagon lumbered 
 along, catching the roseate glow of the sunset. Certain 
 lively youths, not to be subdued by any contemplation of 
 tragedy, spiritual, political, or material, could be heard a 
 long way, although out of sight, whooping and hilariously 
 shouting to one another, while all the solemn gray crags 
 assumed a spurious note of jocose and boisterous flippancy, 
 and called back and forth across the valley with a weird 
 mockery. Jube, the parson s son, shambling home a half 
 hour later, perhaps, than his father, his hands in his pock 
 ets, his hat askew, paused ever and anon to listen to this 
 mingled fantastic outcry ; discerning familiar tones some 
 times in the voices of his friends themselves, sometimes 
 in the frenzied mimicry of the crags. He would stand mo 
 tionless till the sound died away for the nonce, judging from 
 its bizarre fluctuations how far the process of inebriation 
 had gone ; then shake his head reprehensively, for Jube 
 was a man of sober theory, and pursue his way, brought 
 to a halt again only when all the peaceful valley and all 
 the staid and rigid rocks were again declaiming in drunken 
 mirth. 
 
 This dual possibility of standpoint enabled Jube to dwell 
 in great amity and unity of spirit with his solemn and as 
 cetic parents, and yet continue the cherished soul of mirth 
 amongst the wild young mountaineers whose society was so 
 dear to him. In one sense he devoutly believed and had 
 formally accepted all those wise saws condemnatory of lev 
 ity and threatening retribution. He could listen with an 
 impersonal conviction to prophecies of impending wrath for 
 
136 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 those who were merry without cause now, and who should 
 presently gnash their teeth with ample cause. 
 
 " Yes, sir ! " he would often cry out with animated con 
 firmation, and in a voice rendered even more emphatic by 
 a sort of chronic hoarse wheeze, when his father sat by the 
 fire, and shook his head, and foretold vengeance already 
 poised to alight on those who cared not to hear, and who 
 would not repent while yet there was time. 
 
 " Dander on, sing sir, do they, play kyerds, an da-ance ! 
 An Satan have gyirded him up, an air kemin up the val 
 ley, sir, kemin up the valley like a black cloud in which 
 thar be no promise o peace ; like a whurlwind ez holds no 
 pity ; like the yearthquake, when men may turn this-a-way 
 an that-a-way, an find no escape ! " 
 
 " Yes, sir," Jube would filially echo, his eyes distended 
 with some mental vision of Satan expressed in these natural 
 terrors. 
 
 The trouble with Jube was a singular lack of pliability 
 in application. It never occurred to him to look upon him 
 self as one of the hopeless and the possibly damned. On 
 the contrary, there are few people in this world who take 
 so much pleasure in it as did Jube Donnard, despite all the 
 restrictions of his narrow circumstances. Few people can 
 walk on their heads and hands with such joy in sheer in 
 version. Few people can sing so hilariously false, old songs, 
 so oft sung, antedating, perhaps, Broomsedge Cove itself, 
 and still find them fresh and full of delight. Few people 
 can lose their little all at play with such cheerful equanim 
 ity. " I never see sech a comical run o kyerds, noways," 
 he would console himself, with a laugh at some ludicrous 
 sequences. Few people can on occasion drink so deeply, 
 and yet be consciously so little drunk. 
 
 v If the parson suspected his son s occupations and amuse 
 ments to be vain and frivolous, and unbeseeming mortality 
 endowed with that large contract of preparing for immor 
 tality, and, with a desire to induce him to look upon him- 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOVSEDGE COVE. 137 
 
 self as among those spiritually threatened, spoke with a 
 secret admonitory intent, his finesse was poorly rewarded 
 by the adaptable Jube, who would straightway respond with 
 plastic, earnest sincerity, " Yes, sir ! Yes, sir ! " 
 
 In one sense they were a family set apart. For Mrs. 
 Donnard, too, unconsciously held herself in some sort as 
 one exempt. She had come to consider religion only as it 
 affected the congregation. The promises of the Bible were 
 for those members who heeded the parson s righteous words. 
 Its threats and monitions were for those who yielded him 
 not the due meed of reverence, spiritual and secular. 
 Somehow, the unpropitious aspects of religion were predom 
 inant in Mrs. Donnard s contemplation of the congregation. 
 Like the wives of many preachers of larger pastorates and 
 ampler opportunities, she thought the flock got more out of 
 the parson in many ways than they paid for. The battle 
 of life represented for her the congregation on one side 
 and the parson on the other, and she proved a stanch parti 
 san, a host in herself. " They say so," she would some 
 times observe sarcastically, when he would detail an im 
 provement in morals or manners resolved upon amongst 
 them, or some great awakening within his bailiwick. " Now 
 let s see the doin of it." 
 
 The parson was far more enthusiastic, eloquent, and able 
 than his helpmeet, but it may be doubted if he were en 
 dowed with so accurate a gauge of the efficacy of the good 
 intentions of poor human nature. 
 
 Sometimes she would merely remark, " I hev been hearin 
 sech ez that thar from old Squair Bynum fur fifty year. 
 Mebbe ef the Lord grants him Methus lah s age he may 
 make out ter mend his ways, leastwise some few o em." 
 Then she would burst out singing as she went about her 
 household avocations, u The day o jedgmint s on the way ! " 
 In this acrimony between herself and her husband s 
 charge, she must have experienced a great satisfaction to 
 be so sure that all their misdeeds and shortcomings would 
 
138 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 be so severely visited upon them, and so actively rued in 
 fire and brimstone, for Mrs. Donnard s faith was very 
 complete. Somehow it had strangely discharged itself of 
 personality. She thought no more of her own soul than if 
 she had none to be saved. Salvation was not on her lips. 
 Religion was an engine chiefly valuable in keeping the con 
 gregation strung up to properly perform its dutie. j toward 
 the parson. Arid yet her eye was single to what she con 
 ceived to be her duty. She zealously devoted herself to 
 his interests, merging her identity in his ; resenting his 
 griefs, rejoicing in his pleasures, and entertaining his views. 
 Jube was the only surviving child of a goodly number, and 
 the unanimity of opinion which subsisted between the old 
 couple suffered no lapse in their mutual persuasion of his 
 perfection. The capacity for believing what one desires to 
 believe is in itself a source of perennial pleasure, and the 
 two took unimpeached joy and comfort in their colt, who 
 nimbly demonstrated his capacity to pace despite the sober 
 trot of his parents, who had never given themselves over to 
 any such erratic gait. 
 
 As Jube came up the path to the log cabin they were sit 
 ting together on the porch, and welcomed him with sparse 
 words, indeed, but with a solemn pleasure in him which 
 their eyes betokened. 
 
 " Enny mo news from the Settlemint, Jubal ? " asked 
 his mother. They lived a considerable distance higher on 
 the mountain, and a bulging slope hid from them the little 
 hamlet. So Mrs. Donnard felt at times afar off, and ex 
 hibited that avidity for the news of the day natural to a 
 woman in the country, oppressed by the sense that, without 
 extreme vigilance, she is in a position to be debarred a choice 
 bit of gossip some day. 
 
 Jube had that reluctance to detail often manifested by the 
 favored mortal who has been to town," what he has heard 
 having ceased to be a novelty. To be sure, Mrs. Donnard 
 might seem to have been feasted with news to-day, and Jube 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 139 
 
 had naught to add .to the narrative of the proceedings 
 already given by his father ; but she took a long time to 
 fairly assure herself of this, and the revived reference to 
 the subject impaired the parson s cheerfulness. 
 
 I hev labored an I hev labored in this field," he re 
 marked, ki an it pears ter do no good." 
 
 He had both his knotted hands clasped on his stick, and 
 rested his long chin on them. 
 
 " A set o hard-hearted, stiff-necked half-livers ! " said the 
 parson s wife uncompromisingly. 
 
 " Fightin an quar lin whar thar ought ter be peace, 
 peace in the fold." 
 
 " Ginerally less peace in the fold n enny whar else," af 
 firmed his helpmeet. 
 
 " Eli Strobe, an old-time member an a settled married 
 man." 
 
 u Wife been dead ten year or more," said Mrs. Donnard, 
 domestically accurate. 
 
 "An Teck Jepson, what actially peared ter be gifted 
 with visions ! Kin tell bout folks in the Bible till ye kin 
 mos see em a-walkin out afore ye." 
 
 " But Teck Jepson hev a prideful walk hisself, pears 
 ter know all the folks air a-starin at him, specially wim- 
 min. I dunno ez I b lieve in the savin grace o enny men 
 folks ez sets up ter be better lookin n the angel Gabriel, ef 
 the truth war knowed," objected the discerning Mrs. Don 
 nard. 
 
 " Teck Jepson gone an c mitted murder, laws-a-massy ! 
 I jes feel how the members o the church in Piomingo Cove 
 ez be always a-laffin an gibin at we-uns, will crack thai- 
 heels tergether an shout whenst they hear bout n it." 
 
 " That thar smooth-faced, fat, jokified Brother Zekiel 
 Johns always tuk every chance ter gin a dab at the Brum- 
 saidge brethren, ez he say it." Mrs. Donnard drawled her 
 mimicry in good clerical fashion. 
 
 Even the placid Jube was touched by this prophecy of the 
 
140 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 rejoicing of the opposite religious faction. He shifted his 
 position as he sat on the step, and frowned in perplexed 
 discomfiture, looking even more like his father with these 
 solemn corrugations. It seemed to him at the moment 
 worth while saving one s soul to spite the folks in Pio- 
 mingo Cove. 
 
 " I d hev lowed," he observed, " ez arter Satan hisself 
 kem hyar an sot hisself up thar in public in the forge, squat- 
 tin on the anvil, ez them fellers, Eli Strobe an Teck Jep- 
 son, mought hev knowed ez bad luck would hev got inter 
 thar fightin . Eli jes a-boundin out in the road under the 
 mare s huffs, an Teck ridin the off cer o the law down ! 
 they knowed the devil hev been viewed in Brumsaidge 
 wunst, ennyways, ef they did n t know bout his workin s 
 sence." 
 
 The old man lifted his chin from the hands clasped upon 
 his stick. The nostrils of his long, thin, bony nose dilated 
 like those of a frightened horse ; his eyes widened and 
 brightened, showing a lighter tint than their usual gray. 
 
 u What workin s, son ? " he demanded. 
 
 Jube looked at him in the closing dusk, and mysteriously 
 shook his head. 
 
 Mrs. Donnard had not observed the allusion nor the 
 look. 
 
 " Racin an bettin air sinful," she declared, " an that 
 thar tearin -down, good-lookin Teck Jepson hev got mighty 
 little religion ef he don t know it." 
 
 The old man had a sudden monition of the discipline 
 seemly in his own family. " War n t ye one o them a-racin . 
 son ? " he asked, although he had had the evidence of his 
 own eyes to the fact. There was a momentary pause. 
 
 "Jes sorter runnin the horse-critter along the road," 
 said the parson s son, as if defining a material difference. 
 
 The old man in a manner accepted the distinction. 
 
 " Waal, sonny, ye mus n t do sech. T ain t right, an 
 it air agin the law." 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 141 
 
 " Yes, sir," said the dutiful Jube. 
 
 " Though ye would n t hev run nobody down," said the 
 mother. 
 
 Naw m." Jube found it very easy to coincide. 
 
 Mrs. Donnard. convinced that there was no more news 
 from the Settlement to be gleaned, rose presently, and went 
 in-doors to " dish up " supper. The two men, left alone 
 upon the porch, grew more confidential. 
 
 "Jube," said the parson eagerly, lowering his voice, 
 " what d ye mean bout the devil s workin s in Brumsaidge 
 sence ? " 
 
 Jube looked, cogitating and silent, down the slope, where 
 the great dark trees rose, dense, and heavy, and glooming. 
 The sky was far lighter than the earth, and here only was 
 color distinguishable, the pallid blue tint that barely per 
 mitted to be seen the fluctuating glitter of a timorous star. 
 Above Chilhowee, far away, the sickle of the moon was 
 reaping the shadowy mists, gray and crimson, touched with 
 an afterglow of the sun ; a vague swath of light was left 
 behind her keen and glistening blade. The voice of a night- 
 hawk sounded raucous and sudden, and once more the 
 heavy silence brooded. 
 
 " Waal, dad, I dunno ef I hev enny call ter say nuthin 
 bout it ; I promised I would n t tell." 
 
 " Laws-a-massy, Jube, who tole ye ?" demanded the par 
 son, agitated. 
 
 Jube stirred uneasily. His unlucky allusion to the mat 
 ter had escaped him unwittingly. He was beginning to 
 understand that he should be urged to explain, and his tact 
 and invention were . deplorably inadequate to the emer 
 gency. 
 
 " I promised Clem Sanders I would n t tell," he said 
 desperately. 
 
 " Waal, Jubal, I 11 gin ye ter onderstand ez this ain t no 
 matter fur ye an Clem Sanders ter keep ter yerse fs," said 
 the old man severely. " I war gin ter view the Enemy in 
 
142 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 that thar forge, an ef ennythin hev kem o secli I hev got 
 the right ter know it." 
 
 This logic freed Jube s conscience, and absolved him, as 
 it were, from his broken promise. 
 
 " He hev been thar agin ! " 
 
 The stick fell from Parson Donnard s grasp, and rolled 
 noisily along the puncheon floor. 
 
 " Who ? " he gasped, with trembling lips and starting 
 eyes, expectant of the answer that came suppressed 
 
 " Satan ! " 
 
 Parson Donnard sat as one petrified. 
 
 " He kem thar," said Jube, with lowered voice and many 
 furtive glances toward those glooming woods, " one night 
 whenst Clem did n t know nuthin bout n it, bein at home 
 an asleep ; but Dake, he see the forge alight an hearn the 
 hammers a-strikin , an he lowed t war Clem. He tole Clem 
 arterward, an it like ter skeered Clem ter death, kase he 
 lowed mebbe t war that thar dead Clem Sanders, what 
 ye seen lookin through the winder at him whenst he played 
 kyerds, a-hammerin , with the devil a-strikin fur him ! " 
 
 " My stars ! " exclaimed the trembling parson. 
 
 " Yes, sir ! " said Jube, flattered by the extreme interest 
 with which his narative was received, its intensity being 
 altogether unexpected. " Yes, sir, Clem lowed ez t war 
 Satan ez mus do the strikin , an not the smith work ; kase 
 Clem lows ez sech takes a heap o speriunce, an dealin 
 in metals air a mighty partic lar business, an Satan air a 
 heap too smart ez ter low he kin do reg lar smith work 
 thout he hed a power o teachin . Strikin air all Satan 
 would be ekal ter round a forge, Clem say. Waal, sir, two 
 or three nights arterward Clem hears suthin , an looks out n 
 the roof-room winder ; an thar he see the forge lit up an 
 hearn the hand-hammer an the sledge, clink-clank, clink- 
 clank, jes ez nat ral ! Clem lowed it made him feel power 
 ful bad ter hev his harnt a-walkin bout his own forge fore 
 he air dead ; he tuk it fur a sign, an it went so ter his 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 143 
 
 heart ez he got off n his feed fur a few days. But that 
 night, ez he got closer an closer ter the forge " 
 
 " Did did Clem go thar ? " demanded the old man 
 breathlessly. 
 
 " Yes, sir ! " said Jube. He paused to look at the sky, 
 dark and fully instarred now ; all its scintillating splendors 
 were suddenly quenched into neutral monotony, while a 
 ghastly quiver of sheet lightning broadly fluctuated through 
 the infinite spaces of the firmament, and over the long, 
 lonely stretches of wood and mountain. Then it died away, 
 leaving the constellations supreme in the night, and the dark 
 stillness brooding in the woods. 
 
 " He got plumb up ter the winder, sir, cordin ter Clem," 
 Jube continued cautiously. 
 
 " An an what did he see ? " interrupted the parson. 
 " He stumbled an fell right at the winder, an they hearn 
 the noise inside, an in a minit it war all dark an still in 
 the forge, ceptin that the doors they shut with a bang. 
 Clem went in ; he fund nuthin an nobody. A leetle fire 
 smouldered on the h ath, but the anvil war a-ringin like all 
 possessed." . 
 
 Parson Donnard sat with a rigid face, but half revealed 
 by the dull light that came from the fire within, and all un 
 noted by his careless son. He had possessed himself anew 
 of his stick, and had resumed his accustomed attitude, his 
 hands clasped upon the head of the stout cane, and his chin 
 resting upon them. But these hands were unsteady, and 
 now and again his lips trembled. He was secretly aware, 
 as he gazed out into the blank darkness, that the vision he 
 had seen was revealed in a manner merely to his spiritual 
 sight. It was rather suggested to his own insulted moral 
 perceptions by the future possibilities to the jocund group. 
 In fact, he had not intended his description of it literally ; 
 he had given it in some sort as a parable, the version of the 
 actual scene translated by an acute and anxious discern 
 ment. He had never gauged the limits of his own credu- 
 
144 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 lity in the visions of others, and he did not at the time real 
 ize that he overstepped the bounds of verity when he con 
 strued the tableau according to the moral needs of his 
 hearers. It was salutary that Satan should sit upon the 
 anvil amidst that merry crew, and visibly rejoice in their 
 wicked sports. And who knows but that he did ! The par 
 son claimed the benefit of the doubt, and the vision of his 
 spiritual eye was thereby improved. The idea was eminently 
 restrictive and calculated to impress Clem Sanders that he 
 himself, in some future reflective mood, should gaze back 
 through the windows of memory, solemn and regretful, upon 
 the futile wasted hours of a riotous youth. The parson s 
 figurative language had unforeseen possibilities, and had set 
 the " harnt " of a living man a-walking before its time. He 
 had not concerned himself greatly with the misapprehension 
 when it first came to his notice. He had not dreamed of 
 strange consequences astir. Despite the natural strength 
 of his mind, his uncultivated instinctive knowledge of human 
 nature, his gift of rude eloquence, he was densely ignorant, 
 saturated in superstition, and even his religion held alter 
 nating elements of terror and of bliss. He began to fear 
 that thus unguardedly speaking a judgment was to be sent 
 upon him. His hasty figurative words, unjustifiably used, 
 were forthwith made true. He thought, poor soul, that he 
 had conjured up the devil, to stalk abroad in Broomsedge 
 Cove, where, as well he knew, the denizens were ill pre 
 pared to meet him ! Not in the guise of a ravening wolf, 
 nor a black dog, but " bat-wise," gigantic and weird, a crea 
 ture of the night, accompanied by that familiar, yet horribly 
 unfamiliar, presentment of the blacksmith. " I hev gin 
 Clem over. I hev los my sheep." He groaned aloud in 
 the misery of his reflections. 
 
 Perhaps it was the courage of desperation, the unrecog 
 nized hope that never dies till every vital spark be extinct, 
 perhaps only the stanch and adventurous spirit of the old 
 mountaineer, woodsman and hunter as well as parson, 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 145 
 
 that nerved him to say, " It air some human critter, mebbe, 
 bent on no good." Then he presently observed, " Jube, I 
 be goin ter watch that thar forge this night, an every night 
 till I see who it air ez kerns." 
 
 Jube recoiled. " Lord A mighty, dad, / would n t fur 
 nuthin . Pears like ye ought n t ter resk it." Then gather 
 ing reassurance with the reflection, * Mam won t let ye, no- 
 now." 
 
 " Thar ain t no need for her to know it." And after a 
 pause, %< I ain t a-goin ter tell her," added the parson. 
 
 Mrs. Donnard, the best of wives, would willingly have 
 sacrificed the whole congregation rather than let the parson 
 risk an encounter with the enemy. Parson Donnard knew 
 it was necessary to sedulously hold his tongue in order to be 
 able to keep his own resolution, and thus her devotion, mak 
 ing his cause her own, cherishing enmities for his sake, tol 
 erating friendships, sharing alike haps and mishaps at last 
 resulted in exclusion from his confidence ! It was a lesson 
 of doubtful expediency for Jube to observe the disingenuous- 
 ness of the parson, as like unto other men as if he had felt 
 no outpouring of the spirit, while he ate the good supper 
 that she had cooked, and wore a placid and incidental coun 
 tenance, and lighted his pipe after the meal was concluded, 
 and established himself upon the porch in a definite and set 
 tled manner as if a fixture for the evening. And how, with 
 his own practice to the contrary, should he preach to Jube, 
 and young people generally, upon the beauty of confidence 
 in the family relations, of the dangers of secrecy, of the 
 necessity of setting good examples, and of amply and 
 quickly returning the blessings that one enjoys of fine traits 
 in others by double measure to them, pressed down and run 
 ning over ! 
 
 The unconscious Mrs. Donnard, almost pathetic in her 
 unconsciousness, scoured the skillet with ashes, and now and 
 again lifted her voice and sang a fragmentary measure, 
 broken by leaning down and rising up, and mounting upon 
 
146 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 chairs to place plates and sundry other table ware upon the 
 high shelf, otherwise beyond her reach. Once the hiatus 
 was occasioned by the parson, who put his head into the 
 door to say he was " obligated " to go down to the Settle 
 ment to see how Eli Strobe was, when she placidly assented, 
 and went on singing as before. It was Jube who, looking 
 in at her cheerful industry, felt the pang of remorse, he 
 the good-for-naught ; not the worthy parson, plodding off, 
 feeling that she knew as much as was good for her. 
 
 Jube went too, having volunteered in an unguarded 
 moment repenting of it immediately afterward, but un 
 able to extricate himself to show his father a certain 
 choice coigne of vantage on the mountain above, where one 
 could easily overlook the road and the forge, and yet be at 
 a considerable distance. " It s so steep a body mought slip 
 spang down onto the roof, ef ye didn t scotch yerse f with 
 a bowlder. Git ahint one o them bowlders, that s the 
 dinctum." 
 
 The moon had sunk in the unknown world behind Chil- 
 howee. The blackness on the earth was dense and un 
 broken, save that here and there the flare from some cabin 
 that they passed revealed the vague outline of the building, 
 the dully illuminated oblong space of the open doorway, a 
 few zigzag lines of the rail fence close at hand thus sug 
 gesting the features of the familiar scenes which the night 
 had annulled. Above, the stars blazed in great glory and 
 a scintillating multiplicity, but gave little appreciable light, 
 and the parson was glad that Jube, with his younger eyes 
 and his active step, was with him, when they began to toil 
 up a rugged and brambly pathless ascent. The old man 
 struggled valiantly along, they had passed through the 
 Settlement, the father observing to the son, by way of keep 
 ing his word to Mrs. Donnard, that they would stop and 
 inquire for Eli Strobe upon their homeward way, if it were 
 not then too late, and he was beset by the terror of meet 
 ing some one of his flock here and now, where his errand 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 147 
 
 would be inexplicable. He plunged boldly among the 
 briers ; he toiled through steep stony passes ; he puffed, 
 and tugged, and made every hearty effort to swiftly betake 
 himself out of the way of any accidental encounter. Once 
 a sudden stir in the bushes hard by caused his heart to 
 spring into his throat, and his quick mind to anxiously can 
 vass some hobbling methods of explaining his position, 
 the next moment, the mellow clangor of a cow-bell ; the 
 creature was lying belated, perhaps, on the slope, and had 
 moved her head, hearing their steps, and no more. 
 
 He was indefinably perplexed and embarrassed by an 
 odd, unrecognizable change in Jube. A sort of half-subdued 
 hilarity grated on him, sundry smothered guffaws, gleeful 
 allusions to previous capers, of which the parson had never 
 heard and vaguely understood. Only now and then did 
 Jube subside, with a returning realization of the identity of 
 his companion. For the night air, the mountain wind, the 
 secrecy, the excitement, the quivering expectancy of their 
 errand, had begun to make themselves felt in Jube s blood, 
 a rapid current, and susceptible of considerable elation 
 and exhilaration. The spirit of adventure was astir within 
 him, and only at times was dashed by the remembrance 
 that the parson was the parson. 
 
 AVhen they reached their objective point, Parson Don- 
 nard sank down upon a ledge of rock that his son indicated 
 to him, his knees against a bowlder lying hard by, that he 
 might not slide down the steep incline upon the very roof 
 of the forge. He noted how he seemed to face the great 
 concave of the sky, how definite the western mountains 
 stood against the starry expanse, and how distinct certain 
 objects had become even in the pitchy blackness, now that 
 his eyes were in some sort accustomed to it. 
 
 l Thar s the forge, right down yander under this laidge," 
 observed Jube, with that wild gayety in his tone which be 
 wildered the old man, who deprecated it. " Ef ye war ter 
 lean over, dad, an stretch out yer arm. yer hand would be 
 
148 THE DESPOT OF BROOMS EDGE COVE. 
 
 plumb over the chimbly. Laws-a-massy " Jube rocked 
 himself in the joy of his reminiscence " don t I member 
 how me an some o them t other boys got up hyar one 
 night, an drapped a leetle gunpowder down into the chim 
 bly. An Clem say, Lord A mighty what s that ? An 
 then I drapped a leetle mo yit, an Clem hollered, skeered, 
 till suddint he smelt it, an out he kem with a bar o red- 
 hot iron in his hand, a-dustin up the mounting. T war a 
 dark night, an he jes looked plumb like the devil hisself." 
 
 " Hesh, Jube, hesh ! ye air talkin mighty loud." The 
 old man shrank from the sound of his voice. 
 
 " An I seen him," continued Jube, " an durned ef I 
 war n t so full o laff that I los my balance, an fell right 
 down thar plumb onter the roof. Clem clomb up an got 
 me, he did ! But the t others hed runned off through the 
 woods." 
 
 " Jube, jes see ef ye can t shet up fur awhile," said the 
 poor parson. 
 
 " Waal," remonstrated Jube, " I jes want ter tell ye how 
 I kep Clem from bastin me count o that trick. Oh, ho ! 
 t war the funniest joke on Clem ; liked ter never hearn the 
 e-end o it, an " 
 
 " I don t want ter hear no joke," said Parson Donnard 
 sternly and ill at ease ; perhaps he felt a personified joke 
 himself, perched on the beetling ledges of the mountain in 
 the middle of the night, in imminent danger of rheumatism, 
 and in the society of his rollicking son. It would be a gay 
 da y for the flock of Brother Ezekiel Johns, in Piomingo 
 Cove, if his enterprise and position should be discovered, 
 and, failing, should become ridiculous. Draw as he might 
 on his large resources of explanation, his license of meta 
 phor and spiritual phrasing, he could not justify the facts 
 with the frivolous Jube in company. 
 
 " This air a solemn casion, an we hev kem out, it may 
 be, ter meet the Enemy. Pears ter me ye air a mighty 
 junketin an jiggetty sort o boy fur a pa son s son, gigglin 
 an jokin all the time." 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 149 
 
 The parson spoke with acrimony ; perhaps at that moment 
 he himself would have administered with right good will 
 " the bastin " that Clem had spared. 
 
 u No use ter take arter me kase the devil kerns a-lopin 
 round in Brumsaidge," retorted Jube, surlily. " I hain t 
 hed no dealin s with the devil." He spoke of the Enemy 
 familiarly ; he was accustomed to hear so much of him. 
 u Ef I war a-talkin , t would n t hender him none from 
 kemin ; he ain t afeard o me, I reckon." 
 
 He relapsed, however, into silence, preserving a wounded 
 manner which was of great avail generally with his parents, 
 and which advertised that some one had been " tromplin 
 on his feelin s," as he was wont to phrase it. 
 
 The night was wearing on : once the glittering dart of a 
 falling star shot swiftly athwart the dark expanse. They 
 could hear the pensive night sigh in its reverie. Jube now 
 and again shifted his position, a few loose stones rolling 
 beneath his feet. The tedium of the delay wore heavily 
 upon him. Once as the clarion note of a cock rang out, 
 with its response from the echoing crags, he ventured to 
 say in a low voice, " Thar now ! " as a reproach for the 
 lateness of the hour. And more than once afterward he 
 yawned with ostentatious fatigue. Differently, indeed, had 
 the time been beguiled when he and his cronies awaited 
 the propitious moment to throw gunpowder into the smith s 
 forge fire. But then the bellows was at work, with its noisy 
 respirations, and the anvil clamored, and the behests of 
 secrecy were not inconsistent with sound. Now the forge 
 in the black abyss below was as silent as the grave, as 
 dark. No stir save that of the torrent in the deep obscurity 
 of its channel, its current throbbing like the pulse of the 
 night. No light in all the world, not even at Eli Strobe s 
 cabin, where the watchers candle by the bedside had burned 
 late ; no light save the glister of the great stars. 
 
 Suddenly the parsan s hand falls with a light touch 
 on Jube s ; a step along the road, was it ? The wind a 
 
loO THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 vagrant blast comes a-rustling down and stirs the dust ; 
 the dry, arid scent of it rises to their perch ; and again a 
 step. Distinct now, a regular advancing footfall along the 
 road, so dark, so dark under that glittering array of all the 
 hosts of heaven. An approach, a sound no more ! But 
 was the echo so strong, so keen, or was the step followed 
 closely by another ? 
 
 The parson s breath came in quick gasps through his half- 
 parted dry lips. He trembled throughout all his gaunt 
 frame. For the footfalls had followed the road at the base 
 of the mountain, and had paused at the door of the forge. 
 
 All at once the old man, quivering on the ledge, started 
 violently, and came near falling into the depths below, res 
 cuing himself only by the strong clutch of his sinewy hands 
 at the jagged rock on which he sat. For a sound had is 
 sued into the null silence, a long, terrible, jarring sound. 
 A wild, fantastic mimicry of a crowing cock, ending in a 
 sonorous wail, profaned the solemn stillness, and was stri 
 dent in all the echoes, The next moment his angry blood 
 was throbbing in his temples. Jube s arms were still flap 
 ping in his grotesque mockery, and his gay, inadvertent 
 laugh rang out, forgetful of all in the ecstatic opportunity, 
 of his father, their solemn mission, the purpose of the in 
 vaders of the forge, the spiritual enemy ; boisterously joy 
 ing in the sudden exclamation of fear below and the quick 
 retreating footfalls. 
 
 " Stop ! Stop ! Who be that down thar ? " exclaimed 
 the parson s authoritative voice. " War ye a-wantin ter get 
 in the forge ? " 
 
 A momentary silence below, seemingly a whisper ; then, 
 " Whar s that thar rooster ? Naw ; I war jes a-goin ter 
 turn roun . I kem down hyar ter inquire arter Eli Strobe, 
 lowin they d watch all night, an I would n t hev time ter- 
 morrer ; but I see the house air dark." 
 
 " Who be ye ? What s yer name ? " asked the parson. 
 
 Again a momentary hesitation. Then, " Ain t that Pa - 
 son Donnard ? " 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 151 
 
 The old man writhed under the cumbrous dignity of his 
 identity. How much easier and happier just now to be 
 Jube, burdened with no veneration of the community to live 
 up to ! He had never tasted the bitterness of such humility 
 as he experienced now. 
 
 " I be Pa son Donnard," he said as sonorously as he might, 
 " a sarvent of the Lord." 
 
 Another vague whisper. Then, aloud, " Laws-a-massy, 
 pa son, what be ye a-doin of up in. the mounting in the 
 middle of the night ? nigh day, ef the truth war knowed." 
 
 " I kern out," said the parson slowly, " ter wrastle with 
 the sperit." He did not think it needful to say in what 
 sense. 
 
 " Yes, sir," said the voice below, with an intonation of 
 deep respect. " I never would hev lowed t war you-uns, 
 though. I never war so skeered ! " 
 
 The parson stuttered in his haste. Whatever construc 
 tion might be placed upon his intentions and the hour, he 
 would repudiate that wild vocalization of the crowing Jube s. 
 
 " I hev brung my son along; I hev got Jube up hyar." 
 
 " Edzac ly," said Jube, with a facetiously accurate hic 
 cough. 
 
 " Air Jube a-wrastlin with the sperit, too ? " demanded 
 the unknown from below ; the intention of the scoffer was 
 in his tone. 
 
 " Ye shet up," said Jube, promptly. " I know ye. I 
 know yer voice. Ye be Jake Baintree. " I 11 kern down 
 an wrastle with you-uns, fust thing ye know." 
 
 In the interval a sudden faint flicker of sheet lightning 
 wavered across the dark world. Jube s eyes were young 
 and very keen. 
 
 " Who be that thar with ye ? " he cried out in a changed 
 tone. 
 
 An interval was it cogitation ? was it consultation ? 
 
 " Nobody," said Jake Baintree sturdily, " nobody be 
 with me." 
 
152 THE DESIOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 "I lowed I seen somebody jes now," urged Jube. 
 
 " Shadder, I reckon," said the voice unconcernedly. 
 " Good-night." 
 
 He moved off into the obscurity, and Jube sank down be 
 side his father, laying an excited clutch on his arm. " Thar 
 war another man with him, a strange man, dressed diff ent, 
 ez I never see afore." He listened to the retreating foot 
 falls. " Thar air two of em, two of em, keeping step 
 keerful, and walking like one man ! " 
 
 The parson rose, his stiff joints creaking. 
 
 " I don t keer ef thar be forty, or a hunderd. An ef 
 Satan hev got a mind, he kin set on the anvil down yander 
 or work at the forge ez a constancy fore I 11 be fool enough 
 agin ter kem out in the dark an roost up on a laidge on 
 the mounting ter spy him out, alongside o sech a tumble, 
 turrible, disobejient miser ble critter ez ye hev kem ter be. 
 They lowed t war me a-crowin , me, the pa son ! " 
 
 " I plumb forgot, dad," said the contrite Jube. 
 
 " An Jake Baintree, what I refused ter baptize ! This 
 tale will go the rounds o the kentry ! 
 
IX. 
 
 IT was indeed before the dawn that Teck Jepson set forth 
 on his journey. Upon the ultimate heights of the zenith 
 midnight had poised, and had thence flitted away into those 
 unrealized spaces whither all that has been goes at last. 
 Constellations that he lately knew as familiars of the 
 meridian hung low, in this unaccustomed hour, about the 
 western horizon. Unwonted influences were astir in the 
 brain. A sense of spiritual freshness, of bodily renewal, 
 of aloofness from the world, possessed the hour, a free 
 dom from the dominant mundane spirit that had swayed 
 the day before. The dark earth lay, as it were, uncreated 
 in the immense voids of the night. The soul seemed nearer 
 its nativity, fresh from the hands of the Creator. In this 
 isolation of identity, this perfect poise, this reverent cogni 
 zance of high solemnities, it seemed that one s lips might 
 be opened, that one might prophesy or sing some psalmodic 
 inspiration, so replete with the sense of fine bestowals was 
 the time. 
 
 The day was still afar off. The cattle slept as he went 
 out to the pinfold by the light of the stars, but the patient 
 creatures roused themselves, and came forth with quiescent 
 obedience ; a calf bleated, running to overtake its dam, the 
 dominant sound in the stillness, and the sheep huddled 
 together in chilly guise as they went. There was a light 
 presently in the windows of the house, yellow and lucent, 
 but Jepson did not go back when once he had quitted the 
 cabin ; the farewell to the children would be rather pain 
 than pleasure ; there was even a pang in parting with the 
 old dog, who persisted in following him for a time, driven 
 
154 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 back at last with harsh words and a purposely ill-aimed 
 stone. Jepson could not see, but he knew how the creature 
 crouched in the darkness, with its reproachful and surprised 
 eyes ; then turning, and coweringly running back to the 
 doorstep. The half-grown puppy watched the departure 
 with the intense interest naturally elicited by so unusual a 
 proceeding, then affecting to misconstrue the whole inci 
 dent, and with an elaborate ignoring of old acquaintance, 
 he barked furiously into the darkness, not desisting when 
 a shrill interpolated yelp betokened a reproving kick from 
 Bowles, but continuing his clamors of threatening distrust 
 after he had sought a refuge under the house, where no in 
 terference could reach him. Far down the mountain his 
 callow tones could be heard, as Jepson rode at the rear of 
 the little group of cattle and sheep. 
 
 The wind was awake, inconceivably fresh, albeit hardly 
 a leaf stirred, so light of foot it was. A fragrance like 
 some fine elixir was distilled from the wayside flower hid 
 den in the gloom. The morning star, so luminously still, 
 so splendid, looked over the mountains as he journeyed with 
 his flocks. A vague illumination was in the spaces sur 
 rounding it ; one might see that this sky wore an ineffably 
 poetic tint, did it but care to doff its sombre cloak. How 
 massive the mountains, how glooming and austere their 
 summit lines, against the dark instarred skies ! And sud 
 denly a bird is moved to sing, a note of supreme glad 
 ness, of joyous augury ? For what does the night signify 
 but that the morning is on the way ? So close was Jepson 
 to the tree whence this herald proclaimed the day that he 
 could hear the rustle of the wings as the creature plumed 
 them, and anon a low twittering as it settled down upon the 
 bough for a little waiting, a little waiting yet. And lo ! 
 the light comes, gray with vapor, and pale, and pensive, 
 only won to flushes and to smiles when the great sun, rid 
 ing hard upon the first glimmer, shows its vermilion disk, 
 hung about with amber and violet vapors, in the gap of 
 
THE DESPOT OF BltOOMSEDGE COTE. loo 
 
 the mountains, urgent to look upon the world before their 
 utmost heights are scaled. How purple the slopes ; how 
 the pearly mists slipped down ; and what long, burnished, 
 yellow slanting rays shot athwart the world to touch 
 Chilhowee, nay, the far-away dim summit of Walden s 
 Ridge, while the vast stretches of country beneath, in a 
 still amethystine shadow, lay motionless and waited ! And 
 here, alack, was his own old identity, full of perplexed 
 thoughts, and troublous forecasting, and vain regrets. Here, 
 too, as if the sun had brought it with the sight of the 
 familiar world, was the sense of vicinage, close, imperative, 
 not to be evaded, with the events of yesterday, the one 
 coercive factor of to-day. Mrs. Bowles might have won 
 dered to know the direction he took, not, in fulfillment 
 of her disparaging prophecy, across the line into North 
 Carolina. Straight down the mountain he was going, 
 straight into Broom sedge Cove. How fast tfyose coursers 
 of the sun did speed, already there, betimes ! Albeit so 
 far away as the miles counted, Jepson could see from the 
 great heights of the slopes the red gold flare in the deep 
 gulf of the purple range, where the lucent fresh light struck 
 upon the long-abandoned spaces usurped by the tawny-tinted 
 growths of Broomsedge Cove. His face wore no longer 
 that wide-eyed, uplifted, meditative look it had in the earlier 
 plastic poetic hours. It was introspective, pondering ; it 
 bore anew the inscrutable script of experience, of emotion. 
 Once or twice only the cattle called for his attention ; with 
 a turn of the mare on the flank of the column, and the loud 
 remonstrant barking of his dog harassing the stragglers, 
 they were once more jogging along the accustomed way. 
 At length, however the foremost of the company came al 
 most to a stand with a suppressed low of surprise, and then, 
 insistently burly, the animals occupied the whole path, leav 
 ing a man they had met to stand and wait by the wayside. 
 He held one palm over his eyes, for the sun came directly 
 into his face, and gazed doubtfully at the equestrian 
 
156 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 figure at the rear of the column. But Jepson had noted 
 him, and the recognition became mutual as he drew rein 
 beneath the great ledge of the rocks where Baintree stood. 
 As he looked up at the horseman, there was so shocked a 
 disappointment on his face that it seemed wonderful that an 
 emotion could be so definitely expressed without words. 
 
 Jepson waited a moment for him to speak. But Bain- 
 tree, still silent, gazed at him. " Ye lowed up yander ter 
 Bowles s yestiddy," said Jepson at last, " ez ye be powerful 
 glad I war arrested, I ain t been yit, an ez ye d like 
 ter see how I d look in a cage like Dan l." 
 
 Baintree made a feint of denial. " Did Mis Bowles low 
 I said sech ? " he demanded. " Waal, I jes tole her the 
 fust thing ez kem ter the tip o my tongue. She peared so 
 sharp set fur the news." 
 
 Jepson looked casually down at him, then away at the far 
 blue horizon. " I m goin ter Brumsaidge now, an ef they 
 wanter arrest me they kin an welcome ; an though I ain t 
 yit got the Lord so ez he sets ez much store by me ez he 
 done by Dan l, I ain t no mo feared o nuthin n him. I 
 be ekal ter answerin fur all I done, an I be more n willin ." 
 
 There was something splendid and imposing in his bold 
 ness, and in his stalwart pride in his courage. He turned 
 his unflinching gaze down to meet the intelligent and crafty 
 albeit vacillating eyes of Jake Baintree, in which there was 
 a sort of reluctant envy, despite the rancorous enmity they 
 intimated. 
 
 " Ye hev got ter try it fust," he said significantly, remem 
 bering the stress of his own ordeals, and that this was but 
 the valor of prognostication. The facts would probably 
 soon alter the outlook. He nodded his head convincingly. 
 
 " Sech ez I do," said the valorous saint, " air done afore 
 the Lord ! An I ain t keerin what men say ahint my back, 
 so long ez they take powerful keerful heed o thar words 
 afore my face ; ef they don t, I know how ter make em 
 wish they hed." 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 157 
 
 Jake Baintree failed, apparently, to comprehend the spirit 
 of this challenge. He looked absently at the red cow crop 
 ping the grass in the niches at the base of the cliff that 
 towered above their heads, and then his restless eye followed 
 the silver-tipped wings of a bird, flying in the sunshine, up 
 ward, upward, with open beak and a joyous matutinal cry, 
 cleaving the mists with a glancing line of light, and seem 
 ing bound for some haven in the splendid placidity of the 
 blue sky, so serene and so high. The dew exhaled incense. 
 Far away a fawn bleated, where doubtless it lay with its 
 clam in the thick coverts of the laurel. The balsam firs, 
 all a-glitter, gave out a sense of strength and infinite fresh 
 ness, and of all the finer values of respiration ; in such air 
 it was a definite joy to be endowed with the sheer capacity 
 to breathe. As his wandering glance came back he caught 
 Jepson s eyes upon him, and he was vaguely embarrassed 
 for the moment. He put one foot on tbe blade of the spade 
 that he had in his hand, and leaning upon the handle he 
 looked up, his inscrutable eyes narrowing and full of close 
 and guarded thought. 
 
 " What war ye a-layin off ter say ter me ? Jes that ? " 
 he demanded. 
 
 " I never laid off ter say nuthin ter you-uns," said Jep- 
 son, loftily. " Ye happen ter be in my road. I ain t keerin* 
 ef ye onderstan or no sech ez I am mindin ter say an act. 
 I render an account ter the Lord, an I walk afore him ! I 
 be goin down ter Brumsaidge ter meet the days ter come. 
 I feel ekal ter em, ter what the Lord mought send." 
 
 A sudden anxiety flickered over Baintree s face ; for the 
 first time he noted the household gear, packed in a tiny 
 wagon that was drawn by an old ox, guided only by his 
 master s voice as lie rode alongside, and the number of cat 
 tle and sheep. This was evidently a permanent removal. 
 
 " \Vhar be ye a-goin ter live in the Cove ? " he demanded 
 suddenly. 
 
 " "\Vhar do ye reckon ? " retorted Jepson, resenting the 
 
158 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 supposed curiosity impelling the question. "Ye may be 
 sure in the fear o the Lord, an in the light o his face, ef 
 he will turn it on me." 
 
 He lifted his head with a most mundane pride and called 
 aloud to his cattle, his robust, mellow voice echoing along 
 the savage steeps. Then, with the whole pastoral train 
 once more in motion, he rode on down the rugged mountain 
 ways, sitting with a proud erectriess, the lingering influ 
 ence of his arrogations in the conversation, his broad hat 
 pushed back from his brow, his spirited face full of resolu 
 tion and confidence again, and with that imaginative, medi 
 tative look once more in his eyes ; for, urged by his con 
 tempt for the man from whom he had just parted, it cost 
 him no effort to discharge his flexible mind, almost his very 
 memory, of the conversation and of the existence of his 
 late companion. But he could not keep his thoughts upon 
 congenial themes. Over and again, to be sure, he reverted 
 to the trend of his habitual meditations. It was thus, he 
 reflected, that they of old had journeyed with their flocks 
 under the open sky. He saw Jacob s cattle instead of his 
 own slowly tending down the defiles ; now and again he 
 passed a bubbling spring, full of tinkling tremors of sound 
 stealing out into the silence of this richly luxuriant land, 
 and to him it was a " well of springing water in a desert 
 place ; " sheep they had of old, and kine, and horses, and 
 he marveled much what a camel might be. Then sud 
 denly, with a deep sigh, he was again striving with the pur 
 suing pack of remorseful, sharp-fanged regrets, falling upon 
 him anew, with a freshened capacity to tear and mangle, 
 recruited in that short respite. With the veiled future be 
 fore, that no prescient eye might even vaguely discern ; 
 with an urgent sense of justification, that nevertheless could 
 not justify his deed to himself ; with a self-effacing desire 
 to atone for what he felt was no fault of his, as if the sac 
 rifice could restore all as it was at this hour of yesterday, 
 he reviewed the scene, burnt as it was into his brain, and 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 159 
 
 shrank once more in every sensitive fibre from the barbed 
 reproaches of Marcella s soft voice, and again turned aghast 
 from what might perchance befall Eli Strobe. 
 
 And then he vibrated to that other mood, his splendid 
 physique rebounding from the harassments that sought to 
 fix upon his strong nerves. His habit of robustly ignoring 
 aught that did not jump with his humor ; his imperious and 
 independent poise ; his impassivity to argument and the 
 opinion of others ; his arrogant arbitration of all matters 
 according to his own absolute judgment, that recognized no 
 alternative, no higher appeal, save his tyrannical interpreta 
 tions of the Lord s will, all renewed their tenure, and he 
 was open anew to the influences of the present. Here and 
 there his receptive fancy was struck by a great cairn of 
 stones, fragments of rock split from the crags above by the 
 riving frosts of immemorial winters, ahd he was reminded 
 afresh of the altar that Jacob piled, and of the resting- 
 places which surely the Lord frequented of this jour 
 neying man of eld. 
 
 " Jacob hed powerful strange speriences," he broke out. 
 " He did dream s prisin . An the Lord s voice mus hev 
 sounded in his ears, wakin an sleepin , arter he once hearn 
 it. I could n t holp feelin sorry fur Esau, though." 
 
 He mechanically noted how the golden-rod showered its 
 yellow hoard, as his stirrup-irons struck into the thick way 
 side growth, how the blooming " mountain snow " brushed 
 his mare s fine coat. 
 
 "It never did pear ter me so scandalous redic lous ez 
 Esau war hongry arter he kem from huntin . This air a 
 powerful rough k entry, an the air is brief. I fund the 
 diff ence out whenst I went down yander ter them valley 
 towns, time Jake Baintree war tried. The Bible lowed 
 Esau war a powerful cunning hunter, bnt never said nuthin 
 bout what sorter dogs he hed, mought n t hev been 
 trained to trail, an time he hed pulled bout n the mount 
 ings with a pack o wuthless hounds arter deer or b ar he 
 
ICO THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 war bleeged ter been hongry ; but he ought n t ter hev sold 
 his birthright fur a pot o j soup. * 
 
 He shook his head reprehensively over this ancient trans 
 action. "Esau oughtn t ter hev done that," he said, as if 
 it had happened yesterday. 
 
 The mare suddenly shied from a pallid, lightning-scathed 
 tree showing abruptly close at hand as the path curved. He 
 paused for a moment, but the interruption did not divert 
 the current of his reflections. "Jacob," he said, "served 
 seven year fur Rachel, an lowed t war like one day. He 
 b lieved in Rachel. The Bible lows she war plumb beauti 
 ful, but I 11 be bound she war n t nowhar compared ter 
 Marcelly " He broke off with a bitter sigh ; his face 
 clouded ; the far-away look in his blue eyes, that was so in 
 consonant with the force and boldness of his features, was 
 gone with the effect of a sudden metamorphosis, abso 
 lutely unrecognizable. He gathered up the reins that he 
 had suffered to lie loose on the mare s neck, and lifted his 
 voice in a melancholy hymn, and sang aloud as he rode. 
 Now and again the tones rose to Jake Baintree s ears, and 
 once as Jepson emerged below the wealth of foliage into a 
 rocky space he saw him and his flock and herd again ; the 
 animals running at speed down the declivities, the mare 
 cantering after, while the rider sang aloud, the sound vibra 
 ting back and forth in swinging vigor of rhythm, and with 
 the multitudinous echoes seeming as if the whole morning 
 were voicing the solemn measure of an anthem. 
 
 Baintree, as he leaned on his spade, his hat pulled low 
 over his uncertain and lowering eyes, had an expression al 
 together at variance with his humble rustic garb, so crafty, 
 so keen, it was, His face was lined with anxiety for a mo 
 ment. Once he started impulsively after the horseman, 
 then checked himself abruptly, " He 11 git thar fore I kin," 
 he remarked. " It s down hill all the way, an they 11 
 keep that gait, I reckon." 
 
 Already the song was faint; already the echoes were 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 161 
 
 fitful. The wind was harping in the pines above his head ; 
 he glanced up to see them gently stirring; a great buzzard 
 majestically circled in the blue sky ; a mist on the mountain 
 side vanished, as the broad flare of the sun encountered its 
 ethereal pallors, like some belated ghost that in these soli 
 tudes had braved the monitory cock-crow. 
 
 " He 11 be powerful s prised when he does get thar," he 
 muttered, " an that s all ! " He spoke aloud, his anxious 
 canvassing resulting in reassurance. He laughed a little, 
 his thin lips curving. " He s a mos survigrous fool ; " he 
 shook his head in contemplating the strength of the folly 
 that Jepson harbored. " He ain t goin ter sense nuthin . 
 He 11 bound round hyar an talk bout the Lord, when he 
 air so fur from heaven ez the Lord hisself can t hear him. 
 An ennyhow, he 11 git rested so soon that he won t hev 
 much chance ter wonder an talk. An I 11 light out ter 
 let the folks in Brumsaidge know ez he be a-travelin round 
 an a-purtendin ter be a-goin thar, fur mebbe he won t go 
 ter his cabin arter all." 
 
 This cabin of Jepson s was well out of sight from the 
 Settlement, and was in fact some miles distant. It stood on 
 the slope of the deep trough in the mighty range which was 
 called Broomsedge Cove, but the characteristic topography 
 of the locality had given way, and the torrent that, long 
 and sinuous, was a feature of the broader spaces, lay here in 
 a chasm-like valley and wore the semblance of a lakelet in 
 the abyss below, so completely did jutting spurs of the 
 mountain conceal its further vagrant course. It was a wild 
 spot, with its rocky bit of pasture, its " gyarden," its slant 
 ing fields. Above the little log cabin the great, wooded, 
 gray, craggy steeps towered immutably ; below, the abrupt 
 declivity slanted to the clifty banks of the simulated lake in 
 the gorge. In certain states of the atmosphere, one stand 
 ing in the weed-grown garden might think to put forth a 
 hand and touch that purple-bronze mountain opposite. 
 And again the neighboring heights sought a sophistry of 
 
162 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 distance, and were blue and vague, and shimmered elusive 
 through a fluctuating haze. The water in the chasm had 
 too its variant guise ; at times it was a burnished yellow 
 with the emblazonment of the sun, or beneath a dull sky it 
 glittered with a steely lustre, like some keen blade that, 
 finely tempered, can be bent and writhen into an unwonted 
 sinuosity ; under a lunar spell it trembled and shoaled with 
 violet tints, and glancing pearly shafts, and anon a silver 
 gleam. On dark nights the stars registered one by one 
 in these lucent currents, sequestered by the forest and the 
 rocks, and held in the deep, deep heart of the mountain. 
 
 Jepson felt a sudden poignant pang when first he caught 
 sight of the crystal depths, of the little gray cabin, of the 
 weed-grown wastes about it, and of the mountains opposite 
 and those that clustered round. Ah, what does an old home 
 house ! Such troops of memories, gay and grave ; such 
 palpable fancies arrayed in the guise of those that once it 
 knew, endowed with voices that speak no more, morn 
 ing, noon, and night, these tenants flit in and out of its por 
 tals and busy themselves as of yore, despite whomsoever it 
 shelters now, and find no lack of space. Hospitable roof- 
 tree ! He could not enter at first ; he did not even have 
 the heart to meditate on the policy of its desertion and of 
 his return. He unsaddled his mare, arid watched the cattle 
 take their way to the old pasture and into the tumbling 
 shanty of a barn, noting indications of their dumb recogni 
 tion of the locality. He wondered if they were aware of 
 the change, and how in their dull and half-developed reason 
 ing processes they accounted for it. Old griefs, seared over 
 by time and distance, began to ache again in conscious be 
 reavement. It smote him like a blow in the face to note 
 the weed-grown spaces of the garden, how bravely the 
 prince s-feathers flaunted, how the tiger-lilies flared ! All 
 of the utilitarian growths had succumbed ; there might be 
 " volunteer potatoes," perchance, under the fennel, and the 
 broad-leafed mullein, and the long tangled crab-grass, but 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 163 
 
 naught showed of the old-time grace and plenty but the 
 flowers that his mother had planted, still keeping tryst with 
 the seasons as of yore. 
 
 " How she did love enny thing ez hed a strong color onto 
 it ! " he thought wistfully, remembering this primitive half- 
 realized relish of beauty of contour and of tint, and watch 
 ing a row of tall hollyhocks, all their straight, shaft-like 
 stalks studded with blossoms as they waved back and forth 
 in the wind, by the doorstep, where she used to sit and watch 
 them, while she listened to the deep, musical flow of the 
 stream in the abyss below, or the blare of the wind in the 
 pines, or the heart-felt lay of a bird singing from the or 
 chard bough. " Waal, waal," he sighed as he lay at length 
 amongst the clover, his hat upon the ground and his hands 
 clasped under his head, gazing at the little gray cabin, " she 
 hev got a better house n that one now, a house not made 
 with hands." 
 
 For all his imagination he could not see it, and so he 
 sighed again. 
 
 It was nearing noonday ; the scent of the clover was dry 
 and warm ; a bee went droning by ; the shadows of a few 
 scrubby fruit trees, by courtesy an orchard, had almost col 
 lapsed about the roots, far different from their long, slant 
 ing matutinal habit. Autumn was on the way, although its 
 signs were scant. On the great slope behind the house a 
 single sour-wood tree on a bold crag flaunted, a deep, rich 
 crimson color ; it contrasted sharply with its own white tas 
 sels, and with the gray of the rugged rock, with the green 
 of the pines hard by, with the delicate, indefinable blue of 
 that slow up-wreathing smoke. 
 
 Smoke ? Whence should it come ? He lifted himself 
 upon his elbow and stared, his eyes startled and intent, as 
 if he scarcely believed their testimony. For this vague and 
 vagrant tissue was curling up from the old stick-and-clay 
 chimney of the deserted house. 
 
 He did not move. He lay watching this illusion, as it 
 
164 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 were, this guise of former days, wondering that the little 
 cabin, gray and aged and trembling on the verge of dissolu 
 tion, should lend itself to this fraud of vision, spuriously 
 advertising itself a habitation, when he recalled how gaunt 
 and bare it was within ; how dark were the corners, where 
 the spiders wove their time-thickened webs ; how dilapidated 
 a rift was in the flooring, where a puncheon had rotted and 
 fallen through. Ah, looking at the graves in the little for 
 lorn burying-plot among the crags, high on the slope in a 
 square inclosure of gray palings, and remembering those 
 who had quitted the cabin and the humble home ways for 
 ever, to lie out there in the silence of the mountains, with 
 the rain, and the mist, and the wind, and the snow to come 
 and to go unheeded, while they waited the sound of the 
 promised trump, which even the dull ear of death shall heed, 
 he felt how well it behooved that hearth-stone to be 
 dark, and silent, and solitary ; how strange a freak it was 
 that this vaporous attestation of warmth and glow should 
 deceive his senses. 
 
 The smoke bent before the wind ; it wafted toward him. 
 
 He rose suddenly, with a changed face. 
 
 " Somebody air in thar," he said, with mustering indigna 
 tion ; " they hev got a fire, an they air a-burnin of green 
 wood." 
 
 The smell of the smoke from the green wood, with the 
 pungent, aromatic suggestions of its sap, was still stronger 
 as he stood by the door. He hesitated for a moment ; then 
 with a muttered " I hev got manners, ef ye ain t," the owner 
 of the house knocked, rousing such a sound in the cavern 
 ous stillness that his heart gave a great throb as he heard. 
 Precipitate feet seemed to hastily plod to the door, failing 
 somehow when reaching it, and waiting in silence, while 
 fainter footfalls followed and paused also. It was only 
 when he knocked once more that he realized that this was 
 but the echo of his summons on the frail battens. There 
 seemed no one inside, but as he tried the latch he dis- 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 165 
 
 covered, to his infinite surprise, that the door was barred 
 within. 
 
 " A body would low fur sartain ez thar war folks inside," 
 he said in doubt. 
 
 His eyes, with a certain freedom characteristic of the 
 proprietary glance, turned with a canvassing attention now to 
 the walls and chimney, and again to the closed batten shut 
 ter. The hollyhocks that his mother had planted how 
 they had grown ! rapped against it with peremptory itera 
 tion, as if insistently summoning her forth to see how they 
 throve and rewarded her early care. 
 
 " Jes ez ye say ! " he remarked loudly, for the benefit of 
 the supposed occupants. " Ef ye don t let me in, I 11 let 
 myself in." 
 
 Still there was no response save the striking back of the 
 tones of his voice from the walls, seeming intrusive and 
 strident in the utter silence. 
 
 He began to feel as if he w r ere dreaming. He looked 
 over his shoulder to see the scattered kine in the clover ; 
 his claybank mare standing unsaddled by the old rail fence, 
 her bronze flanks glistening in the sun, her black mane toss 
 ing as she thrust her head over the high topmost rail, gaz 
 ing with full, lustrous eyes down the slope, and snuffing 
 with satisfaction the fresh breeze. He was awake, very 
 wide awake indeed, one might have thought, to see him take 
 his pistol from the holster of the saddle on the ground and 
 slip it into the long leg of his boot ; for his faith in the effi 
 cacy of a " shootin -iron " was hardly less pronounced than 
 his faith in the efficacy of prayer. He walked in with a 
 gingerly step amongst the tall, slim rods of the hollyhocks. 
 " I hev ter be powerful particular bout tromplin these hyar 
 high weeds ez mani sets sech store by," he said, repeating 
 an old formula, familiar to him of yore, and distinguishing 
 in the words, only after they were spoken, the sarcasm of 
 the present and the past. Even in that urgent moment of 
 action and of caution he sought to reflect that for her 
 
166 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 flowered the unfading splendors of the gardens of heaven, 
 and he had a sudden close realization of the solace she must 
 have found in that bloomful Paradise. A vague vision of 
 vast multiplied fields of the Chilhowee lily was before his 
 eyes : of these white ethereal glories were the heavenly bor 
 ders, he knew. He paused as he stood ; the white holly 
 hocks, with their garnet centres, touched his cheek. He 
 laid his hand on the shutter, breast-high from the ground. 
 One sudden violent wrench, and it swung open. The next 
 instant, with the supple agility of a mountain panther, he 
 sprang through the narrow aperture, and landed on his feet 
 in the middle of the square, low-ceiled room. Empty, 
 quite empty. He stood amidst the clustering shadows, 
 and gazed about with a dilated, excited eye. A square of 
 yellow sunlight lay on the floor beneath the window, and in 
 the slanting rays the motes were dancing. A new puncheon 
 had replaced the rift in the floor ; in the chimney-place were 
 heaps of ashes, and amidst them red coals smouldered. 
 The fire had been providently covered to last, but the task 
 had not been well done, or the draught was stronger than 
 usual, the wind being favorable ; for a remnant of the 
 green-wood log had begun to burn afresh, although only a 
 timorous blaze now and then showed itself, flickering out in 
 the steady column of smoke slowly tending up the chimney. 
 There were pipes on the shelf that served as mantel, a rough 
 pallet in the corner, and a few rude cooking utensils on a 
 bench. As he looked about in increasing surprise, he noted 
 a variety of fragments of rock, systematically ranged on the 
 floor beside the walls. A strong spade and a pickaxe with 
 its point broken off stood in the corner. With a mind void 
 of even a speculation, he investigated the shed-room ; then 
 ascended to the roof-room, \vhere the window by the chim 
 ney was open to the air. It looked out above the low 
 branches of the orchard, where the sunshine and the 
 shadows still alternated in the old vogue known amongst 
 the leaves since light first dawned upon the world. It 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 167 
 
 showed, too, the great dark mountains hard by, with the 
 deeper shades amongst them that betokened ravine and 
 chasm below the level of his eye ; and there was a range 
 afar off, appearing above their massive summits, faintly 
 blue, known by sight only, as it were, for its name was un 
 familiar, and its relative position to the other steeps was 
 such that it could be seen only from the window of his old 
 room. A dead tree, close at hand, denuded of leaves and 
 bark, tall and blanched to a silver tint, showed its dendritic 
 symmetry in pallid glistening lines against the soft blue of 
 those far slopes, and the sense of distance between the two, 
 the leagues of sunshine, was immeasurable. The sight of 
 the mountain, so long unseen, with the overpowering recol 
 lection of the past, had an indescribable effect upon him. 
 His face was wistful, his nerves grew tense, his hand trem 
 bled as he leaned upon its palm on the window-sill. 
 Another man, feeling thus, would have wished that he had 
 not come, and would have upbraided himself, perchance, 
 that he had been so ill content, placed as he was of late. 
 Jepson rarely, indeed, questioned the wisdom and the policy 
 of his own decrees. He turned himself about with a long- 
 drawn sigh, quivering, it seemed, through the very flesh of 
 his heart that ached physically, tramped heavily down the 
 stairs, and without a moment s hesitation addressed himself 
 to removing the stranger s effects ; piling them all in a heap 
 outside of the boundary fence, where the owner might come 
 and take them or leave them, as he saw fit. 
 
 " Ef he bed kem an axed me, whoever he be, he d hev 
 been welcome ter bide ez long ez he wanted ter," he ob 
 served, the sentiment of the proprietor strong within him 
 and affronted by this lack of formality. "I hain t been 
 outer reach noways ez I knows on. An ef my kin be 
 dead, / ain t."- 
 
 As he proceeded to put his own household effects into 
 that perfunctory and curious disarray which the masculine 
 mind accounts order, he glanced out of the window now 
 
168 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 and again, thinking to see the evicted tenant returning to 
 find his household gods thus upset, and heaped together and 
 cast out. 
 
 So bent was he upon this that after his expeditious set 
 tlement of his household affairs he seated himself on the 
 step of the little porch, and smoked, as he leaned, with his 
 hands behind his head, against the post, and watched the 
 meagre treasure with intent eyes. He did not recognize his 
 resolution in any sense as softening, but when the unknown 
 intruder should come back, and thus learn this pointed les 
 son of the absolute rights of ownership, he held in contem 
 plation the return of the cast-out gear to the house, and an 
 invitation to abide for a time. 
 
 As he sat there the river sang, sang aloud to the listen 
 ing, silent mountains, an archaic lay, so full of a sentiment 
 of a vital individuality, an undying spirit, that it must have 
 been voiced by some finer essences than are known to our 
 dull modern density. He could hear the woods declaiming 
 in vibrant periods, although he could translate none of these 
 dryadic tones that came from the trees. The bees droned 
 around his mother s flowers ; a butterfly, more splendidly 
 caparisoned than any blossom, dandered about the old neg 
 lected garden and took to wing. And as he watched, 
 naught came down the path but the reddening sunlight, loi 
 tering along to its home in the west. 
 
X. 
 
 IT was soon bruited abroad that Jepson had come back 
 to Broomsedge Cove to live, and to those who declined to 
 give credence to this new instance of his boldness having 
 entertained the opinion that he would skulk indefinitely 
 amongst the hidden nooks of the mountains, continuing a 
 reproach to the denizens of the Settlement for their failure 
 to detain him conclusive evidence was promptly furnished 
 by his reappearance in his old haunts. No one sought to 
 compensate now for the previous dereliction of the commu 
 nity, and he was proof against the cold shoulder and the 
 look askance, so completely did the influence of his own in 
 dividuality dwarf the opinion of the disaffected. A new 
 view of the accident began to be entertained, and there were 
 not a few disparaging comments, especially among the ad 
 verse political faction, on Eli Strobe s methods in office, and 
 his own responsibility for the disaster which had befallen 
 him. Had Jepson been a philosopher or a student of human 
 nature, he might have found material for interesting analy 
 sis in the conduct of his ancient cronies during his absence 
 as set forth in sundry confidences of what had been said, 
 and thought, and threatened, and thus have sown the seeds 
 of permanent misanthropy. He evidently gave the gossip 
 little heed ; he flouted its infinitesimal consequence. He 
 was so validly indifferent, so serenely strong in the courage 
 of his convictions, so arrogant in his self-esteem, that he 
 belittled the others without even an intention of reducing 
 their pride. Only once did the barbed shaft fail to glance 
 off futile. " War them Pa son Donnard s words ? " he 
 asked, a frown upon his face, as he stood in the door of the 
 
170 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 forge and leaned against the frame, while a coterie of the 
 gossips sat half within and half without. His eyes were 
 dark and full of smouldering fire ; his broad hat was pushed 
 back from his brow, which had flushed to the roots of his 
 hair. " Did he low ez how I hed Emitted murder ? War 
 them his words ? " 
 
 " Jube say so," replied Clem Sanders. He was not con 
 sciously treacherous to his friend, but he possessed an un 
 guarded tongue, and perhaps it was the hidden workings of 
 justice that he should betray Jube s confidences, as Jube 
 had failed to keep his secret. 
 
 Jepson remained silent a moment after the reiteration of 
 the assertion. Then his whole aspect suddenly cleared. 
 
 " The Lord 11 jedge twixt him an me. I ain t a-keerin 
 so long ez the Lord be on my side. I fear no man, an the 
 word o none ! " 
 
 It was doubtless because of his mental breadth and fresh 
 ness, his physical vigor and the elasticity appertaining to 
 health, that his hope was so strong, and his courage so 
 sound, and his nerves so accurately poised. But he believed 
 this the result of piety, and he was not often gainsaid. 
 
 " Oh, shet up," Bassett urged on this occasion, being a 
 prosaic man of this world, with a discerning eye for the 
 foibles of others, and appreciating in some sort vast rifts 
 between these spiritual arrogations and actual possessions. 
 " Ye talk like ez ef ye an the Lord war partners ! " 
 
 " Ef I hed it all ter do over agin, I reckon I would n t 
 ride that race," pursued the moralist speculatively, " knowin 
 what I know now, an how it all turned out, kase I never 
 wanted ter hurt nobody, much less Eli Strobe. But ef I 
 knowed no more n I done then, I d ride it agin. Tell me 
 it s agin the law fur me an Jube ter race our critters long 
 the road, an yit it ain t agin the law ter race yer critters 
 on a reg lar race-track, kase it puts suthin inter the State s 
 pocket ! Thar ain t no jestice in that law r an I won t 
 abide by it. Naw, folkses, wrong is wrong every whar, an 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 171 
 
 money can t make it right. No use payin the State fur a 
 license ter do wrong." 
 
 There were few vaticinations now concerning the result 
 of the disaster ; the doctor had come and had shaken his 
 head, the precise significance of which was variously inter 
 preted, the majesty and solemnity of the gesture alone be 
 ing open to no sort of question. The prophets imitated his 
 caution, and reserved their opinion. Eli mought die, they 
 said, and then agin he mought n t. And thus they were 
 prepared for whatever might betide. The doctor had added 
 to the ostensible purpose of his existence the fact of fur 
 nishing a new theme to the idle gossips who sat upon the 
 fences, and hung about the store and the forge ; he, and his 
 big spectacles, and his bald head, and his old-fashioned 
 buggy a new and a wonderful vehicle in the estimation of 
 Broomsedge were canvassed afresh, and those who were 
 fortunate enough to have had some necessity for his services 
 in past times, then considered unfortunate enough, renewed 
 their experiences in their account of the methods of his prac 
 tice, the repetition of hoarded bits of his conversation, and 
 the comparison of views as to his professional capacity. By 
 the majority he was held to be u ekal ter raisin the dead," 
 but Mrs. Strobe did not coincide in that flattering opinion. 
 
 " Marcelly," said the sharp little dame. u that thar old 
 bald-headed buzzard, an he looks percisely like one in 
 them slick black store-clothes, he knows jes ez much 
 bout doctorin ez AYatch thar, ef that." 
 
 The k frequent visitor s " dog acknowledged the men 
 tion of his name by two or three taps with his tail on the 
 floor, as he sat in the uninclosed passage between the twa 
 rooms beside Marcella. who had dropped down on a rickety 
 bench that stood against the wall. The girl turned upward 
 her pale, anxious face, with a dumb despair in her eyes. 
 She had hung on the physician s words, as if there were 
 healing in the very sound. Mrs Strobe held her tiny figure 
 very erect ; there was color in her cheeks, and her eyes 
 
172 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 flashed. In fact, the professional call had been in some 
 sort distinguished as a collision between two eminent medi 
 cal authorities. 
 
 " I hev been considered ekal to doctorin Eli an ye 
 chil n ," declared Mrs. Strobe, with a manner as attestive 
 as if she were reading a diploma, " an he tells me I need n t 
 continue the yerb teas ez I hev been brewin ; they air * use 
 less, an whatever air useless air mo or less injurious/ 
 How does he know ? "she demanded, with sphinxine triumph ; 
 " he dunno what I put inter em. Me ! ez hev fetched all ye 
 folks through all sort n mis ries an measles with my yerb- 
 bag ! An he gimme these hyar leetle papers with powders in 
 em, nuthin in the world but sand, I 11 be bound, an this 
 hyar bottle, lotiuin, he called it ; smells loud enough ter 
 knock a calf down ! An that s all it s good fur, ter de 
 range yer nose teetotally, till ye can t smell no mo till king 
 dom come. An stop them yerb teas, no good ; an he 
 don t know what s in em ! An let Eli sleep, when the 
 mo he sleeps the foolisher he talks whenst he wakes up. 
 Shucks ! I be goin ter doctor Eli Strobe myself ! I hev tuk 
 him along through a many a tight fix." 
 
 The girl sighed with relief and renewing hope, and 
 pushed back the tangled heavy curling hair from her brow. 
 
 " Don t ye be oneasy, chile," said the sturdy little dame. 
 " I lowed ter Teck Jepson jes yestiddy, I say, Eli Strobe s 
 my son. But what through his bein the dad o Marcelly 
 an Is bel, an the constable o Brumsaidge, an the patient 
 o the doctor, a body mought see they did n t low me ter 
 hev much sheer in him. But I be his mother, an ef I hev 
 got enny rights 1 reckon it air ter dose him <ter my own 
 taste. An Teck say, Ef I war sick, Mis Strobe, I d a 
 sight ruther hev you-uns ter look arter me n enny doctor- 
 man I ever see. Teck spoke right up." 
 
 " Teck Jepson ! " cried the girl, knitting her straight 
 black eyebrows, " hev he hed the insurance ter kem hyar 
 agin ? " 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 173 
 
 " Ye air a idjit, Marcelly ; course he kem ter inquire 
 arter Eli. He ain t studyin bout you-uns ; but that s jes 
 like a gal, vainglorious till she lows the man air a-con- 
 trivin an thinkin bout n her all the time. Shucks, chile ; 
 wait till ye git ez old ez I be, an ye 11 find out it air the 
 wimmin ez hev ter do the thinkin an contrivin ter please 
 the men, an then can t keep up with em more n half the 
 time." 
 
 " I "don t want ter please em," said Marcella, with a 
 curve of her delicate lips, and lifting her head to its habit 
 ual airy pose. 
 
 " Kase ye feel so mighty sure ye air goin* ter thout 
 tryin ," retorted the discerning grandmother. " Let some 
 body tell ye now ez ye air downright ugly, an ef they 
 could make ye b lieve it, ye d a sight ruther hear ye lied 
 los yer soul s salvation ! " 
 
 She began to turn anew the papers in her hand. " Quit 
 them yerb teas, " she quoted with a cantankerous accent, as 
 she fumbled with the tiny wrappers, mimicking the physi 
 cian s ill-judged scorn. She was letting the powders fly out 
 in the wind. " * Gin these powders, one every hour. He 
 lef his watch, sir, so ez ter tell the time o day ; an it air 
 in yander now, a-goin on like suthin live. Gin him these 
 powders, I ? 11 gin him some yerb tea, an tell the doctor 
 the powders done him a power o good, when he kerns agin. 
 Ye Watch," she called out to the dog, who when a few 
 flakes of the medicine fell upon the floor sprang up with an 
 expectant hunger and a glistening greedy eye, as if he had 
 not had a morsel of food for a week, " ef ye lap that up, it 11 
 tangle yer liver an gizzard up so ye 11 never git em straight 
 agin." Completing the destruction of the powders, she 
 shook the bottle, looking at it intently. u Mought be some 
 use." The seeming admission was as to the value of the 
 glass vial, by no means the " lotium." 
 
 That afternoon she demonstrated her incontestable claim, 
 however, to some knowledge of hygiene by a mandate that 
 
174 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 Marcella, and not Isabel, should go after the cows ; and as 
 the girl reluctantly left the invalid s bedside, Mrs. Strobe 
 followed her out with axioms and boasts, for she had grown 
 exceedingly prideful and exalted anew in her own opinion 
 since she had observed the methods of the physician. " Ye 
 oughter git some air an light, Marcelly ; ye look like the 
 las o pea-time, an old ! some similar ter Noah s grand 
 mother, ef the good oman hed lasted this long. Ef ye 
 keep on lookin like that, even Clem Sanders won t admire 
 ye ; an I think he air the kind o boy ez hev got mighty 
 little scrimination in gal-folks, all of em pritty ter 
 Clem, I 11 be bound. Ye go out an git them cows hyar. I 
 don t want Is bel ter grow no taller till she makes out ter git 
 a little wider. She looks now like she war a-travelin on 
 stilts, bein so long-legged. Naw, Is bel hed better set still, 
 an try ter fatten. Our folks war always knowed ter be a 
 set o well-favored wimmin, an I don t want ye an Is bel 
 ter gin the lie ter that report. Ez ter the men o the fam- 
 bly, they war ugly enough ter skeer the bars in the woods ; 
 but, honey, they never knowed it, an ez they war so pow 
 erful pleased with thar own beauty, sech ez they hed, it 
 helped ter keep em satisfied, leastwise ez satisfied ez they 
 war able ter be. Ye go long, an see ef ye can t find yer 
 own looks somewhar out yander in the wind an rnongst 
 the rocks. I 11 be bound ye 11 kem up with em tangled in 
 the briers." 
 
 If it were the radiance of the splendid and perfect day 
 that was Marcella s inalienable possession, the tint of the 
 wild rose for her lips and her infrequent flush, the lucent 
 shining of deep pure waters reproduced in her eyes, she 
 seemed to have renewed all these invaluable gifts when she 
 chanced to cross the little foot-bridge over the torrent that 
 ran through Broomsedge Cove. The cows that she drove 
 were fording the stream, standing flank-deep in the swirling 
 current ; the waters were a dark brownish-green tint, of a 
 crystalline clearness, and swift and songful ; the dense laurel 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 175 
 
 leaned over the banks ; shadowy pines rose high above ; 
 here and there a cliff towered, and a great fir stood, with 
 wide-spreading glooms in its branches, at one end of the 
 frail, little bridge. Abo^e, one could see but a mere strip of 
 the blue sky ; farther up the stream, as the banks curved, 
 the tumultuous rapids caught a sunbeam on their flashing- 
 foam, and a barren old crag on the opposite bank wore a 
 tender roseate flush to see the sun set. But here in these 
 shady precincts was neither beam nor pink radiance ; the 
 red cardinal flower blooming by the water s edge had but a 
 sombre splendor, the ripples and the wide circles that the 
 movement of the kine sent to the margin were dark lus 
 trous lines, and the foam dashing over the half -submerged 
 brown rocks wore a more absolute and pallid white for the 
 dull green and neutral tints of its vicinage. 
 
 The girl had been leaning her crossed arms upon the 
 hand-rail of the bridge, and looking absently down at the 
 turmoils of the current. She could see her own image in 
 the clearer space, her sunbonnet falling upon the shoulders 
 of her blue dress, her curling brown hair floating free ; her 
 fair face, with its brilliant eyes and definite dark brows and 
 grave lips, seemed all the more distinct, somehow, for the 
 red flare of a kerchief knotted about her throat, the ends 
 hanging down almost to her slender waist. The chant of 
 the river filled the air ; the wind was sonorously astir in the 
 trees ; now and again one of the cows, drinking no longer, 
 but standing still, enjoying the freshness of the dusky place, 
 lowed, and the echoes responded. Thus Marcella did not 
 hear an approach ; she saw the reflection as Teck Jepson 
 came along the little bridge where she stood, and the tim 
 bers elastically vibrated with each consecutive step. She 
 scarcely credited the testimony of the image in the water. 
 She lifted her head with a sudden startled look, putting back 
 with one hand her heavy hair, and staring frowningly at 
 him. She did not speak ; she still leaned one arm upon the 
 hand-rail. 
 
176 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 " Howdy," Jepson observed calmly. " How s Eli ? " 
 
 If she could have escaped him she would not have deigned 
 him a word, but she could not pass him upon the narrow 
 space of the two hewn logs that served as bridge ; below 
 was the deep water, and she would not retreat. " I won t 
 take the back track fur nobody," she said to herself, with 
 her head high. 
 
 He had evidently been hunting ; his mare, with a newly 
 killed deer laid athwart the saddle, awaited him on the 
 bank ; he had thrown the reins over a bough of a cucumber- 
 tree. As Marcella glanced thither, she noted that the cones 
 en the green branches were glowing red, and that the coat 
 of the deer, whose antlers and ghastly cut throat were visi 
 ble as the creature lay on its side, had already changed from 
 the fulvous tints of summer to the duller gray of autumn ; 
 the season was surely waning. Her eyes came back reluc 
 tantly to Jepson. He was booted and spurred ; he carried 
 his rifle ; his hunting-knife was in his broad leather belt ; 
 he wore his shot-pouch and powder-horn strapped over the 
 shoulder of his brown jeans coat ; his broad wool hat was 
 pushed far back from his face, and once more she noticed 
 how calm and reposeful his expression was. Somehow it 
 added rancor to her anger, for she felt it hard that he should 
 be at ease while she was so racked with care. 
 
 " I dunno ez I hev enny call ter tell ye how he be. Ef 
 it had n t been fur you-uns, he d be powerful hearty an 
 well. Mighty few folks in the Cove ez survigrous ez he d 
 be, ef t war n t fur you-uns." 
 
 He looked reproachfully at her. Then with an effort to 
 mollify her, " Ye air mighty hard on me, Marcelly." 
 
 She held her head up, relishing her cruelty. " Not half 
 ez hard ez ye desarve," she declared. 
 
 He sighed heavily as he looked at her, and she smiled, 
 with satire glancing in her eyes. 
 
 " I ain t half ez hard ez ye desarve, or ez I would like 
 ter be," she reiterated. " I dunno how ter be no harder, or I 
 would." 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 177 
 
 " Marcelly ! " he remonstrated. " T war n t my fault. 
 Ye low I would hev done sech a purpose ? Even s pose I 
 war jes mean, look how it hev turned out fur me. I hed 
 lowed, ef it hed n t happened, ez ye an me mought marry 
 some day. An now ye can t abide me." 
 
 " I never could ! " she retorted. 
 
 He flushed with a sudden sense of mortification, but his 
 store of patience was very great in this emergency, he, 
 who could usually command so little. " Ye did n t useter 
 show it so plain," he argued. 
 
 " Why," she protested with a cavalier air. " I ain t on- 
 dertakin ter drive off all the folks ez kem constant to the 
 cabin. How d I know ye war n t kemin ter see Is bel, or 
 granny ? " 
 
 This mocking fleer wounded him, so sensitive he was 
 where she was concerned, and he was reminded afresh 
 of the number of sturdy worshipers at that shrine, and his 
 jealousy sprang up anew. He stood staring silently at her, 
 noting again how beautiful she was, canvassing secretly the 
 claims of the others ; but however his hope might belittle 
 their chances, they all were more fortunate than he in hav 
 ing at least the toleration of the fair prize. She resented 
 that long, reflective gaze, and broke forth suddenly. 
 
 " Air ye obligated enny wise ter stan in the middle o this 
 narrer bredge all evenin ? " she demanded, with a flushing 
 cheek and a flashing eye. " An why n t ye stay up in the 
 mounting an kem down no mo , ez I bid ye ? " 
 
 There was something passing all bounds of endurance in 
 her patent scorn and the intensity of her anger. He real 
 ized the extent of her affliction, and his love, albeit quickly 
 grown, was great. But his pride was an indomitable es 
 sence, and it showed in his manner as he drew himself 
 tensely erect. " I don t hold myself bound ter mind yer 
 bid," he said slowly. * I hev been in love with ye ever 
 sence I fust set eyes on ye, but I ain t sech ez Samson or 
 some o the t others, ez war fairly owned, body an soul, by 
 
178 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 some woman or other. I foller my own will, an it hev led 
 me down ter my own house in Brumsaidge Cove, an I go 
 up ter the mounting no mo . I foller my own will, an it 
 leads me whar the voice o the Sperit summons." 
 
 His eyes dilated and his color flared ; his serious, half- 
 frowning gaze was fixed upon her, but he hardly saw her as 
 he made this valiant declaration of independence. There 
 was dignity as well as strength in his pose and his manner, 
 and the temerity of his resolution to be no slave to his love. 
 
 His revolt, if so it might be interpreted, against the su 
 preme power which she wielded overwhelmed her in some 
 sort. She looked at him with a self-forgetfulness, a sort of 
 impersonal interest, for a moment. 
 
 " Yes, sir ; thar I mean ter live an die, in Brum 
 saidge," he pursued. "An enny woman ez tells me ter go 
 thar or kem hyar thout it air ter do some f avior 
 m ought ez well save her breath. I be man enough, I reckon, 
 ter know my mind an do it, leastwise I 11 try." 
 
 Once more he paused. The mare was straining at the 
 reins that hampered her freedom, and he heard the rustling 
 of the bough to which she was hitched. He gave a hasty, 
 mechanical glance over his shoulder to make sure that she 
 and the burden, the killed buck, were where they should be. 
 The stirrups, swinging back and forth, touched the antlers 
 once and again with a sharp sound ; a frog was croaking on 
 an oozy green log by the bank ; Jepson s old deerhound, an 
 animal whose capacity for speed showed in every line of its 
 supple body, had followed him deftly along the bridge and 
 stood beside him, looking up with intelligent eyes, and once 
 or twice furtively licking his boot. As Jepson turned back, 
 he saw Marcella s face without that expression of anger and 
 reproach ; she was for the moment absolved from her inten 
 tion of hatred. He noted the lurking sadness, the haunting 
 fear, the wistfulness that is always the sequence and attes 
 tation of some predominant emotion. She looked so tender, 
 so young, so grievously wounded. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 179 
 
 * Oh, Marcelly," he cried, " I never meant ter harm Eli ! 
 I would n t hev hurt him fur nuthin . I would n t keer what 
 the law w^ould do ter me fur it, ef only ye d b lieve I never 
 done it a-purpose. Ef only ye d say that, I d go ter jail 
 fur the rest o my life rejoicin ." 
 
 The moment he recurred to the suppliant tone her sense 
 of power returned. The implacable, imperative look was 
 again in her face, coming with a rush of color, as if the 
 blood-red glow were the inherent tint of pride. 
 
 " Ye air about ez fur from jail ez enny man on this yearth, 
 an ye air goin ter stay so, ef ye kin hev yer way. I don t 
 keer what ye meant or did n t mean ter do. I keer fur 
 what ye done ! An ef ye foller yer will an the voice o the 
 Sperit, ez ye lows leads ye, ye 11 be mighty clar from git- 
 tin punished, whether ye live in Brumsaidge or the moun 
 ting. I don t keer whar ye live n what ye do now." She 
 had ceased to lean on the hand-rail, and her image had van 
 ished from the water ; she stood erect and slender before 
 him, the red kerchief carelessly knotted about her throat, 
 her bonnet hanging on her shoulders, her long, half curling, 
 and thickly waving hair almost hiding it. " I d be obleeged 
 ter ye ef ye d git out n my road. I don t wanter drown 
 myself in that water, an it seems I 11 hev ter ef I try ter 
 pass ye." 
 
 He said no more and slowly withdrew, busying himself 
 about his saddle-girth. He glanced, wounded and reproach 
 ful, at Marcella as she went by, following the cows, but she 
 gave him no word, and was presently lost in the woods. 
 
 After she had reached home, she saw him going down the 
 road to the Settlement. " Bold ez brass," she commented, 
 looking at him from the porch. " I wisht he d git arrested, 
 somehows." 
 
 She marveled as to his mission, but it excited scant at 
 tention in the Cove, where his frequent presence since his 
 return from the mountains had become familiar. He took 
 his way toward the store, which combined commercial and 
 
180 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDCE COVE. 
 
 postal functions, a little frame building without a porch, 
 and with only one room. In some seizure of unprecedented 
 energy, the storekeeper had undertaken to whitewash it ; 
 his industry had compassed the surface of its front, and 
 then collapsed finally, and thus it had subsequently stood, 
 its dark, weather-stained sides and back in sharp contrast 
 with the white front of the building. His proceedings had 
 been characteristically considered by the mountaineers to be 
 in fault in the first instance, for the effort to furbish up the 
 appearance of the store was esteemed a reprehensible aping 
 of town ways and views. No one animadverted upon his 
 indolence in failing to carry out his design. A mountaineer, 
 whose name is lost to tradition, one day observed that the 
 white-fronted building, as it sat on the slope of the hill, al 
 ways looked to him like a white-faced bull ; and thereafter 
 the owner went by the name of " White-Face Hobbs." He 
 was upon the doorstep now, a long, lank fellow, whose 
 lowly posture accented the extreme length of his legs ; and 
 as he sat with his knees as high as his chin, the attitude was 
 vaguely suggestive of a grasshopper. He had a cadaverous 
 face, the color of parchment, and he entertained pessimistic 
 views of the intentions, morals, and manners of all the young 
 men in the Cove. 
 
 " A pack o fresky cusses kem in hyar an play thar jokes 
 off, an dust one nother with flour, an turn over the sor 
 ghum or the sugar, an folks tell me they war funnin . I 11 
 git ter funnin , fust thing they know ! I don t think nuthin 
 in this world air ez funny ez a big hickory stick, an I kin 
 use it so ez ter make me laugh mightily, though some folks 
 m ought be too sober-sided, time I war done with it." 
 
 On a rickety chair, tilted against the white-faced wall, 
 sat a young man, wearing a suit of cheap but spruce and 
 showy store-clothes. He had a broad, freckled face, and 
 sandy hair. He was a visitor here, Hobbs being his un 
 cle, and Jepson s intention to address him was so evident, 
 as he came up the slope leading his mare, which looked 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 181 
 
 reluctant and long-necked, still burdened with the deer, that 
 the storekeeper, fearing a commercial opportunity might 
 elude him while the young men talked, struck in, forestalling 
 Jepson s remark. 
 
 " Wanter sell yer meat ? " he demanded. 
 
 " Take it, or leave it ; I don t keer," said Jepson. He 
 gave the reins to the storekeeper, who had risen, and he 
 walked toward the young man, and paused before him. 
 
 " Neal," he said, looking down and putting one hand into 
 his leather belt, ki I want ye ter arrest me." 
 
 The storekeeper dropped the reins, and stood staring 
 speechlessly, while the mare moved off a fw steps and be 
 gan to crop the grass. 
 
 Neal Wright, who was the deputy sheriff of the county, 
 dropped the forelegs of his chair to the ground, and asked, 
 dismayed, "* What hev ye done ? " 
 
 " That thar raciii an runnin down Eli Strobe." 
 
 "Eli Strobe ain t dead." 
 
 " Naw," said Jepson in a melancholy tone, " but I wanter 
 be arrested now." 
 
 The deputy meditated for a moment. 
 
 " Oh, g long, Teck," he said, in official perplexity, " I 
 dunno what ter arrest ye fur. T war n t nuthin but a acci 
 dent." 
 
 " Racin air unlawful," said Jepson, moodily, " a un 
 lawful act." 
 
 " Shucks ! " retorted the officer. " Las Aveek I raced a 
 gray horse o mine a good un with a horse o Jedge 
 Grimm s, o the Circuit Court. Both of us happened ter be 
 goin out o Colb ry same time. He hearn me a-clippin 
 behind him, an he whipped up an spurred, an I whipped 
 up an spurred. Don t he know hossflesh, though, an don t 
 he love it ! Oughter jes see that bay travel ! An when 
 he war a-gittin away from me, Jedge Grimm jes turned his 
 big red face round wunst, an it war all one wink an grin. 
 Me an the jeclge air out o jail yit." 
 
182 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 " Waal, I gin myself up," persisted Jepson. 
 
 " Oh, g long, Teck." The officer was standing now, and 
 he gave his friend s shoulder an admonitory push. " I don t 
 want ye. I don t wanter kerry ye all the way ter Colb ry 
 an cut my visit off. An I don t b lieve I could git ye 
 c mitted ter stan yer trial noways. The old man " it was 
 the high sheriff thus antiquated " air powerful partic lar 
 bout makin false an foolish arrests, an he s responsible 
 fur me." He shook his head in a manner that intimated 
 his sense of the weight of this fact. " Folks can t git arrested 
 fur fun. Naw, sir, I don t want ye. I 11 kern arter ye mighty 
 quick ef ennytl^jng happens ter Eli. Don t ye be fear d." 
 
 " I want ter be arrested now," reiterated Jepson. " His 
 fambly want me arrested." 
 
 The deputy looked puzzled. " I don t b lieve ye, Teck. 
 Ef they did, they d make a complaint agin ye, an git out 
 a warrant." 
 
 " They air all wimmen ; they dunno how." Then, ur 
 gently, " When ye go back ter town, tell the old man ez 
 the crim nal wanted ter be arrested, and the fambly wanted 
 him ter be jailed, too, an ye would n t." 
 
 " Teck, ye air out n yer head ! " exclaimed Wright. 
 
 " Go up ter the house an ax em," said the would-be 
 prisoner. 
 
 The deputy, thus summoned from the unofficial ease and 
 pleasure of his visit to the perplexity and caution incident 
 to handling a case new to his short experience, hesitated for 
 a moment, and then, putting his hands in his pockets, set 
 forth, silent, saturnine, circumspect, seeming a very different 
 person from the smart young idler before the white-faced 
 store. He carried the wonder of it with him all adown the 
 turn-row between the ranks of corn and to the doorstep of 
 the house itself. " A body would low ez a smart, strong, 
 rampagious feller like Teck would be jes the one ter gin 
 the sher ff a tumble race through them mountings." He 
 nodded toward the wooded heights, with a realizing sense of 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 183 
 
 their value to the ill-doer as an impenetrable covert. Then 
 he lifted his voice in a stentorian " Hello I " for knocking 
 on the door is here little in vogue. The sound summoned 
 little Mrs. Strobe, valiant as a far larger woman might be, 
 and trim, and dapper, with a reproachful lifted forefinger, 
 and a gibe upon her lips, although her curiosity as to his 
 mission quivered through every fibre. 
 
 u Waal, stranger, ye could n t holler louder ef ye war a 
 peeg an t war killin -time. Ye 11 never go off in a lung 
 complaint. Don t ye know we hev got a sick man in the 
 house ? " 
 
 Isabel had boldly followed her grandmother, and stood 
 ready to participate in the conversation, should it prove of 
 interest. Marcella came only to the door, but lingered 
 there, leaning against the frame. 
 
 44 That s jes what I kem ter speak ter ye bout, ma am," 
 said the officer. " I m the dep ty sher ff o Kildeer County." 
 
 " Laws-a-massy ! " exclaimed the old woman, by way of 
 compliment and obeisance to the dignity of his authority. 
 
 " An it hev been tole ter me ez the fambly want Teck 
 Jepson arrested fur unlawfully ridin a race, an ridin down 
 an injurin Eli Strobe whilst doin this unlawful act." 
 
 They were all silent, revolving this succinct statement, and 
 adjusting the circumstances thus set forth to their own con 
 sciousness of the facts. 
 
 " Now," continued Wright, " ef ye 11 complain agin him, 
 1 11 arrest Jepson an git him c mitted, an land him in jail 
 in Colb ry ter await the event." 
 
 Me want ter jail Teck Jepson fur runnin a horse along 
 a plain road ? " cried the old woman. " Ef ye war n t a 
 stranger, sir, I d tell ye ez ye air a crazy buzzard." 
 
 " Yes m," said the deputy, sanely agreeing in her view. 
 
 " Eli got hurt by accident, through bein too sharp-set ter 
 arrest folks fur nuthin . an Teck war his bes friend in the 
 lection. He could n t pull up his horse. Naw, sir ; wait 
 till Eli gits better or wuss." 
 
184 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 " That s yer conclusion, ma am ? " said the officer, visibly 
 relieved. Then he glanced at Marcella. She stood silent, 
 intent, pondering. The young man s eyes lingered. " Do 
 his darter want Jepson arrested ? " he asked, seeking an 
 added respect in using the third person. 
 
 Marcella did not answer. That brooding dubitation was 
 still on her face, and her eyes were full of untranslated 
 meanings. 
 
 " Speak, chile," urged her grandmother, tartly. 
 
 The man s inquiring eyes still lingered; Marcella suddenly 
 raised her own. She looked at him for a moment, and 
 slowly shook her head. A deep flush overspread her face, 
 and she turned hastily within. 
 
 That night a wind arose ; a great, sonorous, declamatory 
 voice it had. Some rude iconoclastic spirit was rife in its 
 midst, and threatened alike roof-tree and hearth-stone. The 
 shutters were closed ; the door was barred ; but its heavy 
 touch was on the walls, and every timber shook. The 
 sense of it pervaded the deep unconsciousness that had 
 hitherto enwrapped Eli Strobe. The continuity of the knowl 
 edge of cause and effect was broken ; he did not realize why 
 he was awake, what turmoil affected his perceptions ; he 
 only knew again himself for himself, and talked and raged 
 incoherently, the strength of delirium in his muscles. The 
 little dame and the two frightened girls were alone to ex 
 perience these undreamed-of terrors ; for since the invalid 
 had been so quiescent, and all had been done that was need 
 ful, the helping neighbors had felt their services superfluous, 
 and had betaken themselves home. His mind had gone 
 back to the scene of the disaster. As the thunder rolled 
 he would lift himself in bed, ghastly with his bloody, ban 
 daged head, his wild, unreasoning eye, and with his strong 
 right hand upheld warningly as he listened. " Hear ! hear ! " 
 he would cry. " Hear em gallopin thar horses ! Down 
 the very throat o the law ! " And when a new peal sounded 
 louder and deeper than before, he sprang up, catching 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 185 
 
 at an imaginary bridle, declaring that he had unhorsed 
 Teck Jepson and had broken his neck. And there was 
 Teck now, in hell ! so surprised to be there, and so taken 
 aback to see the devil, that Eli Strobe, who had sent him 
 thither, could not refrain from laughing. He held his sides 
 while his wild shrieks of frenzied mirth filled the cabin, 
 shriller than the wind, more turbulent than the thunder, as 
 persistent as the rain that came down in torrents upon the 
 roof. The women clung together in terror, and with trem 
 bling lips devised futile expedients to quiet him. But the 
 vaunted " yerb tea " failed ; and although at first some 
 vague recognition of Marcella, or Isabel, or his mother 
 would prevail, and after a wild sidelong stare and a doubt 
 ful mutter he would consent to lie back upon the pillow and 
 have the quilts drawn close about his shoulders again, he 
 would soon forget them, and would spring up anew ; and 
 presently he recognized them no more. He declared now 
 that one, then another, was Teck Jepson, and should be 
 arrested on the spot. And as a ghastly flash of lightning 
 made a mockery of the gleam of the little tallow dip and 
 the smouldering fire, and filled the room with a quivering 
 blue flare of a blinding intensity, he began to cry out that 
 he was dead, he was a dead man ; that Teck Jepson had 
 killed him, and nobody cared to avenge him. But he would 
 walk, he protested with a terrible fury ; as a ghost he would 
 walk this earth. He would make the gallows seem a kind 
 fate to the man who had cheated it, and who had torn him 
 from life that was so fair and full, and had cast him into 
 some outer darkness where there was gnashing of teeth ; 
 and he ground his own, with a frightful look on his face. 
 He would meet the man who had slain him, in lonely 
 places, and reveal hideous spiritual errors to him, and some 
 day would fall upon him and throttle him ; and those who 
 might find him would never know why Teck Jepson had 
 died. He would walk, he would walk I And he began 
 to gather the sheet about him. 
 
186 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 k Oh, Marcelly ! " cried the cowering Mrs. Strobe, " I 
 hev done wrong. The yerb tea ain t no good, sure enough, 
 this time, an mebbe thar war some healin in the old doc 
 tor s powders. He lowed they d keep Eli quiet. Oh, I 
 wish I hed n t flung em away ! He said the lotium air ter 
 go on the outside, else I d gin Eli a mouthful o that. Oh, 
 Marcelly, ef the doctor war jes hyar agin ! " 
 
 " I 11 go arter him ! " cried the girl, springing up with 
 renewed hope. 
 
 " Ye sha n t ! Ye sha n t ! " The old woman clutched 
 her arm. " In this storm ez seems ter kem from perdition 
 itself, an he livin fourteen miles off ! Ye dunno the way. 
 Ye 11 git los ." 
 
 u Waal," said Marcella, full of courage again, since there 
 was something to do and to risk, " I 11 rouse up the nighest 
 neighbors, an git some o them ter go." 
 
 " I dunno whether they will ! " cried Mrs. Strobe, wring 
 ing her hands. " I could n t blame em ef they would n t. 
 Listen at that wind mongst the trees; it sounds ez ef the 
 very mountings war groanin in mis ry. An the thunder, 
 an the lightnin , an the rain ! " 
 
 " I 11 try em," said Marcella, sturdily. 
 
 Her grandmother still clung to her, first remonstrating, 
 then urging and charging her as she prepared to slip 
 through the door. Marcella only stopped to put a red shawl 
 over her head, and then she was out in the blackness of the 
 night and the terrors of the storm. The wind caught the 
 door with so violent a wrench that her grandmother and 
 Isabel had much ado to close it again, and ere they did they 
 called wildly to her to come back ; she would be blown 
 away, or a limb of a tree might fall upon her and kill her. 
 There was no response from the darkness without, and as 
 they barred the door they knew that she was gone, and felt 
 as forlorn as if many had been withdrawn instead of one. 
 
 Despite her familiarity with every step of the way, Mar 
 cella thought herself inconceivably long in reaching the 
 
THE DESPOT OF BItOOMSEDGE COTE. 187 
 
 gate, so buffeted she \vas by the wind, so thong-like was the 
 lashing rain, so turbulent the elemental commotion. A vivid 
 flash of lightning seemed to meet her there, followed so 
 closely by others, hardly less brilliant, that the effect for 
 a few moments was unintermittent, while the simultaneous 
 thunder rolled. The sinister glare revealed the sky with 
 its myriads of lines of rain ; the tormented mountains with 
 their groaning, swaying forests ; and close at hand the 
 broad cornfield, the stalks tossed and writhen, here and 
 there flinging up their long blades in a gesture that sug 
 gested an appreciated agony. And then all was dark again, 
 and her progress along the turn-row was beset with unex 
 pected difficulty, since the stalks, broken and bent across it, 
 furnished continually recurring barriers. She was glad to 
 emerge into the open road at last, and she paused, breath 
 less for a moment. The difficulties of the way had so ab 
 sorbed her that she was now canvassing for the first time 
 whom she might best rouse. The storm, since she was in 
 its midst, seemed a more valid obstacle than when her 
 grandmother had suggested it. One neighbor she dismissed 
 from consideration as too old to grant so onerous a favor. 
 Another had a wife and child very ill. A third was afflicted 
 with " lung complaint." As she stood doubtful a certain 
 sound caught her ears in a lull in the wind, the sound of 
 a hammer and a sledge upon an anvil. How strange, she 
 thought, that Clem Sanders should be at the forge at this 
 hour of the night, how providential ! She had heard 
 none of the rumors subsequent, to the parson s vision, and it 
 was out of her mind for the nonce. She only reflected, as 
 she turned her swift steps thither, that Clem Sanders would 
 gladly ride thrice fourteen miles on an errand for her, in 
 different to the fury of any mountain storm. " He be pow 
 erful skeered o gal-folks, an say Yes m an < Naw m 
 even ter Is bel, perliter n a pig in a poke, an he ain t got 
 no conversation mongst gals, but he ain t feard o nuthin 
 else. I ll be bound he ain t feard o the weather." 
 
188 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 Her heart was light and warm again ; she gathered the 
 wet red shawl closer about her head. What did she care 
 how the rain beat in her face, how the thunder roared ! She 
 welcomed the fierce recurrent flare of the lightning ; kind 
 it was to show her the rocky ways, that the red clay mire 
 might not cling to her feet and impede her flying steps. 
 The short cut she made took her up the slope of the hill, and 
 she presently found herself approaching the forge on the re 
 verse side from the door. She had hardly heard again the 
 sound of hammer and sledge in the clamors without, but more 
 than once she saw the gleam of the light through the ill- 
 chinked walls, as the fire flared. As she came close she 
 heard the bellows sighing, and the light from the walls hard 
 by flickered out anew. She was near to the little shutter, 
 and she laid her hand upon it. It opened readily under 
 her touch, and she stood looking in. 
 
 The interior was flooded with white light, as the bellows 
 fostered the flaring fire. She saw the anvil glitter. A 
 man Jake Baintree it was with lifted arm worked at 
 the bellows, while another, whose face was averted, held, 
 with the smith s tongs, a piece of metal in the flames ; it was 
 red-hot now ; it glowed a lighter tint ; it glistened at a white 
 heat, and he turned suddenly and whisked it on the anvil. 
 He lifted his eyes as he moved, and saw before him the 
 square of the open window, the girl s fair, ethereal face 
 framed within it upon the black background of the stormy 
 night, and with the red shawl falling about her head, from 
 the folds of which her curling hair half escaped. He started 
 back, with the hammer in his hand, calling aloud in sur 
 prised accents, " Look ! Look ! " 
 
 Jake Baintree turned abruptly, and his eyes met hers. 
 
XI. 
 
 THE bellows ceased to sigh. Bereft of its breath, the 
 riotous white flaring of the forge fire sank suddenly into a 
 listless yellow flame and a dull tawny coal. The shop, 
 transformed from the vividly illuminated interior presented 
 but a moment ago, was a shadowy, cavernous place, suffused 
 with a dusky red glow that barely served to show the anvil, 
 the black hood, the sombre suggestions of wall and roof, 
 and the fio-ures of the two startled men. One still reached 
 
 O 
 
 upward to the bellows ; the other stood with the hammer in 
 his hand, his figure alert and tense against the dim fire, 
 that cast a fluctuating, feeble glimmer upon their faces. 
 Outside the wind went howling by ; the torrents were 
 tossed hither and thither in its tempestuous, devious course, 
 and drove heavily before it. Some freakish spirit of the 
 air seemed to catch the shutter in Marcella s grasp, striv 
 ing to tear it from her ; she vainly sought to tighten her 
 hold, feeling like one in a dream, who tries to move, and 
 finds in dismay a hopeless breach between the will and 
 the muscles ; but the next moment the fickle blast was 
 gone, leaving the frail batten trembling but passive in her 
 hand. She stared with dilated eyes into the ill-lighted 
 place ; her surprise was redoubled as she noticed the evi 
 dent agitation of the men, and became impressed anew 
 with the strangeness of their presence here at this hour, 
 their inexplicable intrusion upon the smith s prerogative. 
 
 It was she who was first enabled to speak. " Whar s 
 Clem Sanders ? " she demanded, in a tone of reprehension 
 and accusation, her voice lifted that it might be heard 
 above the iteration of the rain on the roof and the wild 
 
190 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 skirl of the wind as it came and went. So great was the 
 repulsion which Jake Baintree inspired, and her shrinking 
 from the knowledge of his dolorous record of suspicion and 
 imprisonment and ostracism, which branded him with the 
 shame and the cruelty of a crime of which the verdict of 
 the jury declared him innocent, that it was not at his jail- 
 bleached face, distinct amongst the shadows, that she looked, 
 but at the stranger, still motionless beside the anvil, on 
 which the hot metal had cooled to a dull tint, and still with 
 the hammer in his hand, gazing silently at her. 
 
 He did not answer ; he turned his head slightly and 
 looked at Baintree, as if referring the question to him, a 
 well-shaped head, with the hair cut so close upon it that 
 the light, striking upward, barely indicated its reddish-yel 
 low tint. Marcella reluctantly followed his glance to Jake 
 Baintree s face, which was suddenly instinct with his wonted 
 sly intelligence. 
 
 " Why, howdy, Marcelly," he said, as casually as if they 
 had met on the roadside in the summer sunshine. " War 
 ye a-wantin ter see Clem ? " 
 
 There seemed something sinister to her in this deliberate 
 ignoring of the singular circumstances of the encounter : 
 she could not account for it ; she could only perceive the 
 relief in the stranger s manner, a covert reliance on Jake 
 Baintree s cleverness to possess the situation. He looked 
 down, and mechanically turned the piece of iron on the 
 anvil with the smith s tongs, and she knew he thus hid a 
 smile of relish of his coadjutor s ready retort. 
 
 She was easily angered, and it was not in Eli Strobe s 
 daughter to be readily affrighted. She replied with that 
 note of reproof and objection with which she had inaugu 
 rated the conversation. " I never would hev kem ter Clem 
 Sanders s forge a-sarchin fur you-uns," she said. " I never 
 would hev expected ter see ye hyar." 
 
 Somehow, her faculties seemed extended in some sort. 
 She was looking at Baintree s sharp features, cut upon 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 191 
 
 the darkling shadows about him, and yet she knew that 
 the stranger, although his head was bent down, was gazing 
 at her with fixed and curious eyes. She did not realize 
 the interest awakened by her face, richly dim in the 
 shadow, like an old painting, pale no longer, but with the 
 dull flash of excitement and anger, her brilliant clear eyes 
 and the curling tangles of the wind-tossed hair indefinite 
 against the folds of the dark red shawl and the obscurity 
 without. She was feeling baffled ; her nerves were strained ; 
 somewhere the terrible heights gave forth a wild, sonorous, 
 maddened voice, full of a frantic anguish, and she was 
 reminded of her father, and his torturing frenzy, and her 
 errand for help, which the surprise had effaced for the in 
 stant. She suddenly flung out her arms toward them 
 through the window. 
 
 " He s dyin ! He s dyin ! An I mought ez well go 
 ax the mountings fur holp ez you-uns ! " 
 
 She fell half fainting against the window-frame, hardly 
 noticing that, with a change of expression and an abrupt 
 start, Jake Baintree came with his deft, light step toward 
 her. But when he was near she shrank from him, with 
 that aversion which one experiences from the propinquity 
 of a cold-blooded animal, and she stood erect. His voice 
 was full of feeling, and she was sensible of an effort at self- 
 reproach, as a duty which she owed him as reparation. 
 
 " Laws-a-massy, Marcelly, air Eli wuss ? I kin do enny- 
 thin fur him ez Clem Sanders kin." 
 
 She glanced quickly at the stranger, to judge if he had 
 smiled again, perchance, at her outburst, so alert was her 
 pride to take cognizance of ridicule even at the moment 
 that she was sobbing out her errand. His face was grave, 
 so far as the shadows would reveal it. Then her attention 
 reverted to Jake Baintree, and she looked at him with a 
 wondering distrust and curiosity as he suddenly exclaimed, 
 " The Lord s hand is in it ! " So pious he was, to be sure, 
 for a man who had renounced religion, and who had no 
 
192 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 other use for a river than a wild fowl might find. " The 
 Lord s hand is in it ! No use ter ride fourteen mile ; this 
 hyar man s a doctor, Mareelly, an he 11 physic Eli." 
 
 He laid his hand on the shoulder of the man at the anvil, 
 who turned and stared at him in palpable amazement. The 
 fire was so low she could barely see his face, but his whole 
 attitude was expressive of surprise and objection. 
 
 " He s a valley man, Marcelly, an he be a powerful 
 smart man," Jake Baintree said, with less the air of intro 
 duction than of a showman commending a work of art. 
 " He s the doctor ez physicked me whilst in jail, an he 
 brung me through wonderful ; an that s how I kem ter be 
 quainted with him. He 11 kem right straight, Marcelly," 
 he continued, with an assurance as of a proprietor. * Ye 
 jes run home out n the rain ; we 11 kem ez soon ez we kin. 
 I duimo what ailed me ter let ye stan out thar in the rain 
 an under them drippin eaves all this lime. Ye jes g long, 
 an we 11 f oiler ye." 
 
 Marcella hesitated for a moment ; then turned away 
 from the window, and the dull red scene within disappeared 
 as if it had been caught up into the black night. Outside 
 it seemed darker, if that were possible, than before ; the 
 lightnings had ceased their delirious quiver ; the winds were 
 steadier ; the rain was a continuous downpour. She kept 
 her hand on the wall of the forge, as she slowly made the 
 circuit around it, still trembling with the excitements of the 
 evening, and anxiously malcontent with the result of the 
 interview. What strange man was this, that lent himself 
 to these curious midnight labors, these unwarranted intru 
 sions ? What could he be doing in that forge, with the 
 smith s tongs, and swage, and bellows, that he wielded as 
 his own ? And why was he secret about it, and easily star 
 tled and affrighted ? And how amazing was it that he, a 
 physician, should be at the disposal of Jake Baintree, and 
 accept his guidance ! Then she recollected the astonish 
 ment of the stranger, plainly shown, upon Jake Baintree s 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 193 
 
 proposal that he should act in the place of the distant physi 
 cian. Was he a doctor at all ? she wondered ; and suddenly 
 she remembered his evident reluctance, and was chilled 
 with the contradictory fear that after all he might not come. 
 More than once she paused, as she stumbled along in the 
 darkness, to judge if perchance, amidst the clamors of the 
 elements, she might hear their footsteps splashing in the 
 muddy road behind her. No sound save the march of the 
 legions of the rain down and down the valley ; the wind 
 wailed afar off, under sentence of exile. An utter dark 
 ness overspread all the world. She might not have kept 
 the road, save for that strange yet familiar phenomenon of 
 the independence of the muscles, by which one mechanically 
 performs actions, the processes of which have no recognized 
 correlative consciousness in the brain. Her feet found the 
 way which her intelligence could not discern. She pres 
 ently felt the wet blades of the cornstalks in her face, and 
 knew that she was in the turn-row, walking as one blind or 
 asleep along the straight, narrow space, and turning when 
 the gate was reached. Again she paused to listen if any 
 footfall followed : only the turmoils of the rain sobbing in 
 the half-spent passion of the storm, and the melancholy stir 
 ring of the forests, until suddenly an alien sound smote her 
 ear, a high, cracked, exhausted voice, now talking incoher 
 ently, now seeking to scream with muscles that failed mid 
 way, all betokening the continued delirium within the cabin. 
 The proximity of the dwelling was further suggested by 
 the feeble flicker through the crevices of the batten shutter. 
 Once more she reflected how powerless they within were to 
 succor or subdue this strange, distraught spirit that seemed 
 to have invaded their home ; how far away that entity whom 
 they knew as Eli Strobe had journeyed, unconscious of their 
 efforts, unresponsive to their appeals. When she reached 
 the porch she lingered, peering into the darkness ; the rain 
 had almost ceased near at hand ; farther away she could 
 hear the pattering of the long files of drops into the valley 
 
194 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 below, but it had a fitful, discursive effect, and betokened 
 that this verge of the rain-cloud had followed into the vasty 
 vagueness wherein the great vaporous masses were ex 
 pended. The vines close at hand were all dripping, drip 
 ping ; more than once the iteration of the drops beguiled 
 into hopeful credulity her anxious desire to hear a step 
 close at hand. Although a comparative silence, or rather 
 a sense of spent sound, made the air null, there was some 
 vague stir in the upper atmosphere ; for once or twice the 
 rifts rent in the black, overhanging clouds showed the palpi 
 tating splendors of a white star. A raucous sound made 
 her start, only a frog croaking in a pool by the fence. 
 And once more that wild, strange voice within rang out, 
 with all its suggested lapses of identity to make her shrink 
 and wince. She burst into tears, and turned again toward 
 the gate. She would not go in and tell the frantic grand 
 mother and sister how her mission had failed, how she had 
 been mocked and derided with fantastic misrepresentations 
 and promises. A physician, was he, forsooth, a " mighty 
 smart man," who would haunt the little mountain forge in 
 company with Jake Baintree, in the secret midnight, for 
 some inexplicable purpose, and wield the hammer at the 
 anvil ! She knew little of the habitudes of this world, but 
 she sneered with contempt of her own credulity as she 
 sought to imagine the only medical man within her ken, the 
 old country doctor, at such escapades, he of the big 
 spectacles, and the rickety buggy, and the bald head, and 
 the black store-clothes. Conventionality, reliability, and 
 respectability could not have been more expressively im 
 personated. 
 
 Again that wild, exhausted wail from within, the vague 
 sound of the troubled comments of the watchers, and she 
 started anew upon her mission to arouse the neighbors ; 
 weeping that so much time had been wasted, and her heart 
 throbbing with anger and resentment that she had been so 
 ready a dupe. She had reached the turn-row, when suddenly 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 195 
 
 the galloping of horses invaded the silence, the hoof-beats 
 resonant, as they splashed into the pools of the red clay road. 
 She stood still amongst the leaning stalks, listening, hoping, 
 doubting. Her heart sank in an interval of silence ; then 
 that turbulent sound of swift equestrians was again upon 
 the air, and she knew that the horsemen were coming in 
 single file down the turn-row. She faced about precipi 
 tately, and ran like a frightened deer. She would be there 
 first ; they should never know that she had doubted them, 
 and had come forth to search for others. She was half 
 laughing and half crying, in the intensity of her relief, in 
 her relish of her own quick resource. Nevertheless, she 
 had barely reached the gate, so swift was their progress, 
 when they reined up beside it ; she silently ran through it 
 in the darkness, and in the interval while they dismounted 
 and hitched their horses she made her way to the porch. 
 The shaft of light that fell out into the night, as Mrs. 
 Strobe, hearing their approach, cautiously opened the door, 
 revealed Marcella, her tall figure swathed in her clinging 
 wet garments, her red shawl twisted about her throat, her 
 dense hair weighted with rain hanging upon her shoulders, 
 her eyes soft and dewy, her lips all tenderly smiling upon 
 the advancing shadows. 
 
 " I fetched him, Marcelly ! " Jake Baintree exclaimed, as 
 he came up the steps of the porch, and the light from the 
 room showed his keen, clearly cut face, shiny with the rain, 
 and his eyes, all eager with interest and excitement, sharply 
 glancing out from under his .hat-brim. " He lowed he 
 could n t do nuthin thout his physic, so he an me hed ter 
 take time ter go yander," he hesitated suddenly and 
 spoke with embarrassment, jerking his thumb vaguely over 
 his shoulder, " ter git his med cine-chist. Good-evenin , 
 Mis Strobe," he went on, his voice the very essence of oily 
 propitiation, as he caught sight of the little dame, seeming 
 forlorn, and smaller and more wrinkled than ever, as she 
 peered out of the door. The long-legged Isabel could easily 
 
196 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 look over her shoulder, and she did. " Powerful sorry ter 
 hear from Marcelly how Eli hev been tuk. I hev brung a 
 doctor-man, ez hev been abidin with me, ter see ef he can t 
 settle him somehows." 
 
 Mrs. Strobe s head was cocked askew in inquiry. What 
 kind of a "doctor-man " was this who abode with Jake 
 Baintree ? Then, as a strange, angry mutter came from the 
 room within ? she looked over her shoulder with a frightened 
 gesture. 
 
 " Ennybody ez be named doctor mought ez well try 
 thai* hand on Eli, kase ef they can t make him no better, I 
 reckon they can t make him no wuss," she assented, not too 
 graciously. Her sharp eyes strove to pierce the gloom that 
 hung about the dusky shadow that followed Jake Baintree 
 toward the door. There was still suggested in the manner 
 of the figure that reluctance which Marcella had noted at 
 the forge. It angered her in some sort and it excited her 
 curiosity. She felt an antagonism toward him, despite the 
 anxious, absorbing emotions that might have been supposed 
 to crowd out every other sentiment. The next moment 
 she had forgotten all except that she had brought help 
 where it was so sorely needed. In the necessity for exer 
 tion during the last hour and the hardships of the storm, 
 she had been spared something of the full realization of 
 the calamity that had befallen them. But as Mrs. Strobe 
 opened the door, and Marcella caught sight of her father 
 anew, she winced from the strange metamorphosis that 
 delirium had wrought; the alien spirit that possessed the 
 accustomed face and figure almost thwarted recognition. 
 He had risen, wrapped in the sheets, still clinging to his 
 spectral delusion ; and as the flicker of the fire rose and 
 fell, and the tallow dip flared and sputtered, his sheeted 
 figure, with its bandaged bloody head, was dim and ghostly 
 in the dusky corner of the cabin where he stood, fantasti 
 cally gesticulating, unnoting the new-comers even while 
 his burning eyes were riveted upon them, still muttering 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 197 
 
 his threats of vengeance on the man who he declared had 
 slain him. 
 
 " Scot-free ! Scot-free," he exclaimed. " I 11 walk ! 
 I 11 walk!" 
 
 Jake Baintree s hat fell from his nerveless hand, as he 
 stood gazing, open-mouthed, at the phenomenon of frenzy 
 for the first time presented to his scanty experience. Mrs. 
 Strobe and Isabel, somewhat accustomed to their terrors, 
 took heed of it with a certain painful curiosity as to its fur 
 ther developments. 
 
 * He lows he air a harnt," said Mrs. Strobe in a low 
 voice to Baintree. " An ef that air the way he air goin 
 ter behave whenst he air dead, a body oughter take a power 
 o pains ter keep him alive. I hope he 11 last out my time, 
 the Lord knows." 
 
 Marcella blessed the tears that crowded out the sight, 
 and as she turned to the stranger, who was entering last of 
 all, and wiped her eyes with the fringed end of the wet 
 shawl, all her heart was in the words, as she adjured him, 
 " Fur the Lord s sake ! Fur the Lord s sake ! " and fell to 
 sobbing anew. 
 
 He made no reply, and it seemed to her and she could 
 have smitten him for it a most casual glance that he cast 
 toward the master of the house, now striding about, unin 
 telligibly calling aloud in a raucous voice ; now shrinking 
 into the corner and standing close against the wall, mutter 
 ing in sinister fashion. And surely, surely nothing could 
 have been more deliberate and unexcited than the manner 
 with which the doctor divested himself of his hat and a long 
 shiny black overcoat, a strange garment in this locality, 
 where waterproof luxuries had never prevailed. She looked 
 loweringly at him as he quietly drew off his gloves. Now 
 that he stood revealed, she saw that he was a young man, 
 as young as Jake Baintree himself ; he had a fair com 
 plexion, retaining its distinctive characteristic, despite the 
 temporary sunburn. His mustache, of the reddish-yellow 
 
198 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 tint of his hair, was long and silky ; but the growth about 
 the lower part of his face was in that unbecoming stage 
 known as " turning out a beard." His attire was different 
 from that of the men of the region, although it vied with 
 theirs in its simplicity. He wore blue flannel trousers, with 
 long rubber boots drawn to the knees, and a blue flannel 
 shirt. He was singularly trim and light despite the sugges 
 tions of sinew and strength about him, and he had long, soft 
 white hands. She noted their deft certainty of touch as he 
 took the little black medicine-chest to the table and opened 
 it slowly, showing its rows of tiny vials, on which Mrs. Strobe 
 and Isabel gazed with dilated eyes. 
 
 He was not slow when he had selected what he wanted : 
 he crossed the room with a quick, sure step, and laid his 
 hand upon his patient s arm. 
 
 " Come, Jake," he said in a low voice to Baintree ; and 
 as the mountaineer slouched heavily across the floor, Mar- 
 cella sank into a chair, putting her hands over her eyes that 
 she might not see the doughty Eli Strobe overpowered in 
 this painfully unequal struggle. 
 
 She could not have believed that it would be so soon over. 
 A succession of hoarse screams ; the sound of ineffectual, 
 ill-aimed blows ; the dragging of heavy feet across the pun 
 cheons ; wild, half -articulate curses, growing now disjointed 
 and again only a broken word, subsiding at last to a drowsy 
 mutter, and Eli Strobe was silent and asleep. 
 
 The stillness seemed to Marcella sinister. She lifted her 
 head slowly, and gazed fearfully up. The two men had 
 placed the insensible constable on the bed. The stranger 
 was flushed with exertion, his lips parted in a triumphant 
 smile, showing his strong white shining teeth beneath his 
 yellow mustache. He wiped his brow with a white hand 
 kerchief ; the same office was performed by Jake Baintree 
 with his handy coat-sleeve. 
 
 " Whew-w ! " the mountaineer commented. " Eli be ez 
 survigrous ez a yoke o steers." 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 199 
 
 " "Waal, sir ! " exclaimed Mrs. Strobe, with a deep sigh 
 of relief and content, the sparkle again in her little bird-like 
 eye, the parchment-like tint of her visage disappearing under 
 a flush of pleasure. " Did enny mortal ever see ennythin 
 done like that ! I d like ter hev some o that thar stuff, 
 doctor," she declared. u Ye mought leave we-uns a bottle." 
 
 The powerful odor of a strange drug was diffused through 
 the room, and the physician turned and placed the door a 
 trifle ajar before he approached the fire, where Jake Bain- 
 tree was already seated. 
 
 " Set down, doctor, set down, doctor," said Mrs. Strobe, 
 pushing a chair toward him. u Yes, sir, I d like ter hev 
 a bottle. What a thing that physic would be fur fractious 
 chil n ! put em ter sleep off thar meanness. I never hed 
 but one chile, that thar big buffalo, Eli, thar." She had 
 resumed her wonted note toward her son, now that he had 
 relapsed into his old familiar self, lacking the dreadful dig 
 nity of one about to be summoned to a new and untried 
 world, and no longer exciting the painful tenderness and 
 prescient grief that hang upon a possible loss. " But I hev 
 seen him a many a time whenst it would hev brung a heap 
 o peace in the house ef he could hev been put ter sleep that- 
 a-way, in the midst o his tantrums. Can t ye leave a bottle 
 o it, doctor?" 
 
 Isabel looked up apprehensively, thinking herself the pos 
 sible candidate for this new and unique method of discipline. 
 
 But the stranger said he had none to spare for the sub 
 jugation of domestic insurgents, and no more than he needed 
 himself; and although Marcella observed that, as he put 
 the bottle into its groove in the case and shut the lid with a 
 snap, his face wore a smile of relish or of ridicule, she did 
 not resent it, so grateful was she, so ready to fall at his feet. 
 Still, terrors beset her ; it seemed too good to be true. 
 
 " He ain t dead, doctor ? " she asked, in a tone of expos 
 tulation, glancing at the motionless figure on the bed. 
 
 " Not at all," he rejoined, showing his fine teeth. 
 
200 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 " Shet up, Marcelly ; ye hev got no sense," urged her 
 grandmother ; for the natty Mrs. Strobe was all herself 
 again. " Set down, doctor, an rest yer bones. Won t ye 
 hev a toddy ter sorter hearten ye up? I hev got some 
 apple-jack hyar strong enough ter climb a tree. Jake," 
 she continued, turning toward Baintree, " jes ketch a-holt 
 o the handle o that thar jimmy-john in the corner, an haul 
 it hyar. I d ax Marcelly, ceptin she looks bout broke in 
 two ; an I d git it myself, ceptin the jimmy-john s too 
 nijh my size." 
 
 The apology was needless, for Jake Baintree seemed 
 complimented to be permitted to make himself useful, and 
 brought out the demijohn with much glad alacrity. Mar- 
 cella marveled in self-reproachful dismay that she should 
 have such strange thoughts, but as Jake Baintree poured 
 the fluid into a glass she noted how sinewy and thin his 
 hands were, and white as the doctor s own, so long had 
 they been idle and listless in jail ; and she wondered with 
 which of them he had killed Samuel Keale, with both, 
 perchance, and if handcuffs had been put on those long, 
 bony wrists while he languished in prison. And when he 
 offered her a glass, she shuddered and drew back, and 
 shook her head without a word. Mrs. Strobe also declined 
 to join in the potations. " Sperits air all well enough fur 
 men," she observed, " they hev got so little sense enny- 
 how, it don t matter ef they gits foolisher n nat ral wunst 
 in a while ; but ef the Lord 11 spare my reason, I 11 onder- 
 takc ter holp him." 
 
 As the stranger sat drinking the athletic apple-jack so 
 graphically described by Mrs. Strobe, he seemed less reluc 
 tant, less doubtful, than before. He said almost nothing, 
 however, leaving the conversation to Jake Baintree, watch 
 ing him with interest, and in the intervals of silence medi 
 tatively eying the smouldering fire. He had the air of 
 holding himself in abeyance, and quietly awaiting develop 
 ments. He seemed to indorse all that Baintree said, who 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 201 
 
 talked eagerly, and was by no means averse to giving an ac 
 count of his friend. 
 
 u I war powerful glad Marcelly met up with we-uns, Mis 
 Strobe," he said, as he sat on the opposite side of the fire, 
 his elbows on his knees, his hat pushed back on his sleek 
 black hair, his eyes seeming hardly so crafty and bright 
 since they betokened such kindliness, that Marcella was re 
 minded anew of his gratitude to her father for the logical 
 stand as to his innocence which the constable had taken 
 after his acquittal. " I never war so glad ez I hed this 
 hyar doctor-man visitin me." The stranger always had 
 that covert smile, barely to be detected, on his face, when 
 he was thus designated ; but he raised the glass to his lips, 
 and, except by Marcella, it was not noticed. " He phys 
 icked me whenst I war sick in jail, an I knowed he war a 
 powerful survigrous man ter hev around whenst folks air 
 ailinY 
 
 Mrs. Strobe was gracious enough to refrain from contro 
 verting this proposition. As she sat in the chimney-corner, 
 with her tiny feet perched upon the rung of the chair, she 
 looked discerningly, and withal approvingly, at the stranger, 
 while Jake Baintree continued his queer introductory dis 
 course. Nevertheless, she wondered why they did not fin 
 ish drinking their liquor and go, for the hour was wear 
 ing close to the dawn, and, wiry and sturdy as she was, she 
 began to feel the effects of her vigil and excitement. Her 
 gratitude, however, kept her awake, and curiosity had a 
 stimulating influence. She wondered, too, how the ostra 
 cized Jake Baintree had so very capable a u doctor-man " at 
 his disposal. 
 
 u The old doctors, they low they know everything in 
 creation, but they dorit" Baintree said, voicing a most 
 mundane sentiment. 
 
 Mrs. Strobe nodded her head in unabashed acquiescence, 
 despite the destroyed powders, the futile " yerb tea," and 
 the subsequent delirium, so transitory are the effects even 
 
202 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 of the lessons of experience, the best of all teachers though 
 it be. Man may be denned as the animal who will not 
 learn. 
 
 " But folks hev ter find that out fur thai-selves," con 
 tinued the wily Bain tree, " so he hed nuthin ter do, sca ce- 
 ly, down thar in Glaston. Folks ginerally low they don t 
 want a young doctor 1 arnin on them." 
 
 " Yes, better take keer of yer lungs, an yer liver, an yer 
 stomick. No gittin enny new ones," Mrs. Strobe agreed 
 unexpectedly. 
 
 Jake Baintree seemed to lose his balance at this for a 
 moment, then plunged on resolutely : u So hevin nuthin 
 ter do thar, he kem up hyar ter see me." 
 
 Notwithstanding his incidental air, Mrs. Strobe began 
 to perceive that he was definitely driving at something, and 
 he was clever enough to detect this in her sharp eyes, as she 
 fixed them with renewed wonderment upon him. He went 
 directly to the point, with an air of great candor : " Fac is, 
 Mis Strobe, he don t want folks ginerally ter know he be 
 liyarabouts. Nobody would hev knowed it, nohow, ef he 
 lied n t kem out ter do you-uns a favior. Clem Sanders 
 would fairly brain us with that big sledge o his n, ef he 
 knew we d been foolin with his forge. He s a power 
 ful survigrous man, an he would n t think nuthin o 1 ham- 
 merin us up on the anvil, an drawin us down fine. So 
 him an me too would be obleeged ter ye you-uns " he 
 included Marcella and Isabel in his glance " would n t 
 say nuthin bout seem him. It s his bizness, an nobody 
 else s." 
 
 The stranger bore with an admirable calmness the stare 
 of amazement which Mrs. Strobe and Isabel fixed upon 
 him. Marcella, who had seen him wielding the hammer at 
 the forge, felt her capacity for surprise blunted. She was 
 prepared to hear anything. Mrs. Strobe s lower jaw dropped 
 a little in dismay. She was sufficiently sophisticated to know 
 that a physician might have slain his fellow-men in the regu- 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 203 
 
 lar course of business without finding it desirable to seclude 
 himself in the mountains with the ostracized Baintree. Her 
 inevitable conclusion was quickly reached, it was not in 
 the regular course of business ; he was, doubtless, a fugitive 
 from the law, hiding in the wilderness from the officers of 
 justice. So simple a solution of the mystery was it that 
 it had also forced itself irresistibly on both Marcella and 
 Isabel, who gazed upon him with mingled pity, and awe, 
 and repugnance. His hazel eyes were fixed upon the fire, 
 and now and again he lifted the glass of apple-jack to his 
 lips. 
 
 Despite the definiteness of Mrs. Strobe s convictions in 
 general, when an emergency or perplexity supervened, she 
 was less ready to reach a decision than her granddaughter. 
 
 " We ain t got no call ter tell, sure," said Marcella. 
 " Dad would hev been dead ef he hed n t kem ter holp us." 
 
 u He would I " echoed Isabel. 
 
 " Yes, sir ! We hev got Eli agin, some sim lar ter what 
 he useter was," said the old woman, recovering herself in 
 her recollection of her ascendency over her big son. " An 
 what war ye a-doin of in the forge ? " she demanded, turn 
 ing her lively eye on Baintree. 
 
 He looked down into his glass and shook it gently, watch 
 ing the amber and ruby light of the fire as it struck through 
 the liquor. He made no pretense of consultation with his 
 friend ; he answered for him : 
 
 " Waal, I d ez soon tell ye ez not, Mis Strobe." He 
 grinned significantly as he nodded at the physician, who had 
 chanced to glance at the bed where his patient lay. The 
 demonstration said as plainly as if he had spoken, " Some 
 day when lie is away, I will tell you all." 
 
 The old woman nodded her acquiescence and comprehen 
 sion, and as the stranger abruptly turned his head he came 
 very near surprising them at this telegraphy. Mrs. Strobe 
 spoke precipitately to cover her confusion : 
 
 " I 11 be powerful pleased, the Lord knows, not ter tell 
 
204 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 nuthin . I be a mighty partic lar woman with my words. 
 Folks hev got ter be, ef thar kin hev dealin s in politics. 
 Mos ly ef ye tell the truth ye 11 prosper, but them in pol - 
 tics air ez feard o the truth ez a toper o cold water. Jes 
 gin em the fac s, an they 11 see snakes ! Ye need n t be 
 feard I 11 tell the truth, stranger," that sly, superficially 
 grave look on her thin lips. " I hev seen too much mis ry 
 kem from sech practices." 
 
 But the stranger seemed embarrassed and slightly ill at 
 ease, and glanced doubtfully at Jake Baintree, who drained 
 the last drop in his glass. As he held it, empty, still lean 
 ing forward, he gazed propitiatingly at her, as she sat shak 
 ing with her silent chuckle. 
 
 " Ye re funnin , ain t ye, Mis Strobe ? " 
 
 " Ye want me ter tell the truth, then, Jake ? Waal, it s 
 a mighty tough strain, but I 11 try." 
 
 Baintree had risen ; he stood swinging his hat in his hand, 
 and laughing, with an effort at geniality. 
 
 " Naw, Mis Strobe ; we-uns don t want ye an the gals 
 ter say nuthin , that 11 be ez big a f avior ter we-uns ez 
 this hyar doctor-man done yoa-uns." 
 
 " We-uns ain t a-goin ter tell nuthin ," said Marcella, 
 taking the initiative once more. 
 
 "Naw, we ain t," echoed Isabel. 
 
 " We ain t likely ter resk en ny thin we ain t used ter, 
 like tellin the truth," said Mrs. Strobe waggishly. 
 
 Baintree rather sheepishly continued to swing his hat ; 
 then, as he glanced toward the door, still half ajar, " It s 
 day ! " he said. 
 
 The puncheon floor of the uninclosed passage without 
 showed in a timorous, colorless medium, too neutral to 
 express the idea of light, too null for darkness. The old 
 dog passed by, distinctly visible, stretching his limbs and 
 yawning, as he looked casually into the room ; then went 
 off, wagging his tail slightly, as if pleased in the main to be 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 205 
 
 reminded of his friends within. As the two men came out 
 together, slowly, followed by the family, they paused to ob 
 serve the traces of the storm, the dripping, moisture-laden 
 aspect of tree and vine and wall, the dank, lieav\ r air, the 
 pallid ranks of the corn, here and there beaten down to the 
 ground. A bird s-nest, long ago empty, the sport of the 
 winds, was lying upon the porch. Marcella picked up the 
 frail and fibrous thing, suggestive of fleeting song, and 
 transitory love, and lapsing summer. The young stranger 
 had fixed a speculative gaze upon her, as she leaned against 
 the vine-draped post, her hair dry again and freshly curl 
 ing, the dull fringes of her red shawl against the warm 
 whiteness of her neck, her long lashes pensively veiling 
 her downcast eyes. He mechanically threw his waterproof 
 coat over cue arm, as he stood, and with the other hand he 
 meditatively turned the end of his long yellow mustache, 
 unheeding Jake Baintree, who was remarkimg, " I 11 be 
 bound, Mis Strobe, tliar s a heap o timber down in the 
 woods." The mountaineer glanced away at the opaque 
 densities of the mists that filled the valleys, and rose to the 
 mountain-tops, and hung about the little cabin, and had a 
 drearier pallor than the gray sky, where, indeed, once or 
 twice a glittering point betokened a fading star in the rifts 
 of the clouds. Then the two men went down the steps and 
 through the gate, and they and their horses were lost to 
 sight in the vapors before they reached the turn-row. 
 
 Mrs. Strobe and Isabel stood and stared at the point 
 where they had vanished, until they could no longer hear 
 the regular hoof-beats, growing ever fainter and fainter ; but 
 Marcella still turned the relic of the spring weavings in her 
 hand, and took pensive note of the autumn in its riddled 
 and void meshes. 
 
 Isabel spoke first. 
 
 " That thar stranger air the curiousest man of all the 
 men ez hev ever been ter this house," she observed oracu- 
 
206 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 larly, as if she were a competent judge of " curiousness," 
 and a connoisseur in human bric-a-brac. 
 
 Her grandmother chuckled. 
 
 " An that s a bold sayin ," commented the little old 
 cynic. 
 
XII. 
 
 THE mists continued to press close about the little cabin. 
 The sunless day hardly gave evidence how it was wearing 
 on, so imperceptibly did the shadows grow less gray. Some 
 movement there was in the dense folds of the opaque vapors, 
 for now even the vines on the porch were invisible, and 
 anon all their leaves were abnormally definite on the blank 
 white surface of the background. A continuous drip sounded 
 from the eaves, but otherwise the world seemed strangely 
 silent, until the mincing footfalls of a pacing nag came dull 
 and muffled along the dank turn-row, and announced to 
 Mrs. Strobe the approach of old Dr. Boyce. 
 
 " Now, ain t it a blessin ," she observed to her grand 
 daughters, "ez that thar perverse old man never tuk it inter 
 that head o his n an it s full o notions ter kem no 
 earlier. He mought hev met the t other feller, an thar s 
 nuthin in this worl one doctor hates like another one. An 
 ef t war n t fur the law ez keeps em off n one another, 
 thar d be mo scatterin o brains, an hair, an bones round 
 graveyards n thar be now. Ef ye want ter see one o em 
 take a fit, jes let him know some other doctor hev been 
 meddlin with his patient, ez he calls it. A mighty good 
 word fur it, too. Patient he air, the feller hev got ter 
 learn patience, sure ! This hyar old man can t abide it, ef 
 he ain t allowed ter pizen folks his own way ; an ef ye don t 
 foller his directions edzac ly, he 11 gin the case up. An 
 then ye mought git well, stiddier dyin respectably, cordin 
 ter the doctor s prescriptions." 
 
 She rose, with her speciously grave expression puckering 
 her thin lips, and went to meet him on the porch, as he 
 
208 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 came up the path, with his saddle-bags over his arm. " Good- 
 mornin , doctor," she observed, with great suavity. 
 
 " Good-morning, madam," he said with a cheerful note. 
 He was propitiated by a certain up-all-night aspect in the 
 three feminine members of the household, which his discern 
 ing eye could well distinguish from the activity of the habit 
 ual early riser. It implied due anxiety and attention to any 
 possible or probable want of his patient. He had scant in 
 terest in people whose lungs, liver, heart, and stomach were 
 in a normal condition. They were merely unindividualized 
 cumberers of the ground, except as they ministered to that 
 genus whom he sought to exalt into a tyrant of absolute 
 sway, his patient. He himself bowed down before it with 
 an unswerving devotion and an unchanging assiduity, despite 
 its protean aspect, whether it were only two feet long, and 
 writhing with the colic, or as big as Eli Strobe, with a digni 
 fied fracture of the skull ; and he saw to it that every possi 
 ble knee was also crooked in subservience. It was a favorite 
 formula with him, " If my patient can t sleep, not a soul in 
 the house shall bat an eye all night." And thus there were 
 always powders or drops to be administered with appalling 
 frequency, if the sufferer should chance to awake. 
 
 Therefore he looked with approving eyes at Mrs. Strobe, 
 and dismissed as gratuitous certain anxieties that had har 
 assed him since parting from her yesterday, because of her 
 earnest advocacy of " yerb tea," and her evident reluctance 
 to defer to his judgment. 
 
 " How s my patient, madam ? " he asked, as he lumbered 
 up the steps. 
 
 He was not, properly speaking, a fat man ; he might bet 
 ter be described as merely ample. He was not muscular ; 
 he seemed flabbily large. His face had sundry deep dim 
 ples, visible even when not smiling, and he had a fair, fresh 
 complexion, and was close-shaven. He was perhaps some 
 sixty years old, and he was ostentatious in the use of his 
 spectacles, after the manner of one who regards age as a 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 209 
 
 sort of gradual promotion. He was quite bald, and wore 
 a dark wig, or what is known as a " scratch." It hardly 
 served any purpose of deception, for often he thrust it far 
 back on his head, showing his broad, full-fronted brow ; and 
 sometimes, in his office, on a warm day, he hung it on the 
 door-knob or the back of a chair, contracting thereby many 
 an influenza and neuralgia, which he would have considered 
 of serious interest had it been the choice possession of one 
 of his patients. 
 
 "Not awake yet? " he said, glancing at the pillow as he 
 entered. He sat down beside the bed, and, motioning to 
 Marcella to open the shutter, he adjusted his spectacles, and 
 bent forward to scrutinize the sleeping face. 
 
 Mrs. Strobe, secretly scornful as she watched him, was 
 amazed to see him draw back, with an expression of doubt 
 ing surprise, and with his soft, deft fingers feel the pulse of 
 the wounded man. His eyes with a suspicious gleam sought 
 hers. 
 
 " How did he spend the night ? " he asked curtly. 
 
 " Waal," cautiously admitted Mrs. Strobe, " the fust o 
 the night he war sorter rampagious. Arter that he slept." 
 
 The doctor rose slowly, looking very large and limp as 
 he stood solemnly confronting the little dame. " Mrs. 
 Strobe," he demanded, " what was done to this man ? " 
 
 ; Why, law, doctor, you-uns know ! " she cried. " Teck 
 Jepson jes rid him down, an bust his head open, an " 
 
 " Woman," he thundered, " this man has been drugged ! " 
 
 Mrs. Strobe quailed. She would not have believed the 
 discovery possible to his vaunted science. 
 
 " Jes a leetle verb tea," she faltered. 
 
 He stared at her, baffled, and doubting if it were possible 
 to elicit the truth from her. He knitted his bare brows, 
 for his wig was far back on his bald poll. The mystery of 
 it all stemmed for the time the rising tide of his tumultuous 
 indignation. " Why did n t you give him the powders I 
 left, as directed ? " he demanded. 
 
210 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 "Law, doctor, they couldn t make no diff unce, that 
 thar leetle trash stuff." 
 
 The doctor s bald head flushed to the nape of his neck. 
 Despite his scanty consideration of people who were in the 
 enjoyment of full health, he could not strike Mrs. Strohe. 
 There was only one course open to him, professionally speak 
 ing. 
 
 " I give up the case. I will not be responsible," he sput 
 tered, stooping down to pick up his saddle-bags. Suddenly 
 he caught sight of the wan, haggard, sleeping face on the 
 pillow, and the loyalty of a whole life flamed up anew to 
 ward its object. " No, I won t, I won t, neither ! I 
 won t leave my patient to be murdered amongst you. Yes, 
 murdered ! " he vociferated ; " for if my directions and my 
 medicines are tampered with again, and my patient dies, 
 I 11 have you every one indicted for murder ; you hear me, 
 for murder ! Poisoning my patient ! " He wagged his 
 half-draped head with a knowing look. He had not lived 
 in this world so long as not to be aware of the terror that 
 the ignorant have of that unknown, unmeasured force, the 
 law. Even the doughty Mrs. Strobe seemed very small 
 and wizened, as she contemplated the prospect. He fol 
 lowed up his advantage: "Come here!" he turned to 
 Marcella; "you look like you have some sense. I ll leave 
 my directions with you, and you see you carry them out. 
 Do just as I say. Think I won t know it if you don t, as 
 soon as I get here ? " 
 
 " Mighty apt, sure," Mrs. Strobe conceded, in a concilia 
 tory tone. 
 
 But the big doctor, who seemed, as he stood about, to 
 occupy more than his share of the little cabin, only gave a 
 snort of derisive rage at this overture, and prepared his 
 medicines in stern and puffing silence. He was still breath 
 less when he gathered up his saddle-bags and started toward 
 the door. He came back, and looked in again to say, with 
 a threatening air, when he would repeat his visit ; and they 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. "211 
 
 presently heard the ambling hoof-beats of his horse that took 
 him up the turn-row, and so away. 
 
 It might seem that Mrs. Strobe could not easily recover 
 from the stress of this interview, but her elasticity was al 
 together unstrained, and she rebounded from her humiliat 
 ing detection with the alert grace of one who, from good 
 nature, ignores a defiance, having" ample resources at call. 
 
 " Gin up the case ! " she cried scornfully. " An what do 
 we-uns keer, with a doctor-man o our own, what Jake Bain- 
 tree fetched ! I hed a great mind ter tell ? bout n him, an* 
 how peart he war, but I war feard o hurtin the old man s 
 feelin s. Murderin Eli, I say ! I war so mad wunst I 
 hed a great mind ter throttle the old man ; " which the doc 
 tor would have esteemed a terrible intention in a woman of 
 Mrs. Strobe s size, had he known she entertained it. " But 
 how did he find out Eli hed tuk the t other doctor s medi 
 cine ? I tell ye, now, Marcelly, that thar old man hev got 
 eyes in the back o his head, an kin see fourteen mile off 
 through a thunder-storm in the night-time thout strainin 
 his sight." 
 
 Mrs. Strobe affected to hope that he would continue an 
 gry, and fail to keep his engagement ; but her relief was 
 very patent when he reappeared with his saddle-bags the 
 next day, and the next, and still again. He took little note 
 of her except to treat her remarks with a sedulous show of 
 unconcern. He asked Marcella keen and searching ques 
 tions as to his patient during his absence, and strained to 
 the uttermost their every capacity and all the resources of 
 the little cabin to subserve the invalid s comfort. All was 
 ungrudgingly and submissively accorded, but, nevertheless, 
 he began to look very grave as the days wore on, and now 
 and then he solemnly shook his bald head. 
 
 " What makes him shake his head that-a-way, Marcelly ? " 
 the old woman demanded. " Ter make sure thar s nuthin* 
 in it ? He need n t look so disapp inted. I could hev tole 
 him ez much ez that, an kep him from expectin ter hear 
 it rattle." 
 
212 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 Outside the world took its way, unheeding, down the oft- 
 trodden course of the year. The dank mists clung long to 
 range and valley. They lifted at last, and then the tor- 
 reiits of the recent storm seemed to have heen charged with 
 pigments, for bold dashes of color, of red, of a luminous 
 yellow, accented yet tempered by intervals of purplish and 
 bronze intimations, emblazoned the mountain-side, where a 
 monotony of summer greenth had lately held sway. The 
 sun, coming again with a fluctuating brilliancy, with far- 
 reaching misty refractions, and anon diaphanous veilings, to 
 displace the surly usurpations of the grimmer gray elements, 
 found a responsive glow in the sudden enrichment of the 
 world. The far-away ranges had acquired a new charm of 
 azure, an exquisitely pure tone, but of a dull, unglossy soft 
 ness, all unlike the enameled blue of the great crystalline 
 sky. The air was pervaded by a fine aroma. The wind 
 had wings : one could sometimes see the shadows of these 
 subtle, swift invisibilities flutter in the cloudless sunshine, 
 so vaguely that before a glance might seek to measure an 
 airy pinion the fleet thing was gone. Enchantment boldly 
 wandered forth into the broad daylight, and all lavish splen 
 dors were vagrant. In every fence corner, the lush grasses 
 and weeds, heavy with seeds, were bepainted -with a brush 
 full of color, amber, and brown, and red ; even the cob 
 webs, gossamer and silver in the sun, hung from rail to rail 
 upon the old fences, and bedizened their gaunt homeliness 
 with a delicate fibrous grace. Oh, gone was the summer, 
 and it would come no more, however the recurrent season 
 might wear its similitude. Marcella was living her life out ; 
 she was not the light-hearted creature that the spring had 
 found, her. She felt that she was older by many summers, 
 and she did not need Andy Longwood to tell her so. 
 
 " Ye hev got ter be ez solemn ez I dunno what all. 
 An ye used ter laff, an laff, an laff. Now ye can t crack 
 a joke ter save yer life. An ef ennybody else gits ter 
 funnin , ye don t pay no tention ter what they say." 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 213 
 
 The young fellow sat, as was his wont in his frequent 
 visits, on the step of the porch, his head, with its tousled 
 curls and its big hat, leaning back against the post and the 
 thinning yellow vines. His expression was slightly sullen, 
 and implied a despondent appeal, although his muscles as 
 serted a cheerful habit, altogether independent of his mind 
 and heart, and he mechanically laid a clasp knife upon one 
 closed fist, and with a dextrous twist of the wrist flung 
 it to the ground, piercing the moist earth with its point, 
 after the manner of the expert mumble-the-peg player. 
 Now and then he looked up at Marcella, who sat spinning, 
 spinning, ceaselessly at her little flax-wheel, until it seemed 
 to him the whir ringing in his ears, the sight of the wheel 
 whirling until it was only a dazzling spokeless circle that 
 they were his heartstrings which she was thus drawing out 
 into these attenuated threads, and that there would not 
 be enough hope, or courage, or any of the essential en 
 dowments left for him to live upon by the time she had 
 wound these intimate fibres into balls. So forlorn was this 
 "frequent visitor." 
 
 " Ye don t never notice nobody nor nuthin , nowadays," 
 he said, a trifle hampered in his complaint by the presence 
 of the wiry Isabel, who sat at the other end of the step, 
 and of his own dog, who looked, as he took up his position 
 between the two, intelligent enough to understand the con 
 versation, and independent enough to repeat it. " Got 
 nuthin ter say ter nobody, nor nuthin ." 
 
 He meant himself by this negative description, and the 
 sharp-eyed Isabel understood as much. Despite her pre 
 cocity she had the lamentable lack of tact characteristic of 
 her age, and her mind \vas a blank as to matters amatory. 
 She intended to be very agreeable when she said, with a 
 toss of her tangled hair, " Marcelly air a-gittin too old fur 
 ye an me, Andy ; she s jes gittin mighty settled an old." 
 
 A quick expression of apprehension, even dismay, flitted 
 across his face. " What air ye a-talkin bout, Is bel ? " he 
 
214 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 cried, in a loud, reprehensive voice. "I be four year 
 older n Marcelly. Gittin too old fur ye an me ! " he 
 mimicked ungraciously. " Puttin we-uns tergether, ez ef 
 we-uns war of an age, whenst I be old enough ter be yer 
 gran dad, chile ! " He made another active throw with the 
 knife, holding one ear with one hand, and flinging the blade 
 from the other ear with a marked dexterity. 
 
 When he glanced up Isabel had risen, and waited to 
 catch his eye. " I m goin in the house," she remarked, 
 with sour dignity. " I be feard ye mought bite me." 
 
 He would have been glad of the riddance had it been 
 vouchsafed, but it was an empty threat, or rather promise, 
 for the little girl still lingered, leaning against a post of the 
 porch ; nevertheless, it served him for another ground of 
 complaint. 
 
 " Ye hev all done got sot agin me hyar," he said, "even 
 Is bel. Ez ter Mis Strobe, she never war hurt with perlite- 
 ness, nohow ; leastways not ter me. An you-uns all think 
 heap o Clem Sanders, I reckon, don t ye ? " He looked up 
 appealingly. 
 
 A smile rippled across Marcella s face ; her red lips 
 parted. Had she indeed grown so very old, after all ? But 
 the alert Isabel answered : 
 
 " I dunno what ye low we-uns be so admirin o Clem 
 fur, thout we wanted him fur a ornamint, like that thar 
 plaster rooster what dad brung granny from Colb ry ter set 
 on the mankle-shelf . Clem sets ez still an pears ez good- 
 lookin ez he kin, jes like the rooster do. Both o em seem 
 like they mought crow toler ble loud ef they would, but 
 nare one of em do." 
 
 The "frequent visitor" was in a measure appeased. He 
 laughed mightily at this ridicule of his rival, and then 
 sighed deeply, partly for relief and partly for self-pity. 
 
 Isabel caught the approving expression in his eyes as they 
 met hers, and she relented from her intention of leaving the 
 young people together, and once more kindly sat down be- 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 215 
 
 tween them. She seemed, however, disposed to earn her wel 
 come, for as she clasped her lithe, sunburned hands over her 
 knees, and turned her pointed chin reflectively upwards, and 
 cast a glance toward the forge, the preternatural wisdom of 
 her expression intensified by the two sharp eyes set so close 
 together, she continued : " Las time Clem kem a-visitin ," 
 she made no doubt it was partly to see herself and partly 
 her " granny," as well as Marcella, " he jes sot up ez 
 mum ez ye ever see ennybody, like he war feard o we- 
 uns," her lips curled in relish, " an said Yes m, an 
 Ma am, an Xo "m\ ter me, ez well ez ter granny ; ez re- 
 spec "ful, an humble, an feard o me ez ef / war eighty 
 year old." 
 
 " Oh, ho ! ho I " laughed the merry " frequent visitor." 
 
 "Shet up, Is bel," the elder sister mechanically admon 
 ished her. 
 
 " Feard o gals," pursued Isabel, in the pleasing con 
 sciousness of making herself very agreeable. " An he say 
 nuthin ceptin ter agree with everybody, an look so mild 
 an meek. An granny, she talked, an I talked ; an Mar- 
 celly, she talked some, too. An Clem, he say, * Yes m 
 an <Naw m. An he stayed, an stayed, an stayed, mighty 
 late ; till whenst he war a-goin away, granny, she say ter 
 him, Ye mus kem agin, Clem. Me an the gals hev 
 mighty nigh ez interestin a time a-settin up with ye ez ef 
 ye war a corpse. We 11 watch with ye whenst ye air dead, 
 Clem. Ye need n t be feard. We will hev got so used 
 ter settin alongside o ye an yer dumb ways ez we will be 
 plumb trained ter it. Kem up agin soon, Clem, else we-uns 
 will git our hands out. " 
 
 It was pleasant to hear the " frequent visitor s " laughter, 
 so jovial a sound it was. And how his heart warmed to 
 Mrs. Strobe ! 
 
 " Ain t she smart, though ! My stars ! she s ez smart ez 
 enny man ! he exclaimed, in the hyperbole of his enthu 
 siasm. What did Clem say? " 
 
216 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 " He say Yes m, cried Isabel, with a jocund outburst. 
 She was in high feather because of her success. Andy 
 Longwood was far more entertaining to her when he was 
 in this hilarious humor, instead of the pathetic sentimental 
 moods which he had of late affected. She was evidently 
 going on to improve her advantage, when Marcella remon 
 strated. 
 
 " I can t abide," she said, " ter hear ennybody laffed at 
 ahint thar backs. It don t pear right ter me." 
 
 Longwood s hair was tossed backward, like the mane of 
 an angry horse ; he looked up, with a flushing cheek. " Ye 
 mean ter say, Marcelly, ez I be feard ter laff at Clem San 
 ders ter his face ? Now I ain t, fur I hev done it a many a 
 time." 
 
 " An me, too," protested Isabel, with arrogant temerity, 
 as if this were important. " I laffed at him las time he war 
 hyar." 
 
 " I ain t sayin ye war afeard, Andy." Marcella sought 
 to soothe his wounded feelings. " It jes pears ter me sor 
 ter deceitful." 
 
 " Shucks ! " cried the capable Isabel. " Clem s power 
 ful deceitful hisse f. So mealy-mouthed hyar ye d think 
 he war a lam , or jes a mild deedie or suthin ; but pass by 
 that thar forge, sir, an ye kin hear him hollerin a mile off, 
 an talkin like a plumb coffee-mill, elbowin an jostlin the 
 men about, the headin est one o the lot ! Tuk Jube, the 
 pa son s son, one day, sir, an put him in a sack, an with 
 all them foolish fellers a-followin he kerried sack, Jube, an 
 all down ter the shallow spread o the ruver, an flung him 
 in. But Clem s hollerin that time war n t ekal ter Jube s 
 ez he kem out the bag an waded ashore. Then Clem, he 
 kerns up hyar lookin like like pie, he s so good an desir 
 able. Can t tell me nuthin bout that thar gamesome Clem, 
 an I 11 laff at him all I m a mind ter." 
 
 Andy Longwood s variable spirits had again declined. 
 He was moodily appreciative of the fact that these robust 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 217 
 
 pranks were not subject for ridicule in the same degree as 
 the burly blacksmith s quaking humility and tongue-tied 
 meekness in the presence of his lady-love and her feminine 
 relations. The bluff, blustery fun which he relished was not 
 without its fascinations to the boy-lover, and induced an 
 emulative grudging. He realized, too, the possibility that 
 Clem s bold freedom among men might contrast favorably, 
 in Marcella s estimation, with the solicitous cowardice that 
 she alone could inspire in that doughty heart, and he looked 
 with lowering antagonism at Isabel, as if she had recited 
 some noble exploit of his rival s, calculated to put him at a 
 disadvantage and destroy his prospects. 
 
 " Oh, yes, Is bel, ye saw it, I reckon," he sneered, with 
 a sudden gust of temper. " Ye kin see mos ennythin , ef 
 ye be jes willin ter take half on trest. 1 11 be bound he 
 lied a dog or suthin in that sack, an ye saw Jube arterward. 
 Clem could n t t jte Jube. Ye jes saw Jube wadin ." 
 
 " Naw, t war jes ez I say," Isabel hastily insisted. 
 
 " Waal, hev it so, hev it so." Longwood waved off 
 the discussion. " Look out right smart enny clear night, 
 an ye 11 see the man in the moon wadin down in them 
 shallows." 
 
 " Shucks ! " said Isabel, discarding the consideration, as it 
 were, of the man in the moon, and thinking that Longwood 
 was disposed to talk to her as if she were a very small child. 
 
 He sat quite silent then, the light wind blowing his long 
 hair back amongst the sere and yellow vines. There was no 
 serenity, as of yore, in his eyes, and Marcella was moved to 
 vaguely pity him. She glanced down at him once or twice 
 as she spun, and then away to the purple mountains beyond 
 the hazy valley, rich with golden drapings, tissues of the 
 sunshine that seemed some splendid textile thing, so pal 
 pable was its effect. The lilac aster trembled in the stir 
 of the wind. The wild turkey called from the woods. All 
 the burrs of the great chestnut by the gate had opened to the 
 summons of the frost, and now and again as the branches 
 
218 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 shook, the glossy nuts fell to the roots of the tree. She 
 saw adown the moist, dank path a garter-snake, lying, half 
 torpid, lured out by the treacherous sun and chilled by the 
 autumn blast. Somewhere a cricket shrilled and shrilled. 
 
 k Air the season for ard over ter Chilhowee, Andy ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " Dunno. Don t keer. Wisht Chilhowee war leveled 
 with the ground." 
 
 4t Dell-law ! " exclaimed Isabel, astonished by this ebulli 
 tion of perversity, and disposed to comment profusely. Mrs. 
 Strobe, however, opportunely called her from within to some 
 domestic duty, and the suffering Longwood felt it a release. 
 
 " Marcelly," he. said earnestly, making the most of his 
 opportunity, " ye an me useter be powerful friendly, an I 
 lied rather kem hyar a-visitin than in the courts o heaven. 
 An ye useter laff an be glad ter see me. An me an ye, 
 an sometimes Is bel," alas, how often Isabel, for all he 
 put it thus politely, " useter sit in the orcherd an eat ap 
 ples, an go fishin , an sometimes jes talk on the porch ; 
 an now all them times air gone ! " 
 
 " Ain t we talkin on the porch now ? " demanded Mar- 
 cella. 
 
 " Not like in them days : ye sca cely notice now whether 
 I kem or don t kem ; ye pay jes ez much tention ter me 
 ez ef I war that thar old dog o mine. G way Watch ! " he 
 broke off suddenly, " I ain t talkin ter you-uns. I wisht yer 
 throat war cut ! " He held back with one stalwart hand 
 his canine follower, who upon the mention of the word 
 " dog " had come up and offered to lick his face. " Ye air 
 lookin over my head, Marcelly, an ye low I be sech a fool 
 ez not ter know it. Yit we hev been raised tergether. An 
 I remembers how I hev listened, a-comin down the turn-row, 
 ter hear ye call out, sweeter n a mocking-bird s singin , 
 Look, Is bel, yauder s Andy. I d ruther hear it n the 
 voice o the Lord ! Ye need n t look at me like that. I d 
 jes ez soon go ter hell ez not I hev done gone ter hell, ef 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 219 
 
 ye ain t goin ter keer nuthin bout n me. Oh, Lord, I can t 
 learn nuthin mo bout brimstone an fire in the next worl . 
 I hev felt em in this." 
 
 I ain t goin ter keer nuthin bout onchristian folks," re 
 marked Marcella, " an none ez use cuss words an talk bout 
 hell. " 
 
 She spoke stiffly and with an averted eye, but when he 
 had turned his head away she looked down kindly and len 
 iently at him. 
 
 He suddenly glanced up. " Air it this all-fired Christian, 
 Teck Jepson, ez hev sot ye agin me ? " he asked suspiciously. 
 
 " Him ez flung my father down, an rid over him, an 
 bruk his skull, an " She could say no more ; the sobs 
 were in her throat, her eyes were full of tears. 
 
 Don t cry, Marcelly," he said sympathetically, and he 
 was silent for a moment in respect for her grief. Then he 
 renewed his insistent pleas. " Marcelly," he demanded, 
 " air thar ennybody ez ye know ez I ain t quainted with ? " 
 Who could say how Fate might play the trickster ? He felt 
 his hands were feeble as he sought to control the possibili 
 ties. 
 
 It might have been that his words recalled the stranger 
 who had brought such peace and ease to her father, that 
 night of storm and trial. It might have been that he was 
 already in her thoughts. His image in the vicissitudes of 
 that night, now in the lurid and fluctuating illumination of 
 the forge, now as he quelled the frenzy of the wounded man, 
 distinct in the white gleams of the lighted cabin, became 
 vividly present with her. She did not hesitate. She be 
 lieved he was a fugitive from the law, but whether he had 
 done ill, or whether he was falsely suspected, he should not 
 be hurt by aught that she might say. She sought, however, 
 to summon as innocent a duplicity as she might, for was she 
 not a " perf essin member " ? 
 
 " What makes ye ask sech a question ez that, Andy ? Ye 
 pear bereft." 
 
220 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 " I know," cried the young fellow wildly, " ez ye think 
 bout somebody nowadays in the time whenst ye useter think 
 bout n me ! " 
 
 " Why, Andy ! " exclaimed Marcella, laughing, and blush 
 ing for the arrogations of his woe. " I never did think 
 bout you-uns, ef the truth war knowed." 
 
 u Ye did ! Ye did ! I useter know it way over yan- 
 der ter Chilhowee, kase I d feel so happy, so happy, whilst 
 a-plowin , or choppin wood, or a-pullin fodder. I would n t 
 hcv swapped places with a n angel. Ye used ter think bout 
 me then, an now ye think bout somebody else." 
 
 She said nothing, and he leaned back against the post of 
 the porch, looking up at the far crystalline sky, deeply blue ; 
 but one scant cloud was visible, of a dazzling opaque white 
 ness in its central mass, and with tenuous trailing cirrus ef 
 fects upon its verges. It pained his eyes, and he pulled his 
 hat-brim over his brow as he lowered his head. 
 
 " I tell you what, I wisht I war a Injun." He glanced 
 up at her, in the hope that she would ask why. But her 
 wheel still whirled, her little foot, with its low-cut shoe, visi 
 ble on the treadle. Her bright, downcast eyes were fixed 
 upon the thread that her deft fingers drew out in endless at 
 tenuations. " I wisht I war a Injun," he reiterated, " so ez 
 I would n t know t war murder an a scandalous sin ter kern 
 down hyar from Chilhowee in the night-time an scalp every 
 hearty single man in the Settlemint, scalp em an stab 
 em, I would. I wisht I did n t know no better n that. I 
 wisht I war a Injun." 
 
 Her thread broke. The wheel ceased to revolve. She 
 looked at him with reprehensive eyes. 
 
 " Andy Longwood," she remonstrated, " ye air gittin ter 
 be gredgin an mean, an ye ain t tellin the truth, nuther. 
 Ye don t wish no sech foolishness, an ye would n t scalp no 
 body. Ye air jes gredgin an mean." 
 
 " I gredge you-uns ter enny o em," he replied. Then, 
 after a moment, " Look-a-hyar, Marcelly Strobe," he 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 221 
 
 adopted in turn the solemnity of the full name in addressing 
 her, " how often hev ye promised ter marry me ? " 
 
 " Not lately," she declared. 
 
 44 No, not lately, an that s jes what I m a-talkin bout. 
 Lord ! Lord ! I kin member jes ez well how ye useter look 
 when ye fust tuk ter toddlin round, an folks useter tell 
 me then ez how ye an me would marry some day ; an I 
 b lieved em, pore fool I An so did you-uns, though. Ye 
 useter promise ez soon ez ye could talk ez ye would marry 
 me. Ye useter promise even arter ye war ez old ez Is bel, 
 an arterward, too." 
 
 "Waal, Is bel ain t so very old," observed her sister 
 calmly. 
 
 " An all of a suddint," continued the young lover, " ye 
 got tongue-tied, an would n t say it yerse f, an would n t let 
 nobody say it ter you-uns." 
 
 " Waal, Andy, I hev fund out better sence then. Promis- 
 in ter marry air a mighty serious matter." 
 
 " T ain t ; promisin ter marry me air a mighty cheerful, 
 safe thing ! Knowin me like ye do ! Ef ye war a-prom- 
 isin ter marry some o these deceitful folks ez kem hyar in 
 thar saaft comp ny manners, an then go cavortiu round the 
 Cove like a demented blacksmith ; or folks ez hev got Chris 
 tian talk fairly a-wobblin all round em, an yit all Brum- 
 saidge air afeard ter say a word whilst they air ridin folks 
 down, off cers o the law an sech, t would be a mighty 
 serious matter, an a heap mo serious ter keep enny sech 
 promise." 
 
 He looked at her triumphant in the fullness of his logic ; 
 but alas ! what has love to do with logic ? 
 
 The futility of all his fine reasoning was borne in upon 
 him with a dreary accession of heartache and a determina 
 tion of energy to his temper. 
 
 kt But ye air in love with some o em, Marcelly, an ye air 
 jes foolin me. Naw, ye won t even take the trouble ter 
 try ter fool me, I ain t wuth it. Ye air in love with some 
 
222 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 o era, else why air ye so solemn ? It s enough ter make 
 ye solemn, though the Lord knows." 
 
 She had not recommenced her spinning ; she was looking 
 at him with a remonstrant, smiling expression, as if she 
 might thus coax him from his boyish wrath, when suddenly 
 her eyes filled, her lips trembled. 
 
 He rose, quivering at the sight of her agitation. "I ll 
 find out which one of em t is that ye air goin ter marry, 
 Marcelly, an I 11 go down yander inter the Settlemint an 
 scatter what he calls his brains all round his anvil. Air it 
 Clem Sanders ? Air ye goin ter marry Clem ? " 
 
 "I ain t solemn fur Clem Sanders," she sobbed, half 
 laughing ; then, with a gush of tears, " I hev got a heap be 
 sides ter make me solemn." 
 
 "Tell me who it is that ye air goin ter marry," he 
 touched the trigger of his rifle, with a fierce elation in his 
 eye ; " it s loaded fur him. " 
 
 Marcella suddenly lifted her head, as if listening. She 
 rose precipitately. " Jes go long, now, Andy. Ye hev 
 been hyar a long time. Go home, an I 11 tell ye ennythin 
 ye w^ant ter know nex time ye kem. Jes g long, like a 
 good boy." 
 
 He stared, motionless, amazed at her pale face and agi 
 tated manner. Then he too heard a step within. " He s 
 in the house," he exclaimed, " a-talkin long o Mis Strobe 
 an Is bel ! An ye wanted me ter go way thout seein him. 
 I know ye now, Marcelly, an 1 11 stay. I won t be druv 
 off ; I 11 stay, an " His hand once more sought the trig 
 ger of his rifle, as his blazing eyes fixed upon the door 
 whence the sound of the step proceeded. A hesitating step 
 it was, and slow. 
 
 And then Eli Strobe appeared, and Longwood saw him 
 for the first time since his illness. The young man recoiled 
 from the shock, his angry insistent face smitten with a 
 sudden gravity, even awe. So forlorn and spectral was Eli 
 Strobe, with his pallid, lantern-jawed face ; his half-shaven 
 
THE DESPOT OF B/WOMSEDGE COTE. 223 
 
 head, still bandaged ; his clothes, his very skin, hanging 
 loosely on his big bones. He cast his old familiar sidelong 
 glance at the young fellow, freighted with evident but surly 
 recognition, and he had the dumb, pathetic, shambling dig 
 nity that one sometimes discerns in a wounded animal, as 
 with frequent halts he tottered up to an armchair on the 
 porch, in which his deft-handed daughters made haste to 
 prop him with pillows and wrap him with blankets. He 
 muttered something vaguely about *" them leetle darters," 
 and then he sat quite still, looking off at the purple moun 
 tains, and the golden sunshine on the red and amber woods 
 hard by, the aspect of the whole world changed since he 
 saw it last. 
 
 The young fellow, still staring, had sunk down upon the 
 porch in his former attitude, wondering if indeed there were 
 no one else within ; why, then, had Marcella sought to hurry 
 him away ? She had settled herself again at her spinning- 
 wheel, watching with a tremulous smile the clumsy antics of 
 Long wood s dog, courtier enough to display great joy upon 
 the reappearance of the master of the house, and leaping 
 about his chair, now and then emitting a short, shrill bark. 
 
 "Fust time I hev been out, Andy," observed Eli Strobe. 
 
 Marcella stopped her wheel to listen. She seemed to hang 
 with doubt and anxiety upon his every word. Longwood, 
 summoning a show of self-possession and cordiality, remarked 
 that the air was likely to do him good. " Ye " pear ter be 
 gittin well now," he added encouragingly. 
 
 " Yes," assented Eli Strobe good-humoredly. " Mam an 
 Marcelly an Is bel, though, hev mighty near killed me with 
 kindness. T war mighty hard fur me ter start out ter git 
 well. I felt like I d fairly enjye stayin sick fur a livin . 
 An that thar old doctor, I actially b lieves he hev gin me 
 all the med cine he hev got. The rest of em in the Cove 
 hed better not git sick soon; no mo doctor-stuff whar that 
 kem from." 
 
 Andy Longwood laughed in an embarrassed fashion, by 
 
224 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 way of making an appropriate response. Some crows 
 they seemed very black were cawing loudly from the 
 top of a full-leaved hickory-tree, that blazed a resplendent, 
 illuminated yellow down by the fence ; all the breadth of 
 the sere cornfield hard by was doubly pallid in tint, in con 
 trast with this flaring ochreous splendor ; the sky was an 
 intenser blue where the foliage was imposed upon its ex 
 panse, the farthest mountains duskily purple, while below 
 the branches of the tree, near to the great dark bole, the 
 roofs of the Settlement showed, the glimmer of the frost on 
 the eaves not altogether spent, albeit the sun was high, the 
 curling tendrils of smoke, blue, and misty, and timorous, as 
 they crept out of the clay-and-stick chimneys. 
 
 Eli Strobe s eyes dwelt on the little hamlet for a moment. 
 " What s the folks in the Settlemint a-sayin bout me ; 
 Andy ? " he asked unexpectedly. " I ain t seen nobody but 
 the gals an mam, ez dunno nuthin bout folks, an politics, 
 an sech things ez a body wants ter hear bout ; an the old 
 doctor, ez seems ter be a good, useful kind o consarn, but 
 pears ter think a man oughter set still all day an study 
 bout n his liver, stiddier politics an his office what he hev 
 done been lected ter hold, an will de-strac his mind ef 
 he gits ter thinkin bout enny sech ez them. Actially, I 
 b lieve that old man would hev hed me darnin stockin s, ef 
 I hed n t made a stan agin him. I tried ter spound a pint 
 o law ter him t other day, an he seemed ter take a fit 
 till he got me ter talkin bout craps an gyardin truck, 
 turnips, an inguns, an sech, ez I don t keer nuthin bout. 
 I hain t hearn nuthin bout the returns o the lection n 
 nuthin . What air they sayin bout n me in the Settlemint, 
 Andy?" 
 
 The young man was about to respond, when Marcella 
 precipitately forestalled him : 
 
 " They don t say nuthin nor do nuthin in this Settle- 
 mint. Brumsaidge air the lonesomest place in these hyar 
 mountings. Sech kerryin s-on they hev, though, in Pio- 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 225 
 
 mingo Cove ! An t other night they hed a dancin -party 
 over on Chilhowee." 
 
 " Whar bouts ? " cried Andy Longwood, with a poignant 
 note of surprise, deprivation, and despair. " I never hearn 
 nuthin bout ii it. I dunno why they never invited me," 
 he added, with surly resentment. As he gazed up at her, 
 he could not interpret the glance of scorn and reproach that 
 she cast upon him. Then she did not lift her eyes again, 
 but busied herself in her spinning, while Eli Strobe, catch 
 ing at the subject, logically descanted upon the sin of dan 
 cing, and described with a fervid imagination the experi 
 ences which its votaries would encounter in the next world 
 as retribution. The " frequent visitor " hardly listened, so 
 mystified was he by the taunt of Marcella s glance and the 
 news of the airy pleasuring on Chilhowee, in his own neigh 
 borhood, in which he had been, for some unimagined reason, 
 debarred from participating. If it were not so inexplicable, 
 he might have believed that she had invented the circum 
 stance, and relied upon his tact to confirm her statement, 
 and thus set Eli Strobe off on a theological hobby. He 
 wondered, hearing vaguely of fiery furnaces and furious 
 brimstone, if the doctor considered this a pleasing and 
 wholesome subject of contemplation. It might have lasted 
 longer if the polemic had had a stronger opposition. Mar- 
 cella sought to furnish this, but paternal tenderness rendered 
 her effort of no avail. 
 
 44 Of course I ain t talkin bout ye dancin at the party 
 las Christmas, Marcelly. Did ye think I meant that fur 
 you-uns ? That war wunst in a while, a leetle dancin 
 an fun, jes wunst in a while." 
 
 For there are exceptions to every zealot s cherished 
 theory of damnation, and the imminent terrors of hell must 
 be abrogated in favor of one s own. 
 
 And thus the discourse came to an end. " Andy," he 
 said, breaking off abruptly, " hev ye hearn ennybody in the 
 Cove low ez I war ter blame ? " 
 
226 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 Once more Marcella looked at her youthful lover, her 
 eyes dilated, pleading. He began to understand that there 
 was more here than appeared upon the suri ace, and he 
 wished that he had been guided by her monitions and had 
 taken his leave. He gazed at her earnestly, desirous of say 
 ing what she wanted him to say ; but he could read naught 
 in her eyes save her remonstrance, fear, and reproach. 
 And yet he must answer. 
 
 " I hev hearn some," he faltered, dolorously truthful. 
 
 " Waal, they hain t got no right ter blame me," retorted 
 Eli Strobe. His color had risen ; his eyes flashed. " I 11 
 be bound, though, cowardly curs ! they don t dare ter 
 do nuthin but talk ; they ain t got the grit ter try ter set 
 the law outer me ! They jes set round at the store an 
 the forge, an bob thar hats tergether, an whisper, an talk, 
 an talk." He grimaced with a mimicry of secrecy and 
 malice, and bobbed his own head with an alacrity that made 
 the young fellow wince, remembering the reports of how vari 
 ously his skull was fractured, and seeing the way in which 
 it was presumably bound together. 
 
 Marcella was spinning again with feverish industry ; the 
 wheel whirled fast, so fast, and its whir was continuous 
 ?& I loud. 
 
 * Naw, sir ; they don t dare call me ter account ter the 
 law fur killin Teck Jepson. Naw, sir ! " Eli Strobe 
 reiterated, with a deep, rotund voice. Suddenly, with an 
 incidental manner and a clear, casual glance, " Whar did 
 they bury him, Andy ? " 
 
 The young man sat mute and dumfounded. The blood 
 rushed violently to his head, and the landscape reeled be 
 fore him. He had scant time to realize the emergency, as 
 the recognition of the state of affairs dawned upon his be 
 wildered intelligence, and to canvass within himself what 
 answer he had best make. 
 
 " I dunno," he faltered. " I be so constant over ter 
 Chilhowee," he added, gathering his faculties. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 227 
 
 " Ain t ye never hearn, though, Tvhar they buried him ? " 
 Eli persisted, with growing pertinacity. " I did n t low ez 
 twar you-uns ez preached the fun ral sermon," with an 
 angry sneer and his side-glance of bovine surliness. 
 
 " Why," said Marcella. with a matter-of-course manner, 
 " I 11 tell ye : they buried him up yander in that thar leetle 
 buryin -groun by his old cabin, whar his folkses graves be." 
 
 Her father fixed a keen, suspicious eye on her. 
 
 " Ye didn t know yestiddy," he commented severely. 
 
 Not even the crafty watchfulness of mania, not Andy 
 Longwood s sanity, could detect aught amiss or unnatural 
 in her tones and manner as she drew out her thread, and 
 once more set the wheel a-whiiling before she replied. 
 
 " Naw ; Clem Sanders t war ez told it ter me, when he 
 kem ter inquire arter ye, las night. I axed him." 
 
 Andy Longwood understood now that the family sys 
 tematically agreed with Eli Strobe and humored his strange 
 delusion, lest they might excite him to his detriment, and 
 that these were the directions of the physician. He did 
 not fail to note that it was with his rival s name that she 
 sought to aid her forlorn enterprise, and that she no longer 
 turned to him for help. " I reckon Clem an nobody else 
 would hev been sech a fool ez me," he angrily reproached 
 himself. He was eager enough to go now, but his liberty 
 had fled. The invalid had fixed earnest eyes upon him, 
 and showed a continuous desire to talk ; he could only sit 
 and listen, with the cruel consciousness of how every dis 
 traught word grated upon the tender heart of Marcella. 
 He realized now how she had sought to shield from notice 
 the calamity of her father s loss of mind, and how he had 
 thwarted her. 
 
 "Waal waal! buried him thar, did they? Teck s 
 gone ! A shade a symptom of remorse crossed his 
 face. " He s in the grave whar he tried ter put me. Mighty 
 narrer place, folks, mighty narrer, fur ennybody ez hev lived 
 in the woiT an got used ter seem the sky." He drew a 
 
228 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 long sigh, and mournfully shook his head. " An he war a 
 good man in the main Look-a-hyar, Marcelly," he broke 
 off abruptly, her half -repressed sob catching his attention, 
 " what ye cryin fur ? It s whar he tried ter put me ! An 
 ye see, Andy, they can t do nuthin ter me, kase I war a 
 off cer o the law in the discharge o my jewty. I war obli 
 gated ter arrest Teck, an I pulled him out n his saddle an 
 bruk his neck. Ye don t b lieve it, Marcelly ? " He looked 
 at her with a flashing, challenging eye, the red and angry 
 blood rushing suddenly over his pale face. " Ye said ye 
 did n t, yestiddy." 
 
 " Waal, that war yestiddy," the girl urged soothingly. 
 
 " Ye see, Andy, ef Teck hed killed me whenst he rid me 
 down, t would be murder, kase I war off cer o the law, ar- 
 restin him whilst gamblin . Hoss-racin on a public road 
 air gamblin , though ye might n t think it, Andy. Ye young 
 folks air so sodden in sin ye dunno right from wrong. Bur 
 ied him up yander on the mounting-side, mongst his folkses 
 graves. Waal waal ! They need n t try ter hold me 
 sponsible, kase they can t. Hev ye hearn ennythin "bout 
 his harnt bein viewed, an sech ? Fraish-buried folks walk 
 sometimes, they say ; leastwise till they git used ter bein 
 under the groun , or wharever they hev gone ter. But I hev 
 never hearn tell o none o them ez hev been dead a corn- 
 sider ble time gittin a-goin , none o the old folks, dead 
 fifty year ago an better, an none o them Injuns now out n 
 that thar Injun buryin -groun way up on Sing-Song Creek. 
 Whoever see a Injun harnt ? Shucks ! t would make me 
 laff. I reckon them folks hed no souls, ef the truth war 
 knowed. Ye ever see a Injun harnt ? " 
 
 " Naw, sir," replied Andy. " Them Injuns over ter 
 Quallatown air plenty dead enough fur me ! " He laughed 
 constrainedly as he made the admission, for the sight of Kli 
 Strobe, lean, and pale, and grizzly, with his overgrown 
 beard, and his tangled hair, and bandaged head, was not 
 reassuring, as he sat and discussed his ghastly subject. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDCE COVE. 229 
 
 " I jes study bout Teck Jepson all the time. I kin jes 
 see how he looked whenst I got him down on the road un 
 der his horse s hoofs. He bled a heap." He said this with 
 a certain relish. Then he looked curiously at a dark stain 
 on his coat-sleeve, and was silent for a moment. " I wisht 
 I knowed what he said whenst he got ter Torment." He 
 winked feebly at Longwood, unnoticing that the young man 
 winced. " I wisht I knowed ef he walks." 
 
 It was waxing close upon noon. The shadows had gradu 
 ally dwindled. The world was so still. The sunshine lay 
 on the splendid slopes in languorous reverie. Here and 
 there some winged thing whisked about in the fine soft ra 
 diance, miraculously escaping the frost, or gallantly with 
 standing it, like certain human antiques, prolonging the 
 sentiment and fervor of a summertide, albeit they cannot 
 stay it. 
 
 Marcella s attention pensively followed the airy zigzags 
 of those unconquered wings ; the little wheel was still ; her 
 hands had fallen passive at last in her lap. Andy was once 
 more meditating departure. He straightened out his limbs 
 as he sat, and he lifted his head and looked about him. The 
 next moment he glanced up at Marcella with an expression 
 of startled, anxious inquiry. Her eyes were already riveted 
 upon the turn-row, where amidst the pallid corn Teck Jep 
 son was slowly coming toward the house. 
 
XIII. 
 
 IT was one of those moments charged with the realization 
 of a weighty emergency, when the mind shrinks from the 
 responsibility of discriminating in the crisis, and would fain 
 leave the event to ensue unchecked. Marcella sat as still as 
 if she were merely a figure painted on the pale yellow back 
 ground of the sere mass of clambering vines that clung to 
 the porch on which the salient coloring of her dark blue 
 dress, the red kerchief about her throat, her brown floating 
 hair, her widely open brown eyes, the fresh flesh tints of 
 her face and hands, stood out with an effect delicate, yet in 
 tense. The little rough gray spinning-wheel at her knee 
 was distinctly marked, too, for its humble neutrality of tone 
 was aided by contrast, as well as the ashen brownish hue 
 of the old hound s head. Perhaps it was the expression of 
 her face, instinct with expectation, that arrested her father s 
 fluctuating attention. He looked at her, bewildered for a 
 moment ; then he turned slowly in his chair, and with his 
 deliberate sidelong glance sought to follow the direction of 
 her eyes. 
 
 He saw the approaching figure ; there could be no doubt 
 of that. The cornstalks, all bleached and partially stripped 
 of the wealth of blades that the summer s suns had drawn 
 out, like a conjurer s ribbon flaunting from nothingness, to 
 wave in the summer s winds, the residue, tattered and 
 mildewed, glittering here and there with the white rime, 
 came hardly to Jepson s breast. The broad shoulders of 
 his blue jeans coat showed above the growth ; his wide white 
 hat, set far back from his brow, disclosed his features, with 
 their distinctive chiseling. The peculiar pose of his head 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 231 
 
 and his erect carriage were so characteristic that he could 
 hardly be mistaken even at a distance. His eyes were 
 fixed upon the group, and he must have noted Eli Strobe 
 holding to the arms of his chair, his bandaged head bent for 
 ward, gazing open-mouthed, with quivering jaw and pallid, 
 stricken face. He certainly saw Marcella, and his step 
 slackened as he watched her suddenly rise and stand behind 
 her father, placing one finger on her lip. She lifted the 
 other hand at arm s-length, and with a frowning, impera 
 tive face she waved him back. He stood motionless for a 
 moment, hesitating and at a loss. Then he walked on slowly, 
 still toward the house. There was a dip in the ground just 
 in front of him, a marshy spot, and there the corn had 
 grown tall and rank ; so tall that the sere and half-stripped 
 stalks, left to stand stark and dead in the field till the spring 
 burnings and plowings-under should grant them sepulchre, 
 reached higher than Teck Jepson s head. Eli Strobe, tremu 
 lously intent, watched the great white hat disappear behind 
 these relics of the lush crop ; he waited motionless, his eyes 
 fixed upon the lower stalks where it should presently emerge. 
 Time went by, one minute, three, five, and still Jepson 
 did not reappear. Andy Longwood divined that he had 
 turned aside upon Marcella s signal, and had taken his way 
 along the furrows between the corn, out of sight, and so to 
 the verge of the field. But this was not the impression 
 made upon the distraught brain of the constable, as, his pa 
 tience wearying at last and his muscles failing, he sank back 
 into his chair. He looked craftily at the two young people, 
 to judge what effect the apparition for thus he deemed it 
 had had upon them ; if indeed it had appeared save to 
 his own eyes. In their uncertainty, dealing with the emer 
 gency at haphazard and as best they might, they unwittingly 
 fostered his delusion. Marcella was calmly spinning once 
 more, and Andy Longwood, taking his cue at last, idly whit 
 tled a stick. 
 
 For some time no word was spoken. Strobe, gasping for 
 
232 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 breath, ever and again looked fearfully over his shoulder to 
 where the languid autumnal sunshine lay still and vacant 
 upon the expanse of the pallid corn. Pilgrims were abroad 
 in the blue sky, and now and then a wild weird cry floated 
 down from migratory birds, sometimes unseen, and some 
 times visible only in the tiny converging lines bespeaking 
 the files of the wild geese, all a-journeying. When wings 
 not afar off, with a silken rustle and gleams of living light, 
 came cleaving the sunshine and dimpling the waters of the 
 shr.llows of the river, he showed a momentary interest to 
 see the wild ducks settle and rise again, as the crack of a 
 gun told that a death-charged missile had pierced their 
 ranks. He glanced mechanically after their. flight as with 
 clamorous cries they took to wing. And then he did not 
 forget to gaze once more upon the curtaining corn where 
 that significant figure had disappeared. A gray squirrel 
 scudded along the rail fence, then across the door-yard, with 
 a large hickory-nut in his mouth, and vanished up the bole 
 of the chestnut-tree, making small account of the old hound, 
 who simply growled in an undertone, his eyes bright and liq 
 uid and his ears pricked up. The wounded man s heavy- 
 lidded eyes followed with a twinkle the whisking squirrel. 
 " Ye ain t a-goin hongry this winter, air ye. bubby ? I 11 be 
 bound ye be a reg lar high liver, ef the truth war knowed." 
 Marcella took note of the easy, natural tone. She drew 
 a long sigh of relief. The tense, feverish spark had died 
 out of her eyes : they were pensively bright, as she fixed 
 them smilingly upon her father. She believed that her quick 
 resource had taken effect. He had seen Teck Jepsoii. 
 trimly, but she thought that at the distance he could not 
 have recognized him. and that she had averted the calamity 
 which the sudden entrance upon the scene of the man whom 
 he supposed dead would surely have precipitated. He might 
 have been shocked into a relapse of his ravings and his vio 
 lent mania, from which perhaps he would never have emerged 
 again. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 233 
 
 " An the doctor say, * Keep him quiet. " she muttered. 
 
 The sunshine, and the air, and the wonderful balsamic 
 freshness and buoyancy that seemed to pervade it, all had a 
 tonic effect on Eli Strobe. His color became more natural, 
 his eye was calmer, the blood in his veins seemed charged 
 with his own bold identity. He began to feel his cour 
 age. 
 
 " I ain t afeard o nuthin ," he remarked triumphantly, 
 suddenly pursuing aloud the tenor of his thoughts. His 
 daughter stopped and stared, crest-fallen, since he seemed 
 again incoherent. " I never war afeard o no livin man, 
 an I ain t a-goin* ter set out at my time o life ter git 
 skeered at harnts. I war a-tellin ye jes now bout mebbe 
 Teck Jepson s harnt mought set out ter walk. Ef he tuk 
 ter foolin round me, I d jes ax him, What kin ye do ? 
 What kin ye do ? He put both hands on his knees and 
 wagged his head from side to side, casting up that charac 
 teristic sidelong glance, as if thus defying and confronting 
 the supposed spectre. k< * Ye could n t do nuthin ter me 
 whilst live an hearty. An I ain t a-goin ter be afeard o 
 ye now ye air dead. Ef ye kern a-tromplin round hyar, I 11 
 arrest ye, I 11 sarve papers on ye. I m constable o 
 Brumsaidge yit I : 
 
 Once more he turned abruptly, and looked out over the 
 emptiness of the cornfield. Then he leaned back in his 
 chair, and this idea of serving papers on the " harnt " came 
 over him anew, and seemed to amuse him mightily. Now 
 and again he muttered, " I 11 sarve papers on ye," and chuck 
 led slyly to himself. " I 11 sarve papers on ye, till ye 11 be 
 glad ter stay in yer grave, writ proof." 
 
 " This hyar Jepson," he spoke aloud, leaning forward 
 with his elbows on his knees, and assuming that sly, confi 
 dential air characteristic of the rustic gossip, as he looked 
 from one to the other of the young people. " he tried 
 powerful hard ter make up ter me in his last days, though 
 I know he never used ter like me much, kase I war cousin 
 
234 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 ter M ria White, ez married Ben Bowles, an put her up ter 
 gittin a powerful good trade out n Teck whenst he went 
 ter live with them, an ginerally kase I war kin ter M ria. 
 An I 11 low myse f M ria air a pritty stiff one ter stan . 
 Some folks useter think mebbe I mought marry M ria myse f, 
 me bein a widower ; but I say, Naw, sir ! I ain t a-goin 
 tor hev my pleasure at the jedgmint day plumb destroyed 
 by hevin ter go ter heaven with two wimmen a-clawin an 
 tearin each other s hair an golden harps bout which one 
 owned me ! Thanky ! One wife s enough. Mought be said 
 ter be a plenty. " He laughed with his heavy bass rumble. 
 " But I want ter tell ye bout Teck," he went on, lapsing 
 into his tone of urgent mystery. " Oh, I tell ye, in his las 
 days he made up ter me, Teck could be ez smooth an 
 slick ez a bullet when he wanted ter ; an what fur, do ye 
 reckon ? Why, fur Marcelly. He war bound ter find favior 
 in her eyes, so, knowin she set a heap o store by her dad s 
 opinion, he ondertook ter git mighty friendly with Me ! " 
 
 He was addressing himself now to Andy Long-wood, 
 whose expression had changed from pity and embarrassed 
 anxiety to keen and alert interest. The young fellow s face 
 was flushed ; he had drawn himself into a tense listening 
 position as he sat on the step ; as he turned his head eagerly 
 upward, his light, curling hair fell down longer still upon 
 his broad shoulders beneath the wide brim of his hat, set far 
 back. He had the greater interest in what was to come be 
 cause he began to realize that Eli Strobe was perfectly sane 
 except in regard to the circumstances surrounding the dis 
 aster, his delusion concerning Teck Jepson s death and 
 the manner of it. He simply was the victim of what is 
 known as a " fixed idea." On other topics his mind seemed 
 even more alert and lucid than formerly, possibly because 
 of that freshened interest in life characteristic of the invalid 
 returning to the world after an interval of seclusion. He 
 was more talkative than was his wont, and in relaxing his 
 reserve he had lost that very glutinous quality, his policy, 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 235 
 
 which usually serves to hold together what men really think, 
 and prevent it from melting into speech, which is often the 
 reverse of what men think. 
 
 " An I did n t know what in the name o Aberham ter 
 do ! " continued Eli Strobe, with uncharacteristic communi 
 cativeness. " Me runnin fur election, an this hyar man 
 a-courtin round Marcelly. An he hed hearn mam acci 
 dentally low ez Marcelly despised him, so I hed ter be 
 powerful keerful, kase I did n t want him ter vote agin me 
 fur constable. That war the main pint. Young folks kin 
 git married or stay single, whichever seems the foolishest 
 ter em ; that s what they always do, the foolishest. But 
 ye can t git lected ter office by jes wantin ter. Ef ye 
 ain t lected constable, ye can t be constable. But ef ye can t 
 git one gal, ye air mighty apt ter git another ; they ain t 
 all o one mind. An I did n t want the young folks s fool 
 ishness bout fallin in love ter oust me out n my office. 
 Kase Teck Jepson air mighty robustious, an ef he hed tuk 
 a nation ter work agin me in the election he d hev done it 
 with a will. So when he d say suthin bout Marcelly, I d 
 say, Thar s plenty o time fur me ter choose a son-in-law, 
 Teck, an I mus say candidates fur that office abound in 
 this kentry. " He stopped to laugh, then went on gravely : 
 " The outlook fur sons-in-law is promisin . I ain t liable 
 ter be destitute ; but I be goin ter take my time bout git- 
 tin a son-in-law. So Teck jes didn t know whether I 
 favored him or no, but war n t made mad ; though I knowed 
 all the time ez Marcelly war a-goin ter marry Clem San 
 ders, ain t ye, Marcelly ? " 
 
 Andy Longwood caught his breath, as he looked up at 
 her. There was a touch of coquetry in the glance of her 
 eye and her mounting color, as she nodded a careless acqui 
 escence. She would not contradict the invalid, and per 
 chance she relished the tumult of indignation that flared, 
 upon her gesture of affirmation, in Andy Longwood s face ; 
 for nothing concerning her old playfellow seemed a serious 
 
236 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 matter to her. The next moment she was smiling down at 
 him, ready to signal a negative to him, but he had turned 
 his head resolutely away. 
 
 " Sometimes," pursued the politician, " I d say ter Teck, 
 whenst he talked bout Marcelly, I d say, I m obligated 
 ter hev a mighty smart man fur my son-in-law, kase I hev 
 got a darter e/ hev n t got her ekal fur looks an goodness 
 outside o the courts o heaven. Kin ye read ? An he d 
 say, mighty oneasy, * Naw ; what do I want ter read fur ? 
 An then I d say, Kin ye even spell ? Clem Sanders kin. 
 An he d say, Naw, powerful glum, I tell ye. Then he d 
 be perlite fur true fur a while, a good while. When, 
 Andy, I 11 tell ye, twixt ye an me an the gate-post, sech 
 spellin ez Clem Sanders kin do oughter be agin the law ! 
 It air agin every law o spellin . Clem oughter be hung a 
 leetle fur each offense. It jes fixes him in his criminal 
 conduct agin the alphabet. Oh, ho ! But Teck never 
 knowed no better. He lowed I wanted a school-lamed 
 son-in-law, an Clem war that lamed man. Heigh ho ! I 
 reckon I ought n t ter hev made him so mis able in his las 
 days. But I couldn t abide ter git cut out n my office 
 kase all the young idjits in the kentry war insane bout 
 Marcelly." 
 
 He leaned back in his chair once more, desisting at last, 
 for there had begun to be an unmistakable prospect of los 
 ing his audience. Andy Longwood, who had wished to go 
 earlier, but had found his will not adequate to the emer 
 gency, remaining helplessly embarrassed by the awkwardness 
 of the situation which left him an unwelcome witness of the 
 manifestation of Eli Strobe s mania, now felt the energy 
 of his own grievances imparted to his volition by the dis 
 closures which had chanced to be made. He was once more 
 self-absorbed, self-centred. He hardly noticed the wounded 
 man, or that he rose so precipitately upon the conclusion of 
 the last sentence that it savored of the rudeness of inter 
 ruption and disrespect to his elders. He could go now, 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 237 
 
 easily enough, willingly. His face, as he stood, younger 
 far than his muscles, callow of expression considering his 
 height, belying his claim to the authority and respect that he 
 arrogated as a full-grown man, was flushed, and wore that 
 petulant importance of adolescence that falls far short of the 
 dignity for which it strives. Marcella knew well the puerile 
 heroics and reproaches that would have come from him had 
 they been alone ; and so much his senior was the girl, four 
 years his junior, that she was wont to slyly laugh at him, to 
 maternally humor his view of his own importance, and to 
 feel very kindly toward him, for they had always been to 
 gether, and he had been a merry and good-tempered play 
 mate in the old days. He had not yet ceased to be amus 
 ing, save, poor fellow, to himself. 
 
 "I mus be a-goin , he observed, not lifting his eyes, 
 and articulating indistinctly, for he only slightly moved his 
 lips. She had often seen him in this mood, and ten years 
 ago these manifestations, so familiar to her, would have 
 preceded a wild burst of tears and a stamping of small 
 brogans in rage. She remembered him well in this guise 
 of youthful grief. Such seizures had passed from his recol 
 lection as if they had never been. He could not have pic 
 tured himself at any period so removed from that idea of 
 dignified and important identity which he fancied was him 
 self. 
 
 " We air goin ter dish up dinner, Andy," she observed, 
 alluringly. u Some o the late corn ain t plumb hardened 
 yit, an we air goin ter hev corn-puddin . Them guinea 
 hens ye gin me lays aigs enough fur ennythin . Ye better 
 stay." 
 
 Few people in this world have the opportunity of behold 
 ing a fairer, more gracious face than that which she turned, 
 as she bent over her wheel, and looked at him, her eyes 
 shining and sweet, her lips smiling, showing the glittering 
 line of her teeth. 
 
 But he kept his eyes averted. 
 
238 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 " I don t want no dinner," he declared. 
 
 " Got above eatin , hev ye ? " remarked Eli Strobe, whose 
 affinities were essentially those of maturity, and who had 
 scant sympathy with the callow stage of manhood. He 
 entertained a robust contempt for its assertions and its con 
 fidence in some bigger and better future, likely to wait upon 
 its superior capacities, than other men had attained. " Ye 11 
 git ter heaven quicker n ye think fur, ef ye jes hold out 
 an foller that fashion ez a constancy." 
 
 Andy lifted his eyes slightly now, with an expression of 
 surly indignation, but mindful of his own position he said 
 merely, " I ain t hongry." He lingered a moment still, be 
 cause the mountaineers do naught precipitately ; then with 
 a deliberate " Waal, good-by," he started away. 
 
 "Andy! " cried Marcella, her voice indeed as s\ve3t as 
 the mocking-bird s. He turned, gloomily unappeased, stiffly 
 obeying her behest to accord attention. He leaned upon 
 his long rifle, as he stood in the path and looked back. She 
 had risen, and had come to the verge of the porch; one 
 hand was on the post, the other was held out to him. She 
 was smiling still, and tears would have impressed him as 
 more appropriate, smiling easily and naturally, with a 
 touch of jesting, ridiculing remonstrance in her manner. 
 " I f urgot. I want ter ax ye ter do me a favior but 
 but ye look so mad I be mos afeard. Air ye mad ? " 
 
 So mad f And this was the way she interpreted his 
 heartbreak. 
 
 He looked with stern reproach at her, although he spoke 
 in a gentle tone : 
 
 " Mad ? What hev I got to be mad bout, Marcelly ? " 
 
 " Nuthin ," she began. 
 
 " That don t hender, Andy," interrupted Eli Strobe, un 
 able to refrain from taking a hand in the little game. " The 
 maddest folks air always them ez hev got no call ter git 
 mad." 
 
 " I war feard ye mougJii mebbe be mad with me," said 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 239 
 
 Marcella, still provokingly smiling, and stepping clown from 
 the porch and slowly approaching him. 
 
 The sunshine was on her bare head. The rich chestnut- 
 brown of her hair showed such lustre and depth of color 
 in the broad light, such gloss and fineness. And how it 
 waved and curled as it fell down 011 her shoulders, with 
 an electrical isolation of filaments toward the ends, where 
 they seemed to lose the expression of color, and gave only 
 cloudy, indefinite effects that left no opportunity for strong, 
 crude lines about her head. Her fair skin was fairer still 
 in the radiance. Her eyes were dazzled ; she held one 
 hand above them, and their expression, as she looked at 
 him from the shadow, might have mollified aught less 
 wrapped in self than this very young man. To him it all 
 meant that Marcella knew that she had given cause for 
 offense, and was wishing to make it up by laughing him out 
 of his just indignation ; for a half laugh curved her lips, 
 and brought out a dimple in her cheek, to fluctuate there 
 with her effort to ridicule him. She came silently, looking 
 tall and slight, fit to be swayed even by a gentle wind, and 
 stood beside him in the narrow path ; glancing at him for a 
 moment, then turning and gazing casually from under her 
 hand, that still shielded her smiling eyes, now at one and 
 then another of the great ranges, shimmering azure through 
 the sun, save when a white cloud in the sky set a dimly 
 purple image of itself a-scudding as impalpably over the 
 mountains. He was impelled to speak first. He did so in 
 a tone of grave and measured constraint, as one who will 
 not resent, though feeling offense. 
 
 " What favior did ye wanter ax me, Marcelly ? " 
 
 Her eyes rested still longer on the mountains ; then she 
 fixed them on his face, altogether unmoved by his grave 
 tone, except, perchance, to laughter. She took hold of the 
 barrel of his rifle with her left hand. 
 
 I want ye ter loan me this rifle o yourn, Andy. I want 
 ter shoot a old hawk ez hev been a-flusterin round the hens 
 an chickens lately." 
 
240 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 He stood, blankly astonished, for a moment. 
 
 " Why n t ye borry yer dad s ? " he demanded, in surly 
 suspicion of her motives. 
 
 Once more she turned her shaded eyes upon the moun 
 tains. 
 
 " Oh, kase," she said, altogether unembarrassed by the 
 expression of stern and serious inquiry in his eyes, " ye gin 
 me mos o the chickens I hev got, an mebbe it mouglit be 
 good luck ef I war ter shoot the hawk with yer own gun." 
 
 This seemed to him perfectly reasonable, but his distrust 
 of her was so great at the moment that he subjected the 
 possibility of occult motives to a searching mental scrutiny. 
 He failed to evolve anything more plausible, or indeed any 
 thing beyond what she had said. He looked at her hard 
 for a moment, still bitterly resenting her undimmed bright 
 ness under his displeasure, and he secretly thought she had 
 ill chosen her time to ask of him a favor. Still maintaining 
 his gravely offended aspect, he said, " Ye kin hev it, Mar- 
 celly, ez long ez ye want it." He released his hold upon it, 
 leaving it in her hand, and went his way without another 
 word. At the gate he did not look back, but pursued the 
 turn-row until he was half through the field. Under some 
 impulse then which he did not seek to discriminate, he 
 glanced over his shoulder. 
 
 Marcella was standing in the path where he had left her, 
 still gazing after him. She held the long rifle in one hand, 
 leaning her soft cheek against its surly ramrod at one side of 
 the barrel, her hair touching it. She smiled radiantly at 
 him through the sunshine, and called out with joyous sweet 
 ness, "Good-by, Andy." 
 
 If he said aught in response, she did not hear it. Her 
 charming smile, intent on mollification, failed of effect ; it 
 was too much, however, to expect even of feminine tact that 
 she should appreciate that frowns might have served better, 
 or null seriousness, inexpressive and impenetrable. The 
 flash of light from her eyes set a-flaring his intelligence, 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 241 
 
 a sufficiently good endowment, but lacking those traits of 
 divination and imagination characteristic of more finely fur 
 nished brains. Without its impetus he could never have 
 experienced an abrupt illumination concerning Marcella s 
 motive, which opened before him by the time he had pon- 
 deringly approached the verge of the cornfield. Its con 
 templation almost took his breath away. He stood mo 
 tionless, staring vaguely before him, realizing why she had 
 wanted his rifle, how strange that he had not instantly 
 known ! Had he so soon forgotten his idle threats ? He 
 had a vivid mental picture of himself as he must have 
 looked as he stood on the porch this morning, significantly 
 tapping the trigger of the loaded rifle. She had not thought 
 those threats idle ! His foolish courage flared up to match 
 the estimation in which he thought she held him. She 
 knew him for a dangerous man ! and the blood pulsed fast 
 through his veins as this flattering idea impelled it. She 
 was afraid he would indeed wreak woe upon the man whom 
 she was to marry. Her father had said that she was to 
 marry Clem Sanders, and she had not denied it. He had 
 unconsciously disbelieved this at the time, as one cannot at 
 first realize a misfortune, which stuns the finer sensibilities 
 by the weight of its fall. Only now he was beginning to 
 appreciate what her loss meant to him ; it almost unmanned 
 him for a moment, thinking as he did that it was her solici 
 tude for the safety of her lover that devised the clever ruse 
 to win his rival s rifle. 
 
 " Feard I d hurt Clem," he said with a sneer, despite 
 his quivering lip. Perhaps it was the idea that violence 
 was expected of him, which her precautions first suggested 
 to him, for the bravado and bloody-mindediiess of his 
 conversation had been utterly without intention, that de 
 termined him upon his course. 
 
 " Naw, naw, Marcelly," he said, half aloud and mourn 
 fully shaking his head, " ef not me nobody." He leaned 
 down as he spoke, and drew from his boot-leg a glittering 
 
242 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 steely flash ; he looked around with a quick, apprehensive 
 glance ; but the sere stalks of the corn, which were strag 
 gling here, so near the end of the field, would nevertheless 
 serve to shield him from the observation of any one in the 
 yard or the porch of the cabin. He examined the knife 
 with fierce eyes, his teeth set hard together : the handle was 
 strong, the metal excellently well tempered. He passed his 
 fingers gingerly along the edge, keen, how keen! Clem 
 Sanders himself had sharpened it! He sheathed it and 
 thrust it back into his long boot-leg, and went on taking his 
 way down the road toward the forge, nerved by the fact 
 that bloodshed was expected of him. 
 
 A drought had succeeded the wet weather, and the deep 
 ruts. formed by the wagon wheels in the red clay mire of 
 the road were still stiff and hard, mementos of their slow, 
 creaking progress ; and although here and there a thin crust 
 crumbled under his heel, his steps left no other trace. He 
 heard a thrush whistle from the weeds as he went. He looked 
 up at the spaces of the broad blue sky, infinite elsewhere, 
 but here with bounds and barriers, for the mountains limited 
 it and made it local. He was vaguely conscious that his 
 dog, with an affectation of loyalty to his true owner, as one 
 might seek to cultivate a fine trait to wear as a graceful 
 accomplishment, knowing it to be exotic to the soil, trotted 
 at his heels, with a long, lithe stride and a sinuously moving 
 body, a wagging tail and a nose that pretended to snuff the 
 ground, as if solicitous for some trail of fox, or rabbit, or 
 other gentry. His master was presently made aware of his 
 defection by seeing the canine shadow, cast a little in ad 
 vance, suddenly swerve aside, and with a deft pace and a 
 drooping tail the hound set out swiftly for his adopted 
 home. 
 
 " The very dog hev gin me up," his master muttered bit 
 terly. Sorrow at his age is not all bitterness ; it had an 
 element of satisfaction to be so very adequate to his suffer 
 ings and his wrongs. He mechanically turned his head to 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 243 
 
 glance after the creature, who had paused, gazing back 
 with regret, rent with inward dissension, his poor dog-con 
 science struggling between his sense of duty and preference. 
 Ho looked a trifle handsomer than his wont, with the ani 
 mation of his emotion expressed in his slender, alert head 
 and his bright eyes. Then, with a sudden sharp yelp that 
 seemed to cadence the pang of decision, he betook himself 
 swiftly away from temptation, resolved to persevere in 
 desertion, and was soon lost to view as the turn-row swal 
 lowed him amongst the corn. The next moment Andy had 
 forgotten that he existed. The music of the forge was on 
 the air, the clinking of the hand-hammer and the clanking 
 of the sledge. How the distant sound assimilated with the 
 mountain voices, as the echoes came lilting forth to meet it ! 
 The ear might hardly distinguish the repetitions of the rock 
 from the vibrations of the metal. Presently he could hear 
 the anvil sing, and then the strokes seemed only marking 
 the rhythm of this fine, tremulous, high-pitched monody. 
 Clem Sanders was there at his work, all unsuspicious of the 
 fate coining with long strides down the road. What strange, 
 untimely thought was this ! The muscles below Longwood s 
 knee were suddenly sensitive to the pressure of the knife in 
 his boot, and he was reminded of a grisly old story of a 
 cruel man whose hand was palsied on his weapon in the 
 moment when he would have taken a fellow-man s life. An 
 old woman s story this, told in the dusk at the fireside, to 
 sap away with mystery and weird lights and artful words 
 a man s courage when he should resent his wrongs like a 
 man ; for were they not all afraid of bloodshed, these 
 women, and cowards to their heart s core ? He was drag 
 ging his left leg, for all his logic and his scorn of a pusil 
 lanimous peace. How the anvil sang, how it sang ! And 
 why need he wonder would it be silent to-morrow, would 
 it ever again give forth that sonorous melody under the 
 hand of the man who now wielded the hammer ? Who 
 talks of to-morrow ? Poor fool, let him mind to-day. Was 
 
244 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 the knife turning around in his boot? Every fibre of the 
 limb was oppressed with its significant presence. His cour 
 age, however, did not wait upon his nerves ; he saw alto 
 gether unmoved that half a dozen idle men were standing 
 about the door of the forge, or loitering within. His pace 
 had grown slower since that fancy about the knife had 
 taken hold upon him, but as he made his way up the slight 
 ascent to the door of the forge he stooped down and boldly 
 drew out the weapon ; a man in the doorway fixed a med 
 itative eye upon him, thinking, doubtless, he had only 
 brought the blade to have an edge put on it. Longwood 
 could see through the dusky little place, for the window at 
 the rear was open, and he marveled to find his senses so 
 alert. In such a moment he thought it strange to recog 
 nize Teck Jepson, leaning against the wall, his face white 
 since the summer sunburn had worn away, and thoughtful, 
 and with imperative lines even in silent reverie ; his hands 
 were thrust in his leather belt, his eyes were fixed on the 
 leafless autumn woods. Nay, Longwood took note even of 
 the bare brambles of the wild rose outside of the window, 
 its profuse pods glowing scarlet amongst the gray rocks and 
 the brown moss, and the fine-webbed witchery of the hoar 
 frost lying on the sere lea.ves in the shadow. 
 
 Clem Sanders s massive figure was the focus of the 
 group, with his leather apron girded about him, his sleeves 
 rolled back from his muscular arms, the light of the fire 
 a steady red glow, for the bellows was idle upon his 
 square, good-humored face, which* was refined by that look 
 of earnest attention and grave content characteristic of the 
 good workman at his chosen task. One hand held with the 
 tongs the metal upon the anvil ; the other wielded the hand- 
 hammer with deft precision, and the sledge came crashing 
 down, as Jube, the parson s son, grasped it with both hands. 
 The brown shadows clustered about them, and the figure of 
 the striker with the sledge was only dimly suggested in the 
 rich depths of the picture. Each detail grew more distinct 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 245 
 
 as the young man advanced ; the apartment gradually 
 seemed lighter than it did at a distance, seen through the 
 brilliant crisp air, and with the contrast of the sunshine 
 and the high color of the autumnal world without. As the 
 cinders, which were mingled with the earth, at the door, 
 began to grate beneath his feet, he wondered that none of 
 those within took note of his deadly intention ; that the 
 smith should stand undefended, unwarned, for Clem s un- 
 noting head was bent over his work, and the yellow sparks 
 flew from the red-hot iron as the hammer and the sledge 
 alternately fell. Longwood did not realize how much the 
 habitual imperturbable aspect characteristic of the moun 
 taineer cloaked his agitation and his design. Even when 
 he strode into the place, his drawn knife in his hand, call 
 ing out, " Clem Sanders, stand up ter fight ! I be a-goin 
 ter kill ye ! " the idler in the doorway, chewing his quid of 
 tobacco, merely shifted his eyes again to the new-comer, 
 and an elongation in the stiff wrinkles about his mouth 
 betokened preparation to smile. Teck Jepson withdrew 
 slowly his attention from the forest wilds without, and the 
 smith responded cheerily, his head still bent over the anvil, 
 " Kill away ! " while the painstaking blows of the forging 
 alternated with the precision of machinery and the sparks 
 flew. 
 
 Longwood hesitated for a moment ; then, with a swift 
 fear that his resolution might fail him, he rushed impetu 
 ously forward. The sharp knife in his hand struck the 
 blacksmith beneath the shoulder blade ; it was long and 
 keen enough to have pierced his heart. There was no fault 
 in the weapon, a good strong knife ; the hand had fal 
 tered, no sincere hatred had nerved it. The blade fell 
 clanking to the ground, as the blacksmith tapped the face 
 of the anvil as a signal that the blows of the sledge should 
 cease. He turned around slowly, his straight eyebrows 
 lifted. " What air ye doin of, Andy ? " he demanded. 
 
 " I stabbed ye. I wanter kill ye," Longwood muttered, 
 
246 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 doubtful of himself and bereft of his weapon, for Clem 
 Sanders had casually stooped and picked up the knife. 
 
 The movement had possibly caused the slight wound to 
 gape. 
 
 " Look-a-yander how Clem s a-bleedin ! " exclaimed Jube 
 Donnard, in the excited falsetto of a born sensationalist. 
 
 "Great Molly Har! " cried the smith, showing emotion 
 for the first time, " did he cut a hole in this hyar brand-new 
 shirt ? Mam hev jes done wove it, an she lowed ef these 
 hyar shirts did n t las me no longer n common, I d hev ter 
 git the trash cloth at the store, ready wove, or else marry 
 a wife ter do the weavin . Kase she lows it s through 
 gamesomeness, an not work, I git my clothes so tore up. 
 Look-a-hyar, Andy," he fixed a severe, threatening eye 
 on his assailant, " ye boys air gittin too rough in yer 
 playin , kemin an a-cutthi other folkses clothes. Mighty 
 pore fun." 
 
 He shook his head reprehensively, and turned excitedly 
 toward Jube who again cried out, " Look how Clem s 
 a-bleedin ! " 
 
 " I ain t a-keerin fur that ! " exclaimed the doughty 
 blacksmith. " It will stop bleedin d rectly. An my skin 
 will do its own repairin thout mam ter talk a bushel med- 
 jure bout the sadness o hevin ter patch. What I m tor 
 mented bout air this hyar tear in this new shirt. Air it 
 sizable much ? " 
 
 He crooked his neck dexterously and sought to look over 
 his shoulder to see the rent, but for all his muscle he could 
 not accomplish the feat. 
 
 " What air ye ondertakin ter stab folks fur, Andy Long- 
 wood ? " Teck Jepson had ceased to lean against the win 
 dow, and his tone was stern and inquisitorial. " What do 
 ye want ter kill Clem fur ? Do ye s pose I d hev stood by 
 an seen ye done sech ? " 
 
 The young fellow, aghast at what he had done, and still 
 more aghast at what he had sought to do, experienced a 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 247 
 
 sudden revulsion of feeling upon hearing Jepson s words ; 
 his fluctuating anger, that had failed to bear him through 
 his enterprise, flared up anew. His pride, too, was touched 
 that Clem had held his rage and the wound he had dealt as 
 so slight a thing, offering not even a blow in return ; he 
 was nettled that in no way could he impress a commensu 
 rate idea of the intention and the spirit that had animated 
 him, and he resented infinitely Jepson s tone, upbraiding 
 him as if he were a boy. The wish for adequate reprisal, 
 to deal him a blow that he would surely feel to the quick, 
 broke down what slight reserves his boyish nature had. 
 
 " Ye hev got the same reason ter want him dead ez me ! " 
 he cried out. " JMarcelly Strobe air a-goia ter marry him. 
 Her dad said so, an she did, too." 
 
 He had the satisfaction of seeing Teck Jepson palpably 
 recoil. He was all at once very pale. He did not look at 
 Clem Sanders, nor seem to see anything very definitely. 
 He gazed blankly into space, or perhaps into the vistas of 
 memory for corollary data to confirm this thing. His hand 
 was on the window-sill, and it trembled visibly. 
 
 Andy Longwood watched these symptoms of pain, each 
 pang of which he could well divine, with a sort of gloating 
 relish, and once or twice his quick breathing was so pro 
 nounced as to seem a snort of victory. 
 
 " Now ! Now ! " he said, nodding his head triumph 
 antly. 
 
 Clem Sanders had stood as one petrified, turning over 
 these significant words in his mind, with a rampant doubt 
 on his face. Suddenly he regained his faculty of motion 
 and his easy credulity. He tore off his leather apron, leav 
 ing the iron cooling on the anvil. As he plunged his dark 
 red head into the barrel of cold water, where he usually 
 tempered steel, his intention of making a toilet began to 
 be manifest to the idlers about the place. Their rallying 
 laughter and gibes gave Andy Longwood food for medita 
 tion anew. Evidently this was news to Clem, and the 
 others seemed to readily appreciate it. 
 
248 THE DESPOT OF BKOOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 * Take another souse, Clem, ef ye air goin a-visitirT," 
 observed the grinning Bassett ; ** then she can t tell how 
 red yer head be." 
 
 Clem stared at him credulously, and obediently thrust 
 again his red head into the water, in the midst of renewed 
 merriment. 
 
 Andy Longwood experienced a sudden terror, which 
 showed that his hope was not dead, as he had accounted it, 
 but merely comatose. 
 
 44 Don t tell her t war me ez stabbed ye, Clem," he 
 pleaded, every vestige of the desperado gone. " Don t tell 
 on me." 
 
 " G long, Andy ! " replied the good-natured fellow. " I 
 hev got suthin better n you-uns ter talk about." 
 
 He put on his coat, and strode briskly out of the forge 
 and up the hill. They could hear him whistling a long way. 
 Before he had reached Eli Strobe s cabin, however, the 
 blithe tones were checked. He in his turn heard music, 
 a vague, fitful lilting ; now striking out with some full, rich 
 tone, then trailing away to a meditative murmur, as if the 
 lips whence it issued were closed save for this dream of a 
 sound. He looked about for a moment, uncertain in the 
 silence ; and then the song came again, clear and serene, 
 and mellow as the day itself, seeming a part of the fine and 
 full culminations that the yellow sunshine, and the violet 
 haze, and the deeply blue sky, and the calm of the season 
 expressed. It was Marcella, singing like a dryad in the 
 woods, fragments and fitful impulses stirring the sylvan soli 
 tudes with sweet and vagrant accords, and making the echo 
 timorous to try so elusive a strain. 
 
XIV. 
 
 CLEM SANDERS turned aside into the woods, following 
 the sound. The sere leaves rustled under his feet ; the 
 vistas seemed to he clarified hy their pure, fine brown color ; 
 now and then a dash of the bolder red or yellow of the foli 
 age, still hanging on the trees, served at once to accent it 
 and as a contrast. The boles were dark, and stood out 
 distinctly, apparently innumerable. He did not see her ; he 
 waited, listening, but she sang no more, and he pressed for 
 ward without even this variant and uncertain guide. There 
 was much fallen timber here and there, victims of the late 
 storm, the leaves still clinging to their limbs ; sometimes a 
 sturdy neighbor had caught the smitten tree, and still stood, 
 upbearing the dead bulk, its own doom certain but slow in 
 the weight of its lifeless burden ; and here was one whose 
 fall had wrought at once complete devastation, the giant 
 of the forest hurled to the ground in a single blast, the roots 
 torn from the earth ; the topmost fibres of these clay-em 
 bedded roots were higher than the saplings hard by ; a deep 
 excavation showed where they had once been buried. Sud 
 denly a hound clambered out of this cavity, nosing about 
 with occasional wheezes, evidently bent on small game. 
 " I 11 be bound Andy Longwood did n t let ye run rabbits 
 whenst he owned ye," even the lenient blacksmith was 
 moved to observe, marking this lapse from the accepted 
 traditions of the etiquette of deerhounds. He welcomed 
 the sight of him, however, as the herald of Marcella, and 
 presently he saw her sitting quite still on the bole of a 
 fallen tree, her head bare, flecked with the sunshine as the 
 leaves stirred above her, one hand listlessly clasping the 
 
250 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 bough near by, and the other holding a bunch of herbs 
 which Mrs. Strobe had charged her to seek ; a basket of 
 eggs was at her feet. As she looked up and saw Clem coin 
 ing toward her, his heart sank, so serene, and casual, and 
 unmoved was her glance. He had not doubted his good 
 fortune since the first stupendous moment of its revelation, 
 but now he recognized the incongruity of her expression, 
 and its utter irreconcilability with his conclusion. He had 
 been prepared to be embarrassed, being to use his own 
 phrase " bashfuller n ennybody." But in all his experi 
 ence he had never known so awkward and unhappy an in 
 terval as when he paused beside her, after the succinct ex 
 change of salutation, " Howdy." 
 
 She looked calmly forward, and as he stood by the tree, 
 with one hand upon a branch that seemed to come out in 
 a neighborly way and give him something to lean upon, at 
 aU events, he gazed searchingly down at her, then blankly 
 at the sun-flecked woods, then once more bent his earnest 
 eyes upon her. 
 
 " Been a-huntin 1 aigs ? " was the scanty result of all this 
 cogitation, as he indicated the basket of eggs. 
 
 Marcella nodded assent. Then, after a silence she de 
 manded, " Enny objection ? " 
 
 Even Clem could not fail to observe the flash of laughter 
 in her eyes, but it did not serve to render him more com 
 fortable. 
 
 " Naw m, naw m," he said, with propitiating precipita 
 tion. 
 
 A long pause ensued. Marcella, despite her own deliber 
 ate methods of conversation, found these intervals of irksome 
 duration, and was moved to make a remark. 
 
 " I hev been huntin guinea-hens aigs. They hide em so 
 fur off, in sech out n-the-way places, but I fund a right smart 
 chance of em." She looked down with satisfaction into her 
 basket at the dull cream-colored trophies, captured from the 
 fowls, whose old vagrant instinct so long survives domestica- 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 251 
 
 tion. " I fund twelve in one nest. I hev got a whole passel 
 o guineas." 
 
 " Ybs-sum ! " said Clem, eagerly awaiting a pause that he 
 might interject this earnestly acquiescent formula. For all 
 his bashfulness, he scarcely withdrew his eyes from her face. 
 His manner, too, was sufficiently assured, but in every word 
 he manifested his reverent humility, and his timidity, and 
 his earnest repudiation of any sentiment or opinion, how 
 ever dear, that might not coincide with hers. He would 
 have found it hard, so beset was he by doubt and fear, to 
 put his fate to the test at any time. But to go through all 
 the decorous preliminaries of asking her hand and heart, 
 without disclosing that he had been prompted by the en 
 couragement which he had had from Andy Longwood s 
 report, was beginning to seem inconceivably hazardous to 
 a transparent soul, who had never hidden an emotion in 
 his life, or known a secret that he did not tell. He was 
 wrestling with the anxiety of the consciousness of her pref 
 erence and the necessity to make her suppose he knew 
 nothing of it, when she suddenly spoke again. The men 
 tion of the guinea-hens reminded her of their donor, and 
 of her ruse to take his weapon that he might do no harm. 
 " Hev ye seen Andy Longwood ter-day ? " she asked cas 
 ually, seeking to know how far she had been successful. 
 
 It seemed to him in the moment that she had opened a 
 way for him. " Yes-sum. That s why I kem hyar, 
 straight, straight ez I hearn it. I felt so happy, an yit 
 I war feard t war n t true. T war true, Marcelly ? T war 
 true, though ? " 
 
 She looked up at him, startled and amazed at his vehe 
 mence ; her eyes dilated, wonder in every eloquent trait. 
 " What s kem over ye, Clem Sanders ? Air what true ? " 
 she asked bluntly. 
 
 " Marcelly," he replied, his voice trembling, " don t git 
 mad at me, no matter what happens ; ye know I ain t school- 
 lamed like yer dad." This was merely a fortuitous stroke 
 
252 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 of policy, for his simple nature was not capable of attempt 
 ing genuine strategy. " I dunno ef ye hev furgot, but Andy 
 Longwood said ez ye lowed ter him ye war goin ter marry 
 me ; an the Lord knows I hev lived an breathed jes in 
 that hope, pears ter me, ever sence I war alive but " He 
 stopped precipitately. 
 
 Her face was scarlet ; her eyes flashed with a fire that 
 seemed to scorch him. 
 
 " Did ye b lieve that ? " she cried contemptuously. " Did 
 ye b lieve I d low sech ez that ? an I never did, ceptin 
 ter nod my head when dad said ez much, kase the doctor 
 lowed we must n t argufy an cross dad, an git him sot 
 catawampus in his temper. Did ye low I d say in earnest 
 I d marry a man ez never axed me ? " 
 
 For once in his life Clem spoke to her with eager and 
 decisive opposition. But even then it was prefaced with 
 his suave " Yes-sum." " But, shucks, Marcelly ! Talk 
 about axin ! Ye know I d hev axed enny day in the year 
 ez I war n t afeard ter. Ye air obleeged ter know t war 
 jes kase I war afeard ye d say no. I kep a-puttiri it off, 
 lowin mebbe suthin mought happen ter make ye think mo* 
 of me." 
 
 She was not appeased. " Waal," she observed calmly, 
 " I war n t in earnest. I never thunk about marryin ye. 
 An I won t." 
 
 " Yes-sum," said Clem, crestfallen. " But ye 11 never 
 git nobody, Marcelly, ez would try harder ter do jes like 
 ye wanted him ter. I would n t cross yer notions no way 
 ye could fix em. These other boys in the Cove, ef ye air 
 thinkin bout choosin one out n Brumsaidge " 
 
 " I don t choose folks. I lowed I hed tole ye that," she 
 responded, holding her head very high on her fine and deli 
 cate neck, and looking at him with her definite straight eye 
 brows frowningly meeting above her dark eyes, that seemed 
 to him unnaturally clear and brilliant. 
 
 " Yes-sum. But howsomdever these other boys air power- 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 253 
 
 ful set in thar way, an some o thar ways ain t pritty ones." 
 This as closely approached slander as the good Clem San 
 ders could compass. " They air toler ble good boys," he 
 felt constrained to qualify, "but they wouldn t be good fur 
 ye ter marry. I tell ye, now, Marcelly, ye mought find a 
 smarter man mos* enny whar, though not a better black 
 smith, but ye 11 never find nobody ez loves ye like I do, 
 an would take the pains ter please ye like I would, ef ye 
 war ter marry me." 
 
 " I hev got no sort n notion o doin jt, never bed," she 
 declared bluntly. 
 
 " Yes-sum," said Clem, infinitely cast down. 
 
 " I dunno ez I hev got ter marry enny o the boys in the 
 Cove. I dunno ez I hev got ter marry ennybody," she said 
 loftily. " Some folks don t." 
 
 " Yes-sum ; but did n t they always pear ter you-uns ter 
 be powerful lonesome ? " he suggested humbly. 
 
 This did not altogether fail to take effect. She pondered 
 silently for a time on this phase of a single life. Presently 
 she remarked : 
 
 " 1 would n t be no lonesomer snigle n I d be married ter 
 some folks." 
 
 He interpreted this as a thrust at his own lack of certain 
 congenial and companionable qualities which she esteemed 
 essential. 
 
 *" Yes-sum," he replied, more cut down still. 
 
 Perhaps she felt some pang of pity for his disappoint 
 ment ; perhaps she was not now so angry as at first, because 
 of his very natural mistake, and thought it the least brutal 
 method of disposing of his superfluous heart to argue the tin- 
 congeniality of his interests and pursuits. 
 
 " An air yer ways so powerful pritty, Clem ? " she de 
 manded. " Cornsiderin how close we neighbor the forge, 
 an hear the dancin , an the fiddlin , an the wrastlin , an 
 laffin ez goes on thar of a evenin , 1 never expected ter live 
 ter hear yer ways called pritty ones." 
 
254 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 " Yes-sum," said Clem. " But ef ye d marry me I d 
 stay home of a evenin , an that thar forge would be dark 
 an still enough I 11 be bound." 
 
 ; Waal, yer wii e, whoever she 11 be, won t want sech 
 fiddlin , an daiicin , an singin round her in her house of a 
 evenin ez ye hev been useter, Clem. I can t think o ye no 
 ways but ez cavortin , though ye air mighty peaceable 
 an quiet, an kin behave some similar ter a mouse whenst 
 ye kem visitin the gals." 
 
 " Yes-sum," said poor Clem. " But I don t visit no gals 
 but you-uns." 
 
 " Laws-a-massy ! An jes think how Is bel an granny 
 hev been gin over ter pride, bein ez they lowed ye kem 
 a-visitin them ! " There was a wicked gleam in her eye as 
 she sped this dart. " Naw, naw ! everybody knows the 
 name that thar forge hev got ! " 
 
 " Yes-sum." He hesitated for a moment ; then he said, 
 looking at her, his jaw growing square and determined, his 
 expression changing with this infusion of more mundane 
 matters into his thoughts, ki Thar ain t a-goin ter be enriy 
 mo o them queer midnight goin s-on at the forge, Marcelly, 
 arter this, ye mark my words." Then, as if he fancied 
 he had spoken too roughly, he hastened to say, apropos of 
 nothing, " Yes-sum," and cleared his throat. 
 
 Marcella sat feeling stunned for a moment. Could he 
 have known, in some inexplicable way, of the discovery that 
 she had made at the forge in the wild, stormy midnight ? 
 Was he indeed aware of the intrusion of Jake Baintree 
 and the stranger, who worked the bellows, and wielded the 
 hammer and sledge, and were frightened when interrupted, 
 and who came forth only to give aid for humanity s sake ? 
 She would not forget that they gave aid, whatever might 
 happen, she said to herself. 
 
 He did not interpret her expression aright ; he only saw 
 that she was at a loss. 
 
 " Hain t ye never hearn what happened at the forge arter 
 Pa son Donnard lowed he seen the devil thar ? " 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 255 
 
 "Naw," she said, fixing her eyes gravely on him. 
 
 Her interest in the subject emboldened him to sit beside 
 her on the log, but as he bent forward, leaning his elbows 
 on his knees and looking at her, he only saw her profile ; 
 for she listened silently, flattering him with her air of atten 
 tion, but did not turn her head. 
 
 " Waal, arter the pa son seen the devil thar I felt toler ble 
 tormented, an sorter kep a lookout on the forge ; an one 
 night, bout midnight " (Marcella s foot stirred uneasily 
 amongst the pine cones ; her face was a trifle paler than its 
 wont; her lips were slightly compressed), "I hearn the 
 hammer an the sledge arpoundin an the bellows a-roarin , 
 an fur all t war a moonlight night " 
 
 " Oh, moonlight ! " exclaimed Marcella with a note of 
 relief. 
 
 " Yes-sum, bright moonlight but I could see the forge 
 fire a-flarin through the chinkin . Waal, I dunno what got 
 inter me, but I felt obligated ter know ef that thar dead 
 Clem Sanders Ye hearn bout him, didn t ye, what 
 pa son purtended ter see ? " He spoke with acerbity and a 
 curling lip. 
 
 Marcella nodded. 
 
 " I wanted ter see ef he war thar agin, with the devil mebbe 
 a-strikin fur him. Waal, I war so darned clumsy an awk- 
 ard I fell down flop agin the window-shutter ; an I hev 
 got purty fur ter fall, an thar s a heap o me ter topple, an* 
 I like ter hev busted the side o the house down. An when 
 I got up thar war no light, nor sound, nor nuthin ; jes a 
 leetle mite o a live-coal on the ha th, an the anvil a-singin . 
 Waal, I lowed twar Satan, till Jube Donnard ye know, 
 the pa son s son, a darned tattler ! he went an tole it all 
 ter his dad. An ef ye 11 b lieve me, that thar godly old 
 man did go an prop hisself on the side o the mounting ter 
 git a view o Satan. wanted ter see him ! " 
 
 " The pa son ! " exclaimed Marcella, vaguely scandalized. 
 
 " Yes-sum, the pa son ! An I tole Jube I would never 
 
256 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 listen ter him preach no mo enny godly man ez hankered 
 ter view the devil agin, arter hevin viewed him wunst ! An 
 a-sldtterin out in the middle o the night, like he war one 
 o the boys, along with that thar caper-y Jube ! Sometimes 
 I feel like / be too pious myself tev sociate with the pa son s 
 son. An Jube up-ed an lowed ez he did n t keer whether 
 I went ter hell through neglectin means o grace an the 
 pa son s sermons or jes from active wickedness, an ez his 
 fambly hed no contrac . ez he knowed on, ter land me on 
 the golden shore ! Jube say him an his mam ain t the 
 pa son, an nuthin like it, an the congregation hain t got a 
 mortgage on nare hair o thar heads, though the pa son 
 lows ez his flock owns him." 
 
 Clem repeated the sharp retort of his friend without any 
 show of temper, as if he were merely interested in setting 
 the purport of the conversation before Marcella. She kept 
 auite still, her hands holding the bunch of herbs, her eyes 
 meditative and yet attentive. She seemed to pursue a defi 
 nite train of thought, which she in some sort modified and 
 adjusted in reference to his disclosure. He had never talked 
 so much in all his life. He found a new and unique pleas 
 ure in sitting beside Marcella, feeling liberated in some sort, 
 since Mrs. Strobe s sarcasms no longer paralyzed his simple 
 modes of thought, nor Isabel s pert interruptions embar 
 rassed him and cut him short. Marcella seemed willing, 
 nay, eager, to hear, and how glad he was to tell ! Always 
 afterward he associated the place with that happy hour : the 
 drear season of autumn seemed the choicest time of the 
 year. How should he take heed now that the splendor of 
 the turn of the leaf was but a hectic red and presage of 
 death ; that the sun would be but a cold glitter for a time ; 
 that snows were garnering somewhere ; and many things 
 light and blithe that bird in its poise on the golden-rod, 
 the squirrel frisking along the tree, even a deer of which 
 they had a sudden glimpse, approaching in a silent interval, 
 thrusting out its graceful head, with startled lustrous eyes, 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 257 
 
 from the laurel not twenty yards away, and disappearing at 
 the sight of them all should die under the rigors of 
 the hard winter coming. He saw only how Marcella s 
 hair waved, how fair of face she was, how the sunlight 
 crept to her feet and crouched there, like a tame thing, 
 casting a yellow brilliancy into her brown eyes as she 
 looked down. It was an undreamed-of delight, this choice 
 confidence, and she might be sure of hearing all to which 
 she would listen; he had forgotten the doubtful past and 
 his fears for the future in the rich flavor of the exquisite 
 present. 
 
 " Ye see, Marcelly, Jube air one o them boys ez tell all 
 they know, an ain t got no sort n jedgmint ; though he s 
 good-hearted, Jube is, an him an me useter play roun the 
 wood-pile in the chips tergether fore we-uns could walk. 
 An so we be toler ble friendly. An though Jube tells on 
 me ter the pa son, he kerns back an tells on the pa son 
 ter me." 
 
 His eyes twinkled, for he thought that, having little to 
 lose, he might endure Jube s frankness better than the par 
 son, who must be flawless. Then his face grew grave with 
 a certain reflective intentness ; a prescient excitement was 
 kindling in his eye. 
 
 " Waal, Jube say that night whilst him an the pa son 
 roosted like two demented tur-rkey gawblers up thar on 
 them big bluffs right above my forge, they seen no devils, 
 but about midnight two men kem along the road, power 
 ful dark night it war ; they kem gingerly along, an Jube 
 say they stopped right thar in front o the door o the shop. 
 Jube say he knows, kase he hearn one o em rattlin the 
 latch I put on them big doors ter keep em from blowin 
 open in the wind. An then Jube, stiddier waitin fur em 
 ter go in an see what they d do, jes lowed he d skeer em, 
 an he flapped his arms an crowed Ye ever hear Jube 
 crow ? " he demanded suddenly, breaking off. 
 
 She shook her head slowly from side to side, although 
 
258 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 she refrained from saying that she did not covet the privi 
 lege in future. 
 
 " Yes-sum. Waal, sir," continued Clem in pride, " he kin 
 crow like a sure-enough, reg lar rooster, ye d think t war 
 haffen a dozen poultry. Skeered the pa son, sir, bein so 
 onexpected, mighty nigh ter death. Jube can t keep from 
 laffin now whenst he tells bout n it, though he say he 
 knows the devil will burn him well fur laffin at his dad. 
 An them men, they hollered an runned a leetle way. An 
 then they stopped an hailed Jube. An all of a suddenty 
 the sheet-lightning flickered up, broad an steady, an he 
 seen who t war." 
 
 Marcella s cheek was burning ; her excited bright eyes 
 were still cast down, and how the sunlight at her feet flared 
 luminously into their limpid depths-! She could hardly 
 wait to hear, although she knew before she heard. 
 
 Clem lowered his voice to a husky murmur. " T war 
 Jake Baintree, one of em," he said. " An the t other 
 Jube hed never seen afore. dressed diffe nt, some similar 
 ter town folks, some o the boys say, from what Jube tells : 
 tall, with sandy whiskers, an light, an quick-steppin . Oh, 
 Jube will know him agin, ef ever he gits a show at him ! " 
 
 There was a sort of savage exultation in his voice, and 
 in his face as he nodded his head to one side with a burly 
 gesture of triumphant forecast. 
 
 Marcella felt a sudden cold thrill. She turned her head, 
 and her eyes met his. " How does Jube expec ter see him 
 agin ? What s he contrivin ter do ? " 
 
 Even Clem Sanders hesitated, conscious that in this lure 
 of happiness he had been led too far. The secret he would 
 not have deemed safe with any woman. Had she been the 
 wife that he wished to make her, he might have contrived 
 to shift, to evade, to postpone. She was not married to 
 him, and he could deny her nothing. 
 
 u Yes-sum," he began, with polite preface ; " but don t 
 let them boys know ez I hev tole ye, Marcelly, else they d 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 259 
 
 string me up ter a tree. Thar s a lot of em a-layin fur 
 Jake an that strange man." 
 
 " What air they a-goin ter do ter em ? " Her voice had 
 risen from its mellow contralto tones into a husky shrillness 
 that was a note of fear, presaging horror. 
 
 Clem Sanders s sensibilities were not acute, and he did 
 not recognize its meaning. 
 
 " That depends on what sort n account they kin gin o 
 tharselves." 
 
 He was flattering himself that he had succeeded in so in 
 teresting her, and as he looked at her his long and narrow 
 eyes smiled brightly, in the full faith of pleasing her. 
 
 " Gin an account o tharselves ? " she murmured ponder- 
 ingly. She remembered how fragmentary and indefinite had 
 been their explanation of their intrusion at the forge and of 
 the stranger s presence in the mountains. This, she was 
 sure, would fail to satisfy aught but gratitude that in its 
 fullness was content to abate even curiosity. How should 
 it satisfy antagonistic, suspicious, even cruel men, who had 
 set themselves to spy, to judge, to punish ? The rough habits 
 of the region, the lawless justice sometimes meted out by 
 the arbitrary tribunals who claimed the preservation of local 
 morals as within their exclusive jurisdiction, were only too 
 familiar to her. She realized with a quick throb of the 
 heart that these men were in danger. They had involved 
 themselves in mystery ; their midnight intrusions at the 
 forge could hardly be easily explained and innocently ac 
 counted for, or they would not have been secret. She was 
 aware, too, of that insurmountable inequality which charac 
 ter creates in equal conditions. Had it been Bassett and 
 Jube Donnard who, for secret purposes of their own, had 
 invaded the smith s forge and cloaked their comings and 
 goings in mystery, it would have been hard to rouse Broom- 
 sedge Cove to any sense of wrong that the owner might 
 have sustained, or any threatened security of the public 
 peace and honor. Far less leniently regarded would be 
 
260 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE, 
 
 the same deeds wrought in the same way by Jake Baintree, 
 who according to public opinion had escaped the gallows 
 by a technicality, and this stranger, a physician, a learned 
 man, lurking in his company, probably seeking to evade 
 the vengeance of the law for some dark deed that she shud 
 dered to more definitely imagine. Doubtless they were in 
 danger. 
 
 She had strong nerves. There was nothing partisan in 
 her manner as she said, " How do ye know they ever war 
 in the forge a-workin an sech ? Ez ter Jube, I don t set 
 no store by Jube s seem . He kin see ennytliing he air a 
 mind ter, or else say he hev seen it. Mought be Satan, 
 sure enough." 
 
 " Yes-sum," acquiesced Clem. " It air somebody ez ain t 
 used ter the blacksmithin business, fur no good smith would 
 hev let that thar leetle bend in my leetle tongs git bruk off 
 that-a-way, an then botch it a-mendin it. That hurt my 
 f eelin s wuss n all, the way he done the work." He 
 shook his head, grieved at the artificer s incapacity. " But 
 sence Jube knowed ez t war Jake Baintree at the latch, the 
 boys don t b lieve in the devil no mo , leastwise not at 
 the forge, thout it s him along o Jake. Jake s ekal ter 
 ennythin . Ye know he killed Sam l Keale." 
 
 " He never ! " Marcella burst forth suddenly. " Dad say 
 he never ! " 
 
 " Yes-sum." Clem made haste to agree. " Ye know, 
 though, that s what them fellers up an down declar ." 
 
 Marcella was silent for a moment, regretting her display 
 of feeling, but Clem, alarmed for the progress which he 
 fancied he had made in her good graces, proceeded with 
 the subject in which she so evidently felt an interest. 
 
 " They whoever they air hain t been ter the forge 
 more n a few times, an that s a fac , the night whenst I 
 saw it lighted up, an the time when they tried ter git in, 
 an Jube skeered em off ; arter that the boys began ter set 
 up reg lar fur em." 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 261 
 
 " "Whar ? " she exclaimed, aghast ; then recollecting her 
 self, she asked more calmly, " Wharbouts, Clem ? " 
 
 " At my house. Night arter night bout ten of em hev 
 kem thar with thar rifles, an watched that thar forge fur 
 a glimge o light through the chinkin , an listened fur the 
 hammer an sledge. But them two hev n t never lit up the 
 forge but twict, the time I seen it, an Gid Dake seen it 
 wunst afore that. Though some say they b lieve t war 
 lighted that night o the big storm ; the boys kem ter 
 watch, but it peared so durned rainy they lowed t war n t 
 no use." 
 
 So the vigilantes had nodded while she made her perilous 
 journey to the forge, that terrible night, and brought help 
 thence. She trembled to think how slight a thing had 
 saved the two intruders. 
 
 " They hain t done much harm, jes three times sence 
 the first of August, an this air deep in the fall o the year," 
 she commented. 
 
 " Yes-sum," assented Clem. " But nobody knows what 
 harm they air doin , an what mo they air goin ter do. Ef 
 it s good, t ain t apt ter be hid." 
 
 " I dunno who sets them Brumsaidge boys up ter jedge," 
 she said angrily, abandoning argument for more facile de 
 preciation. 
 
 " Yes-sum," said Clem blandly. " But they ain t the sort 
 ter wait ter be set ; they jes set tharse fs up, with thar 
 rifles ter prop em," he added, carrying out the figure. 
 
 There was a troubled restlessness in her anxious bright 
 eyes, a pathetic droop in her red lips. She looked deeply 
 thoughtful, careful, plotting, as she said : 
 
 "I wonder at ye, Clem Sanders, knowin ezye do ez sech 
 ez that air agin the law, to capture them men ; an ef thar 
 count o tharselves don t suit ye foolish Brumsaidge pates, 
 a-shootin them two fellers, or stringin em up. An ye 
 a-lettin them spies an lynchers ter meet at yer house ter 
 watch an lie in wait I " 
 
262 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 " Yes-sum. Laws-a-massy, Marcelly," exclaimed Clem, 
 enlightened and precipitate, " ef ye don t want em ter kern 
 ter my house an spy, I 11 run em every one off from thar, 
 every mother s son of em, ef I hev ter shoot a hole 
 through every man s head ter git him started. Say the 
 word, Marcelly ! " he cried, in the enthusiasm of his pro 
 spective obedience. " Say the word ! " 
 
 Marcella was mechanically tearing the herbs into bits in 
 her trembling hands, as she sat and thought, significant 
 thoughts, since the lives of two men, perchance, hung upon 
 them. 
 
 That wouldn t do no good," she remarked presently. 
 " They d jes take tharselves ter watchin somewhar else." 
 After a moment she added bitterly, " Ye know how sech 
 men be : gin em a notion arter blood, an it s no mo use 
 ter call em off n t is ter blow yer horn fur a hound ez air 
 followin on a hot scent. Thar s some hound an some 
 painter an some fox in sech men," the soft-faced young 
 cynic declared. 
 
 11 Yes-sum," faltered Clem Sanders. He sat dumfounded 
 for a moment, the significance of her troubled mien grad 
 ually dawning on his slow perceptions. " Laws-a-massy, 
 Marcelly," he cried, "ef ye want me ter, I ll jes let 
 them men work in my forge ez a constancy, scot-free. I 
 won t gredge em nuthin , though they bruk up every 
 tool in my shop, an " his face clouded "mended em 
 arterward. I will say I never see sech work, the man 
 oughter be shamed ! I dunno whar in Kingdom Come he 
 could hev larnt his trade, sech larnin ez he hev got. 
 But I 11 take Jake Baintree an that strange man, ef he war 
 the devil, inter partnership, ef t will please you-uns. That s 
 all I live fur, Marcelly, ter please you-uns. Ef ye will 
 marry me," he continued, leaning nearer to her, " ef ye 11 
 marry me " 
 
 " Oh," exclaimed the girl, with a gesture of impatient 
 repudiation, " Ye air so tormentin tiresome." 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 263 
 
 " Yes-sura," said Clem, drawing back, rebuked, but not 
 alienated. 
 
 " Would enny other mortal on the yearth low I d marry 
 a man so ez ter git his cornsent fur two other idle idjits ter 
 hev the run of his forge ? " 
 
 Clem thought that it would be better for all concerned if 
 the " other idjits " were idle, but he only murmured, " Naw- 
 m," and listened with respectful and earnest attention as 
 she went on. 
 
 " I ain t got no wish bout n em, ceptin I don t want 
 em kilt nor hurted no ways, jes fur thar sake, not mine ; 
 jes kase they air folks, an hev got a right ter live till thar 
 Maker calls em. Takes a man ter expec ter git suthin fur 
 hisself ter pay him fur every leetle favior he does fur other 
 folks." 
 
 She was fast becoming pessimistic under the stress of her 
 fears, and her perplexities, and her consequent anxious irri 
 tation. 
 
 " Yes-sum," said Clem in humble concession. Then pluck 
 ing up, " I jes mean ter say, Marcelly, ez I would do enny- 
 thing ter pleasure you-uns, an ef ye want them men ter work 
 in my forge, they kin do it an welcome ! " 
 
 She looked sharply at him, seeking to discern in his open, 
 ingenuous countenance any indication that he divined that she 
 had more definite knowledge of the intruders than he had 
 been able to secure, that she was ready to scheme for their 
 safety, that she tolerated and continued the conversation in 
 their behoof, in the hope of further information for their 
 sake. But it was evident that Clem Sanders, in the fullness 
 of his loyalty, neither questioned her motives nor even specu 
 lated concerning them ; he accepted all that she said and 
 did as he accepted the sunshine, as the most righteous 
 and beneficent expression of the generosity of nature. Some 
 gratitude stirred in her heart with the recognition of the 
 depth and sincerity of the sentiment with which he regarded 
 her, and it was more gently that she said : 
 
264 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 " Ye could n t do nutliin nohow, Clem. Wunst them 
 boys hev got the idee, nutliin kin stop em, an ef they did 
 n t watch at yer house they d watch somewhar." 
 
 " Yes-sum," said Clem. 
 
 " An , she went on thoughtfully, " ef , when they tuk arter 
 them men, ye tried ter stop em, they mought slash ye up, or 
 shoot ye mongst em, an I don t want that ter happen." 
 
 His face was irradiated by this evidence of her care for 
 him. 
 
 " Yes-sum ! " he cried jubilantly. 
 
 Marcella rose abruptly from the log. " I mus be goin 
 in," she remarked. 
 
 She put on her tunnel-like sunbonnet, and with the eclipse 
 of her face within its depths the day seemed to him to have 
 darkened suddenly. She stood irresolute for a moment, 
 looking vaguely about her ; her attitude denoted despond 
 ency : she drew a long breath that had a suggestion of a 
 sigh, and then she picked up her basket of eggs. 
 
 li Kin I tote yer basket fur ye, Marcelly ? " 
 
 " Ye could, bein toler ble survigrous, ef I d let ye," 
 she responded ungraciously, still keeping hold of the handle 
 of the basket. She moved slowly along, her tread noiseless 
 upon the thick carpet of pine needles ; only now and then 
 her skirts stirred the fallen leaves, that gave a sibilant rus 
 tle. Clem walked humbly beside her, looking down at the 
 baffling sunbonnet that hid her face, and keeping silence in 
 deference to her mood. All the world was still ; the sun 
 shine made no progress from limb to lirnb of the dark bare 
 trees where it lay so yellow. And time was surely drows 
 ing somewhere. The sky was cloudless, changeless. Winds ! 
 they were now a mere tradition ; the day had suggestions 
 that seemed eternal in its rich, enduring light, its serene im 
 passivity. The shadows, too, were motionless, save for those 
 of the young mountaineers as they passed under the boughs. 
 
 Marcella paused when they reached the fence that was 
 the boundary of Eli Strobe s land, and Clem began to see 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 265 
 
 that she intended to take leave of him here. There was a 
 gap in the fence ; some of the rails lay half fallen, one end 
 upon the ground and one supported by the zigzag structure. 
 She rested her basket here, and glanced up at him from the 
 shadow of her sunbonnet. Her eyes seemed dark and melan 
 choly, and her look was afar off, somehow, and he had a 
 sense of distance from her which led him abruptly to ex 
 claim, " I ain t said nuthin ter make ye mad at me, hev I, 
 Marcelly ? " 
 
 She laughed a little. u Nuthin but foolishness. But 
 thar s so much o that in this world thar s no use in gittin* 
 mad ; don t make folks no mo reasonable ez I knows on." 
 
 " Yes-sum. But ye ain t mad at me ? " he pleaded. 
 
 " Naw, I ain t, I ain t," she exclaimed impatiently ! 
 " Good-by," she added, encouragingly. 
 
 11 Yes-sum. Good-by," the poor fellow echoed dolorously ; 
 and so he turned and took his way down the long lane, leav 
 ing her still standing at the fence. His heart was heavy 
 within him ; how eager she had been to be rid of him ! 
 His hope had sunk ; the wound his rival had dealt began to 
 ache. He felt a repulsion for all the familiar world, for all 
 the aspects of the future as they shaped themselves before 
 his glance, unwontedly prescient. Life hardly seemed worth 
 the living, and he had scant courage to see it through. His 
 mental and moral atmosphere was all uncharacteristic, and 
 although he had not command of even the simplest capa 
 city to feign, and made no effort to disguise the downcast 
 spirit in which he had returned from his open and obvious 
 mission, the gossips at the forge forbore, rather from an in 
 tuition of prudence arid policy than a merciful desire of 
 sparing him, to rally him upon his defeat. He was stern 
 and gruff, and the presence of his cronies grated upon his 
 mood. He went to his work silently, some of his chagrin 
 expending itself in an energy of industry, and the mellow 
 clanking of the hammers roused the echoes to their wonted 
 iteration ; under his skill tha metal grew soft or hard as he 
 
266 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 willed, and for a time there was no indication that aught 
 was amiss with the master of the forge, save his dull, in 
 tent, and frowning face. This tense mood could not con 
 tinue, and presently, under the strain, his nerves began to 
 give way. He had already felt some slight inconvenience 
 from the inexperience of Jube Donnard, who was striking 
 for him to-day, his own assistant having gone hunting. 
 Once so absorbed was he that, as he tapped the iron where 
 Jube should strike, he did not swiftly remove the hammer 
 as was his habit, and the great sledge, hoisted by the par 
 son s son with both arms, came crashing down upon the 
 hand-hammer, sending it flying out of the smith s practiced 
 hand, and jarring his arm to the shoulder-blade. In a sud 
 den passion he flung the bar of hot metal at his dodging 
 volunteer striker, and then with a growling oath he turned 
 away to the door. 
 
 " Time ter quit, ennyhow," said the facile Jube. 
 
 For the great red sunset was flaring in at the widely 
 opened barn-like doors, and though the vermilion disk still 
 lingered above the dusky purple mountains, the hunter s 
 moon, a luminous sphere, pearly and splendid, swung high 
 in the east, with all its sentiments of solitude and alien in 
 fluences, with all its brooding nocturnal fancies, as if it were 
 alone in the sky save for its familiar the vaguely scintillat 
 ing star at the zenith. 
 
 " A clear night, * said Clem to himself, with a sigh, as he 
 sat down on the log by the door. 
 
 It was not the weather signs alone that gave his voice its 
 significant intonation ; it was the congruous circumstance 
 furnished to the nocturnal enterprise. He noted presently 
 a dark figure with a rifle on its shoulder, crossing the bridge 
 above the narrows of the river, thrown into bold relief be 
 tween the crimson sky and its lustrous red reflection in the 
 water. The sun still gave the current a glint of gold ; a 
 rising vapor borrowed mysteries from the moon, and the 
 figure seemed taller than normal height as it disappeared in 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 267 
 
 the woods. It was not long before Clem saw another armed 
 man approaching from down the road. The vigilantes were 
 gathering. He rose, with a long-drawn sigh, and closed the 
 shop for the night, for all his cronies were gone, and 
 then betook himself home to his supper. 
 
 He had had no very definite sentiment in regard to the 
 organization that had charged itself with the enterprise of 
 solving the mystery of the intrusions at the forge, and ad 
 ministering punishment should it be deemed required. It 
 had seemed to him, however, natural and right enough that 
 these enigmatical proceedings should, in the interests of 
 public justice, be subjected to scrutiny, especially as it had 
 been discovered that Jake Baintree, almost universally 
 considered to have cheated the gallows, was concerned in 
 them. Since, however, Marcella had set her face against the 
 self-constituted judges, and had spoken of them with reproba 
 tion, his interest, his sense of injury, even his curiosity, had 
 dwindled. He was conscious of wishing them all far enough 
 from his premises when, after leaving his mother unsuspi 
 ciously washing the supper-dishes, thinking he had gone to 
 his cronies at the forge, he took his way out through the tall 
 sere grass and leafless bushes across the door-yard to the 
 barn, where his hidden coadjutors lurked, awaiting him. 
 
 The building was of the description most usual in the re 
 gion, constructed of logs, unhewn and unchinked, with a loft 
 and a wide open space beneath, where a wagon, two or three 
 plows, and a sorghum-mill stood. The brilliant moonlight 
 fell through each crevice, its silver sheen alternating with 
 the black shadow of the logs ; the whole place was pervaded 
 by this tempered splendor, and through the broad open pass- 
 way he could see the white frost gleam responsive upon the 
 expanse of the fields, on the rails of the fence, on the boughs 
 of a great pallid, denuded tree with its stark and wintry 
 shadows, on the clumps of broad mullein leaves beside the 
 door. The horned heads of the three cows were distinct in 
 the placid divergent rays, filtering through the crannies as 
 
268 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 the animals still stood at their manger ; and on the opposite 
 side the two sorrel mares were half dozing-, and did not so 
 much as cast a glance toward him as he entered the shadowy 
 place, so accustomed had they become to this in-coming and 
 out-going of nocturnal visitants. A slim little filly, however, 
 hardly larger than the calf that stood near by, came frisking 
 out to see who was heralded by the sound of the step, and 
 seemed to consider a great up-kicking and a series of bound 
 ing gambols on its wiry, angular legs an appropriate greet 
 ing ; then finally disappeared into the shadows of its dam s 
 stall. The calf suddenly backed its ears, and sought to imi 
 tate the filly s deft demivolt in a stiff bovine caper ; then 
 stood still once more, earnestly watching Clem as he made 
 his way to the ladder, the rungs of which were very far 
 apart, and up into the loft. 
 
 Here the shadows were less assertive, for a rude, square 
 window had been cut in one of the gables, and the moon 
 light came through and lay in a refulgent rhomboidal figure 
 upon the floor. An occasional flicker across it told of a 
 fluctuating stir amongst the cobwebs that hung in thickly 
 woven folds from the rafters, and were stretched in gossa 
 mer filaments across the aperture itself ; sometimes, as 
 these caught the light, they gave out a silvery glimmer, 
 as if some precious metal had served in the weaving. 
 There was a great pile of corn in the ear in one corner, and 
 the swelling masses of hay bulged far over the open pass- 
 way beneath, and almost hid it from view. Amongst its bil 
 lows, close in to the wall, a setting hen, with outspread wings, 
 was upon her nest ; now and then she opened her small 
 bright eyes, but for the most part she kept them calmly shut, 
 for, timorous though she was, she had become inured to the 
 strange conditions of the place, feeling assured that what 
 ever might result from the councils held here, she and hers 
 were not under consideration. Altogether incongruous and 
 at variance with the simple, rural significance of the spot 
 were the figures of armed men, that lay idly and at ease 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 209 
 
 upon the hay, or strode restlessly to and fro upon the 
 quaking flooring, or paused before the square moon-flooded 
 window to look out upon the strip of cultivated land, the 
 expanse of darkling forest on every hand, the violet va 
 porous spaces empty air above the unseen valley, and 
 the towering, purple, moonlit ranges looming to the sky ; 
 but most of all, and often indeed, they looked down the 
 white winding road where the little forge stood under the 
 crag, between the mountains and the dark and lustrous 
 river. 
 
 " Hy re, Clem," the owner of the premises was greeted, 
 when his head appeared above the floor as he slowly 
 mounted the rungs. 
 
 "Hy re," he responded in a gruff growl. 
 
 The tone and manner were so uncharacteristic that one 
 or two of the martial figures striding about turned and 
 looked around at him in surprise. Bassett, lying on the 
 hay, lifted himself upon his elbow, and demanded, " What 
 ails you-uns ter be so powerful high an mighty ? Ye think 
 ye air Teck Jepson, don t ye ? " 
 
 Clem Sanders said nothing for a moment. Still with his 
 unwonted air of grave dissatisfaction, he lumbered into the 
 moonlit place, one hand in his pocket, his shoulders slouched 
 forward as he peered about from under his broad hat-brim 
 at the men s faces, as if he were seeking to individualize 
 them, and mentally calling the roll. 
 
 "Whar s Teck, ennyhows?" he asked. "He ain t 
 hyar." 
 
 " Not yit," sneered Bassett. " He 11 be kemin along 
 arter a leetle, a-ridin of his mare, though he knows the 
 rest o we-uns low ez t ain t safe ter hev hoss critters 
 hitched round hyar. Ef all o we-uns done that, thar d be 
 enough bosses ter make ez much racket ez a comp ny o 
 cavalry, an them men would git a warnin , and we-uns 
 would never ketch em. Ye mark my words, Teck 11 be 
 long d rec ly, a-ridin like some great captain." 
 
270 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 As lie spoke, a sudden, distant, undistinguished sound 
 smote the air. 
 
 "What s that? "cried Bassett, half springing up, and 
 resting upon one knee on the pile of hay. 
 
 " Hush ! " said one of the vigilantes near the moonlit 
 window. He bent toward it, his eyes scanning the empty 
 road, the silent woods, and lonely mountains with the melan 
 choly splendor upon them. 
 
 The others stood motionless, listening. 
 
 The man at the window abruptly turned toward them his 
 moonlit face, the sheen full in his dilated, excited eyes ; he 
 held up one significant finger, bespeaking attention. 
 
 For the sound had come once more. 
 
XV. 
 
 AN interval of silence succeeded. The heavy, black 
 shadows of the great trees hard by did not stir. The mute 
 moonlight lay all down the vacant road, and rested un 
 broken upon the rude floor of the loft. The man at the 
 square window stood motionless, his hand still uplifted, his 
 illumined face questioning, intent. The only sound was the 
 vague, lingering stir communicated through all the fibres of 
 the hay when Bassett, half rising upon one knee in its 
 midst, had shifted his weight. Suddenly an acorn from a 
 chestnut-oak fell upon the roof, with a loud, imperative ac 
 cent in the tense, expectant moment. It cracked upon the 
 clapboards, that reverberated with the ready resonance of 
 the void spaces of the interior, rebounded with a rattle, 
 rolled deliberately down the eaves, and dropped thence to 
 the ground. It was a slight thing, but if aught more sig 
 nificant had sounded in the interval, this trivial clamor had 
 nullified it. The opportunity to continue to listen and iden 
 tify the mysterious voice was lost, for one of the cows, be 
 low, had begun to low fitfully, and the rocks close at hand 
 prolonged and reduplicated the lingering, melancholy note. 
 
 A half-articulate curse, and here and there a long-drawn 
 respiration, intimated that the breathless tension of expec 
 tation had given way. 
 
 " T war n t nuthin but a ow-eZ," said one of the moun 
 taineers, who had paused, as if petrified, in the middle of 
 the floor, his hands in his pockets, his hat on the back of 
 his head. He had a sedulously unimaginative aspect, as if 
 determined to belittle the occurrence and denude it of con 
 sequence ; and yet there was something in his tone that in 
 timated a hope of contradiction. 
 
272 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 "Ow-eZ/ Waal, mebbe t war," ejaculated the man at 
 the window perversely divining his desire. 
 
 " Waal, then, what did it sound like ter you-uns ? " de 
 manded the first speaker, frustrated in argument, and real 
 izing that he would first have to foster a sensation in order 
 to assume his favorite iconoclastic role. It is an old saying 
 that two are required to make a quarrel, and it is not worn 
 out yet. 
 
 u Sounded ter me," put in the simple Clem, " like a 
 woman a-callinV 
 
 " Else a wild-cat, or suthin ," suggested the first speaker. 
 He was Peter Bryce, Mrs. Bowles s former lover ; and al 
 though he had survived her cruelty, his disposition had suc 
 cumbed to the souring influences of disappointment, and his 
 estimate of women had suffered. 
 
 "Naw, sir! " said Clem, with a definite accession of acer 
 bity, and becoming communicative under its stress. " I 
 lowed t war my mother a-caliin me. Mought hev been 
 mistaken, though," he qualified. 
 
 Bassett, still half kneeling in the billowy hay, in the 
 shadow save for a slender moonbeam falling upon him from 
 a crevice in the roof above, skein-like and fibrous, turned a 
 suspicious eye upon the stalwart young blacksmith, who was 
 indistinct in the semi-obscurity. 
 
 " Clem Sanders," he said sternly, " hev ye been fool 
 enough ter tell her bout we-uns, an sech ez we air lookin* 
 ter do?" 
 
 There was no striding to and fro now ; all the burly 
 armed figures were still and silent for a moment, their eyes, 
 whether distinct and shining in the moonlight, or barely dis 
 cerned in the shadow, fixed with one accord upon Clem 
 Sanders, who needed all his courage to face the suspicion 
 of treachery that they expressed. 
 
 " Of course I never. What would I be a-tellin mam 
 sech ez that fur, in the name o common sense? She be 
 a-callin me, I reckon, ter feed some apple-parin s ter the 
 peegs, fur all I know." 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 273 
 
 There was a momentary silence ; then discerning the dis 
 tinctly sullen note in his reply, Bassett found the tact to 
 say : 
 
 " Ye know, Clem, we hain t got no objection ter Mis 
 Sanders, ceptin her bein a woman ; bes one in the worl , 
 though. But ye know. Clem, t ain t safe ter trest em with 
 sech. They tell everythin they know, an they hain t got 
 no sense ter reason on jestice an sech ; t would jes let 
 them men plumb off, ef enny woman war ter git a-holt o 
 it. T won t do ter trest em with sech." 
 
 " Nor with nuthin else," said the cynical Peter Bryce, 
 speaking from the fullness of his own experience, but with 
 an abstract application to the whole sex that gave Clem 
 Sanders no offense for his mother s sake, and left him at 
 liberty to suffer sundry pangs of regret that beset him at 
 the recollection of his disclosure to Marcella. He threw 
 himself down on the hay, close to the wall, his hat pulled 
 far over his brooding eyes, his elbow upon the elastic masses, 
 and resting his head in his hand. The cat, in a crevice be 
 tween the unchinked logs, looked around at him with 
 lustrous, recognizing eyes, and, kitten-like, she put out a 
 white, velvety paw with a feint of touching his sunburned 
 hand, falling short by an inch. Then she once more gazed 
 calmly out, drawing her tail about her, and seeming always 
 to rise slightly, as she purringly closed and unclosed the 
 nails of her fore-paws. Her shadow on the floor, above 
 that of the prostrate man, was like a crouching tiger, ready 
 to spring. 
 
 " Can t trest wimmen with nuthin ," asseverated Peter 
 Bryce loudly, for the cynic is rarely ready to enjoy alone 
 his discoveries in human nature. He calls in all his world 
 to help him make merry over the distortions of the poor, 
 warped thing before it can get itself away. 
 
 " Waal, now, the Lord made em," expostulated an el 
 derly, grizzled fellow. It was not altogether piety which an 
 imated him. His threatening, lowering mien bespoke a 
 
274 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 personal interest. He had seven daughters, when he would 
 have infinitely preferred seven sons. He had, in each in 
 stance, absolved himself from all obligation to feel any special 
 affection for these young people, who persisted in being so 
 great a shock to his prejudices ; he had sought to steel him 
 self in indifference, and in his judgment that each was an 
 affliction and a dead weight. But poor human nature is weak 
 at best. His seven afflictions, all unabashed, proceeded to 
 entwine themselves about his rude heartstrings as valiantly 
 as could any seven sons. When he became conscious of this, 
 he applied such simple philosophy as his untutored brain 
 could evolve to devising excuses for them, as it were ; and 
 thence he advanced to insistence upon their equality n &y, 
 superiority to any seven sons that could be mustered in 
 Broomsedge Cove. " The Lord made wimmen," he sol 
 emnly declared. 
 
 " By accident, I m thinkin ," said Bassett. 
 
 " Twar n t no job ter be proud of," echoed Dake. 
 
 " War they made a-purpose so durned changeable ? " de 
 manded Bryce. 
 
 " An so onreasonable ? " said Bassett. 
 
 " An sech a tongue onto all of em ? " Dake suggested. 
 
 " An no answer but Bekase t is, ter every why ? " said 
 Peter Bryce. 
 
 The father of the seven afflictions looked from one to 
 the other, his eyes vigilant, like a creature at bay. He 
 seemed to have a large contract on his hands, but he was 
 inured, in his paternal charge, to large contracts, and thus he 
 was not altogether dismayed. Perhaps in the exclusively 
 feminine association at home he had learned something of 
 the potency of feminine logic, and of the futility of impos 
 ing upon one s capacities the devising of answers to cate 
 gorical posers. He took refuge in a broad, unimpeachable 
 proposition, which he delivered with all the impressiveness 
 of refutation. " The Lord made wimmen," he solemnly 
 asseverated anew, as if piety forbade any criticism of the 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 275 
 
 supreme handiwork, and on this ground defying contradic 
 tion. 
 
 <; An what diff ence is that ? " demanded Bassett, with a 
 sneer that the moonlight accented, glittering on his teeth. 
 
 " Who hev said contrariwise ? " echoed Dake. 
 
 " The Lord made em," the paterfamilias again averred, 
 with an arrogation of originality in his attitude as he ad 
 vanced into the square of moonlight, which showed his 
 bronzed face, with his short beard broadening its effect, 
 his mild eye assuming belligerent intimations, as of a peace 
 ful soul, who will, nevertheless, fight for his own, his long, 
 thin lips firmly compressed beneath his bristly mustache. 
 " The Lord made em, an I ain t goin ter hear nuthin said 
 agin em." 
 
 There was a pause. The frolicsome filly down in the 
 stall below, kept awake, perchance, by the noise above, 
 frisked about on two or three boards, upon which her small 
 hoofs clattered noisily, doubtless to the admiration of her 
 slower, wide-eyed friend the calf, and sent forth a shrill, 
 gleeful little whinny, all head tones, indescribably callow. 
 The mother responded with a note of maternal remon 
 strance ; there was a sound of a scampering galiopade to 
 her side, and the stall was still. The setting hen, close in 
 to the wall, amidst the hay, stretched her long neck with 
 its panting open bill, and emitted a sort of hysterical cluck 
 ing of apprehension when the whole great mass trembled, 
 as Bassett flung himself at length into its midst. His head 
 was pillowed high amongst the fragrant billows, but his 
 feet hung down unsupported, dangling to and fro with a 
 disparaging gesture, as he demanded, " Hev ye tole yer wife 
 an that thar congregation o small gals o yourn bout sech 
 ez air goin for ard ter-night mongst we-uns ? " 
 
 The grizzled head, held askew as its owner listened, gave 
 an angry jerk. " Course I hain t," the paterfamilias re 
 joined, in surly but succinct denial. 
 
 There was a sort of suppressed snort of indignation 
 
276 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 amongst the vigilantes, prophetic of the fury that would 
 await the supposititious betrayal ; it seemed, indeed, that the 
 very hypothesis was not a safe subject. Clem Sanders 
 stirred uneasily. 
 
 "Waal, now," said the crafty Bassett, "why don t ye tell 
 em ? " 
 
 The elderly champion of the fair stood helpless and at a 
 hopeless disadvantage ; he laid hold of his square-cut beard, 
 and held it meditatively as he gazed silently at his inter 
 locutor. 
 
 " Why don t ye tell em ? " repeated Bassett, half-chuck 
 ling at his own cleverness, the trend of his argument seem 
 ing hardly less than inspiration. " Ye know wimmen-folks 
 never talk none ; t war n t one o them, surely, ez tuk ter 
 gossipin in the very Gyardin o Eden with the Evil One 
 hisse f. They never talk none an spread the news, an 
 when thar ain t no news air plumb ekal ter makin it. Then 
 they never sets tharse fs ter frustratin the men on principle, 
 jes fur the enjyemint o the thing, though some folks, ez 
 don t know em ez well ez ye an me, hev lowed wunst or 
 twict sence the worl began ez they air always ekal ter that. 
 A leetle spindlin snip o a gal kin fool a man six feet high 
 an a two hunderd pounder bout ennythin she gins her 
 mind ter." 
 
 " That she kin ! " sourly exclaimed Peter Bryce, whose 
 infelicitous love affairs had been so widely bruited abroad, 
 at the time when he and Maria White, subsequently Mrs. 
 Bowles, quarreled, that reserve on the subject would have 
 been but an empty formality. 
 
 " Oh, Pete, he s jes funnin ; he ain t hed no sperience 
 o thar onreliability," resumed Bassett, enraptured by the 
 extent of his own satiric capacities when fairly tested, and 
 having no mind to relinquish the floor of which he was so 
 conspicuous an ornament. " Then they air so reasonable, 
 that s what makes em so easy ter git along with. Ef 
 enny one o them war ter know bout what we air aimin ter 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOlfSEDGE COVE. 277 
 
 do, an ez we air ready ter hang them men ef we find Jake 
 Baintree air arter enny mo devilmint sence he killed 
 Sam l Keale, an got off from the court through the jedge 
 an jury bein so all-fired weak kneed, what would that 
 woman say ? She d say, t Don t hang em ; it mought hurt 
 ein. " 
 
 There was a smothered guffaw from the younger men, 
 and the father of the seven reasonless beings stood mute 
 and without a word of contradiction. 
 
 " Don t hang em ; it mought hurt em, that air what 
 every sistren of em in this broad land would say," the 
 speaker continued, in high feather, gratified by the flattering 
 coincidence of the majority. " Now, Clem, ye kin bear me 
 out," he said, turning unexpectedly toward the young black 
 smith, who gave so abrupt a start that the cat in the moon 
 lit crevice rose up suddenly, with a back bowed high and 
 an angry hiss ; then, with her tail aloft and stiff she ran off 
 with an unprecedented nimbleness, up the mound of hay, 
 and composed herself to watch studiously a certain beam 
 high out of reach, on which she had seen a lithe whisking 
 shadow of rodent-like action. Clem heavily turned himself 
 in the hay ; he was swift to indorse mentally any plausible 
 proposition, and he remembered anew with anxious self- 
 reproach and many twinges of conscience his disclosures to 
 Marcella. She had disapproved, as Bassett had urged that 
 any woman would. Was it possible that she would act 
 upon this disapproval ? But after all, would she dare, and 
 what could she do ? He sought to solace his fears, and to 
 shake off his overpowering sense of treachery and guilt, by 
 arguing within himself the futility of any scheme she might 
 devise ; even circumstance seemed to favor him. He felt 
 ashamed to experience a certain gratulation that her father, 
 so vehement a stickler for the maintenance of the law, was 
 not available in this emergency. Eli be too sick fur her 
 ter resk excitin him bout sech. She ain t goin ter sturb 
 Eli ef Jake Baintree war ter git hung, like he oughter hev 
 
278 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 been a year ago an better, an would hev been ef Teck 
 Jepson heel bed his way." 
 
 He was summarily roused from these absorptions by Bas- 
 sett s raucous drawl : 
 
 " Why n t ye answer, Clem ? Air ye a-snoozin thar, ye 
 sleepy-headed sorrel-top ? " 
 
 "I hearn ye," replied Clem gruffly. "I dunno how / 
 kin bear ye out. I dunno all the wimmen in the moun 
 tings, an I don t wanter. Some will do one way an some 
 another ; ennythin ez air onexpected an suddint." 
 
 " That s jes it ! " exclaimed Bassett. " The Bible lows 
 ez the woman war made from one o Adam s ribs, an I 11 
 be bound, though the Bible don t say so, ez her brains war 
 jes the odds and e-ends lef over from Adam s brains, an 
 that s why her thoughts air jes higglety-picklety ; a leetle 
 o this, an a tech o that, an none ter las more n a minit. 
 An she did n t shine on that casion in the Gyardin as an 
 adviser, an that s how it happens men ever sence hev been 
 glad ter git shet o thar wife s advice." 
 
 " I ain t never seen one woman ez larnt enny lesson from 
 Eve," remarked Peter Bryce. " They gin thar advice yit 
 ez ef t war one o the precious things o the yearth, an air 
 always powerful stonished an conflusticated every time ez 
 the men folks ain t willin ter break thar necks ter profit 
 by it." 
 
 The sentinel had left the discussion, and reverted to the 
 window ; he beckoned to one of the other mountaineers 
 presently, and pointed down the long avenue of the great 
 oaks. Here and there were broad open spaces, where the 
 moonlight fell in unbroken effulgence ; the autumn winds 
 had left the trees but scantily leaved ; bough and bole were 
 often distinct through the foliage, and even amidst the 
 shadows, which duplicated each leaf and twig ; the white 
 frost lent an accentuation of brilliancy. Upon the sere grass 
 a hoofbeat was falling, and an equestrian figure rode into 
 full view ; a mounted shadow beside him now lurked among 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 279 
 
 the trees ; now skulked strangely foreshortened, on the 
 ground ; now rose suddenly upon the vertical surface of 
 a crag into the full stature of a man and the complete 
 equipment of a horse, with a definiteness that had an un 
 canny effect, somehow, in the solitude. So brilliant was the 
 moon that it seemed to seek out and reveal vague, spectral, 
 half-realized things, affinities of the night and the unknown. 
 
 " Edzac ly, jes ez I said. Teck ridin long like some 
 great captain," exclaimed Bassett, whom the faint jingle of 
 spurs in the frosty air had brought to the window. 
 
 The mounted figure passed close to the building, never 
 lifting his head nor making a sign, although he must have 
 been conscious of the men looking down at him. The 
 horse whickered gleefully upon nearing the barn, and the 
 rocks echoed and reechoed the sound, until it simulated the 
 distant, neighing of a squadron of cavalry. Even when it 
 had sunk to silence, some seeming charger far away again 
 broke the quiet, neighing in the solitary defiles of the moun 
 tain. The men looked at one another; here and there a 
 spark of irritation, perceptible the moment that the horse 
 man had first been glimpsed through the aisles of the woods, 
 began to flare definitely into anger. 
 
 " Teck ain t keerin how much n ise he lets them men 
 hear." 
 
 . " He don t mind sech ez we-uns say ; he air jes sot an* 
 sodden in his own way." 
 
 " He oughter be tuk down somehow. He air too robus 
 tious an domineerin ter live." 
 
 The scattered comments subsided the moment a step 
 sounded upon the rungs of the ladder. As Teck Jepson 
 emerged through the aperture in the floor, glancing up at 
 the silent figures grouped about, watching his ascent, there 
 seemed something in his eye which coerced apparent ac 
 quiescence, and in this fostered a sort of subservient dis 
 simulation toward him. His grave " Howdy, neighbors," in 
 his low, melancholy drawl, evoked a friendly " Howdy, 
 
280 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 Teck," which seemed to express all the good-fellowship of 
 approving welcome. Only Dake stood silent and morose, re 
 taining in his manner something of the sentiment which had 
 animated the coterie before Jepson s entrance. He could 
 not have expressed a categorical opinion of Jepson s charac 
 ter, but was aware of his acute observation and his alert 
 divination of motive, and felt sure that he could not have 
 failed to notice the chill protest and displeasure in the single 
 exception to the cordiality of the greetings. Thus Jepson s 
 lofty indifference and serenity impressed him as in the nature 
 of a triumphant retort, and presently Dake broke forth an 
 grily : 
 
 " What air yer notion, Teck Jepson, ter kem ter a secret 
 meetin , a-tromplin an a-jinglin with spurs through the 
 woods, an ridin of yer horse ez goes whinnyin fur corn 
 inter the stable. Ef I war Clem, I would n t give him nare 
 grain. Ef them men hev enny ears, they air bound ter 
 hear ye an take a warnin . I b lieve ye air in league with 
 em." 
 
 Jepson turned slowly upon him. " I b lieve I 11 throw 
 ye out n that winder," he said deliberately. 
 
 There was a hasty cry of protest from the group, and 
 several interposed between the two. " Naw, Teck, naw ; 
 ye mustn t git a-fightin , ye an Gid ! " exclaimed the father 
 of the seven, with a patriarchal air which became him well 
 at home, and in view of his seniority did not seem out of 
 place here. " Ye know, boys, we-uns hev got tergether ter 
 hold up the right, whether the law will tote its e-end or no. 
 It air fur the good an the peace o the kentry. We can t 
 gin our cornsent ter wickedness goin on an dodgin its due, 
 but we 11 meet up with it an medjure it, sure. T won t 
 do, ter git ter quar lin , so jestice will be frustrated both in 
 the courts an out n em. Ef the arm o the law be got so 
 spindlin an puny ez it can t take holt an deal jestice, but 
 flops par lytic in the empty air, the people air strong yit, an 
 ain t goin ter suffer no wrong-doin . Naw, sir ! " 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 281 
 
 He uttered this with a sing-song delivery, reminiscent of 
 the pulpit of the circuit-rider, his voice rising and falling 
 in alternate waves and with rhythmical cadences ; then he 
 suddenly assumed an indescribably coaxing tone, that had 
 often proved exceedingly efficacious with recalcitrant small 
 girls. 
 
 " Don t ye git ter quar lin with Gid, Teck ! An Gid, 
 ye oughter be shamed ! Teck s our main man ; he s a 
 plumb ringleader, an ye know we air all bound ter b lieve 
 in Teck, wharf ore or what not. I notice we-uns all do his 
 bid, whether we aim ter or no. Teck ain t goin ter git up 
 no commotion ez them men kin hear. An ez ter Teck be- 
 in in league with em, we-uns all know everybody knows 
 ez he hev been plumb down on Jake Baintree ever sence 
 the jury let him off ; Teck lowed ez Jedge Lynch ought 
 ter take his case up. Teck s our main man ! 
 
 A frown had gathered on Jepson s face, distinctly seen 
 in the moonlight which sifted through the dark shadows 
 from the crannies of the high peaked roof. The peace-maker 
 had touched some false note, and the jarring discord was 
 instantly manifested. Jepson deliberately drew his arm from 
 the grasp of the elder man. 
 
 " I ain t a-aimin ter be a leader," he said. " I ain t sech 
 ez covets the fust place. I hev no wish fur words of praise. 
 I look within fur the testimony an the voice o the Lord ez 
 sounds in the silences. Sech ez my steps air, they air tuk in 
 His path." 
 
 He half turned from his well-meaning exhorter, who stood, 
 a trifle crest-fallen but deeply impressed, still staring, the 
 ligaments of his strong bare neck tense as he thrust his head 
 forward. 
 
 Jepson paused, looking over his shoulder his luminous 
 handsome eyes rested upon Dake with a more familiar and 
 worldly expression than they had worn a moment ago. 
 
 u Ez ter Gid Dake, he air welcome ter his thoughts ; his 
 wust enemy would n t gredge him sech pore leetle things ez 
 
282 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 he kin think. But ye air in an about right ter gin rebukes 
 fur quarlin , we ain t met fur sech ez that. An I won t 
 throw Gid out n the winder jes yit ; but," he sneered, " let 
 him think his thoughts. A body ought ter be sorry fur a 
 man condemned ter pass his life in sech comp ny ez Gid an 
 his thoughts." 
 
 The elderly peace-maker received the intimation that his 
 interference was praiseworthy and well timed with a distinct 
 and grateful glow. Dake, with his hands in his pockets and 
 a flouting shrug of his shoulders, ejaculated, " Shucks ! " and 
 walked away amongst the others, quick enough, however, 
 and sensitive enough to note the glances askance and the 
 half-veiled contempt which marked the degree to which they 
 considered him defeated, and the consequent depths to which 
 he had sunk in their opinion. 
 
 " I rid, but I tuk a short cut through the woods, an never 
 teched the road nowhar," continued Jepson, standing in 
 the middle of the floor, taller than them all, very distinct in 
 the moonlight, " I rid bekase I war so all-fired late." It 
 was unusual that he deigned to explain his motives, and this 
 betokened an unwonted geniality and sense of nearness and 
 oneness with them all. " It takes me mighty nigh the 
 whole evenin ter cook a leetle dab o supper. My mother 
 war the bes cook ez ever seen a fire, but I don t pear ter 
 take arter her. I actially can t turn a hoe-cake over." He 
 smiled slightly at the laughter that this revelation of his 
 domestic difficulties evoked. Then he went on : " Mos folks 
 re j ice mightily when meal-times come, but it air a season 
 o hardship an labor fur me. The skillets an the pans 
 pear ter hide, somehows, an I can t find nuthin ; though 
 I aim ter put every thin in its place, t ain t thar whenst I 
 want it agin." 
 
 " Ye miss Mis Bowles cornsider ble, don t ye ? " sug 
 gested Bassett, with a leer, " specially meal times." 
 
 " I never hearn Mis Bowles war ennythin so tremenjious 
 s prisin ez a cook," sneered Peter Bryce, nettled at the very 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 283 
 
 mention of her name, and resolved not to indorse any pre 
 sumable merits and culinary accomplishments. 
 
 But Teck Jepson had a sentiment of loyalty to the hospi 
 table board, although it was self-interest that had spread it. 
 " She never let me go hongry," he averred heartily, " an 
 that s more n I kin say fur myself." 
 
 " Ye oughter git married, Teck," said the champion of 
 the fair. " A man thout a wife air like a house thout a 
 h a th-stone : thar ain t no chances for comfort, nor cheerful 
 ness, nor light, nor nuthin , thout it ; it s jes the heart o a 
 home." 
 
 " Yes ; an ye kin make mighty sure thar ain t a skillet 
 in Brumsaidge Cove spry enough ter hide from Marcelly 
 Strobe," broke in Dake irreverently, glad to touch upon a 
 tender point; having heard and believed Andy Longwood s 
 representations of Marcella s preference for Clem Sanders, 
 and knowing that Teck Jepson had also been an aspirant 
 for favor. 
 
 Jepson, with an angry start, was about to retort, when 
 Clem Sanders, growling an oath, rose up from the hay, 
 stamping heavily first one foot and then the other, to rouse 
 them from the premature slumbers in which they had been 
 surreptitiously indulging while the rest of his system was 
 broad awake. " Air we-uns a-goin ter stay hyar all night, 
 a-colloguin bout skillets an sech, an not even peekin out 
 o the winder ter keep watch on them men at the forge ? 
 They could hev been at thar evil works, an a-doin a 
 dunno-what-all in secret an agin the law, an* we-uns air 
 sech all-fired drivilin id jits we can t ketch em, though we 
 sets up night arter night a-watchin , kase we gits ter jawin 
 bout Eve an Adam, an skillets, an Marcelly Strobe ! 
 Them men air mighty safe. I wisht I knowed I war 
 a-goin ter be ez fur off from harm an hurt all my days. 
 Them men air mighty safe, no matter what they air a-aim- 
 in an a-plottin ; mighty safe from sech vengeance ez we- 
 uns kin git tergether in Brumsaidge Cove." 
 
284 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 It was seldom that Teck Jepson was affected by the 
 speech of others, but the coercive influence of this logical 
 outburst was very apparent in his manner, as he turned ab 
 ruptly away, evidently terminating and casting off the whole 
 previous train of thought, and strode to the window. As 
 he stood there, the moonlight upon his clearly chiseled fea 
 tures, his full, deep eyes fixed with a searching intentness 
 upon the dark little shanty of the forge down the road, his 
 hand resting upon the handle of the pistol that he wore 
 thrust in his belt, his high boots drawn over his trousers to 
 the knee, his spurs catching the light and scintillating, albeit 
 they were as motionless as if they had been the accoutre 
 ments of some sculptured soldier, there was so much agile 
 strength suggested in his pose, so much fire and force in his 
 face, earnest of the vassalage of circumstance to this full- 
 pulsed spirit, that Clem Sanders, dolorously gazing, felt his 
 heart sink within him. Teck Jepson had forgotten his en 
 terprise, for the moment, and he himself had reminded him 
 of it, forgetful in his turn of the horror that Marcella had 
 expressed, and of his own protestations that no task she could 
 impose would be too onerous for him to show his wish to 
 please her. And now he had had but to hold his tongue, 
 and the intruders might have come and gone while the 
 vigilantes wrangled together in the loft ; no bloodshed 
 would darken this silver night, and Marcella s tender heart 
 would be unwrung. " Me, ez lowed I d shoot all these 
 fellers an run em off from hyar ter keep em from harmin 
 Jake Baintree an that thar slouch of a blacksmith ez he 
 hev got along with him ! " he said, aghast at the rift be 
 tween his performance and his protestations. He began to 
 be appalled by the significance and consequence that now 
 seemed to attend his Imp-hazard speech and actions. He 
 was not reflective, he had no habits of forecast and serious 
 intention, and he felt enmeshed in troublous toils in the 
 knowledge that he secretly wished to hinder that which he 
 apparently sought to help forward. He would have given 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 285 
 
 much to recall his words. He had lost all desire to assist 
 in adjudicating public affairs in the courts of Judge Lynch, 
 to investigate the mystery of the intrusion into his own 
 forge, even to punish the bungling smith that surreptitiously 
 broke and mended ; these things had become repugnant to 
 him, under the knowledge of Marcella s disapproval. He 
 stood for a few moments in the shadow, silently regarding 
 Teck Jepson in the mellow splendor of the moonlight, that 
 added its indefinite idealization to those advantages of 
 symmetry and pose which Clem considered constituted a 
 " powerful fine-built man." The blacksmith turned, slouch 
 ing forward his heavy shoulders, a manner he affected when 
 displeased and out of sorts, and which had an oddly aging 
 effect, making him appear like some burly fellow of fifty 
 or sixty, bent with toil and trouble. He flung himself, with 
 a short sigh, into his former nest in the hay, and upheld his 
 head on one hand. The moonlight had shifted since he last 
 lay there. The hay that in the semi-obscurity retained its 
 dull amber tint, tending here and there to a dusky brown 
 or the nullity of invisibility, was in the light a fine and 
 fibrous silver ; it gleamed with lustrous reflections as he 
 moved, and threw his head and face into distinct relief, 
 despite the shadow of his hat-brim. 
 
 4 Clem looks like ez ef he hed been a-feedin on ten- 
 penny nails as his daily fare," suggested Jube, the parson s 
 son, who had lately come in, and who sat upon an inverted 
 half-bushel measure. He was amusing himself by shelling 
 an ear of corn, and dropping the grains through the cracks 
 in the ill-laid flooring upon the little filly in the stall below, 
 which he could see quite distinctly ; the surprise of the little 
 animal was varied by periodic panic and flight ; she would 
 return, however, to reexamine the phenomenon, until, 
 finally, Jube forced the empty cob through the crevice, 
 hitting her fairly upon the head, when, with a terrified snort 
 and an elastic bound, she disappeared, to come back no 
 more. 
 
286 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 Clem made no retort. He did not fail, however, so 
 sharpened were his blunt perceptions, to notice that Teck 
 Jepson, despite his preoccupation, glanced round at the 
 sound of his name ; he remembered, with an irritated sense 
 of the grotesqueness of the mistake, that Jepson fancied 
 him an accepted lover, and there was no relish in masquer 
 ading in this triumphant guise with so dreary and hopeless 
 an identity within. 
 
 " What s the news from the forge, Teck ? " demanded 
 Jube, reaching out to the pile of corn for an ear to hold in 
 readiness in case the filly should venture out again. Jepson 
 once more turned to the window. 
 
 " All dark thar," he replied. 
 
 " Shucks ! " said Jube easily, craning over the crevice in 
 the floor in an effort to see the filly again, as if badgering 
 the small denizen of the stall below were the praiseworthy 
 errand which had brought him hither ; he even broke off 
 a bit of the ear of corn, and cast it down the cranny, in the 
 hope that it might prove a lure. But the filly, though slow 
 to learn, learned thoroughly, and his craft was in vain. 
 
 There was a sensation among the others that savored 
 more of angry disappointment than their disinterested pro 
 fessions of seeking to promote the welfare and the peace of 
 the community might justify. They became more sensible 
 of the hardship of their long restraint, and manifestly 
 chafed at being thus balked of the expected excitement. 
 More than one was restively striding back and forth upon 
 the quaking flooring, and between Dake and Bassett arose 
 a somewhat clamorous controversy concerning the number 
 of times that they had thus fruitlessly watched and waited. 
 
 * I ain t half awake in the daytime* stumblin along arter 
 the plow-tail or huntin like somebody walkin in thar 
 sleep ! " Bassett angrily exclaimed. " An ef we-uns war 
 the men we-uns purtend ter be, we d go in the daytime, an 
 git Baintree off ter the woods, an hang him then." 
 
 " Oh, shet up, Joe ! " called out Clem from where he lay 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 287 
 
 half buried in the hay. He had scant imagination or sensi 
 tiveness, but his pulses had come to beat in sympathy with 
 Marcella s sentiments, and he felt as it were by proxy the 
 cold thrill of horror at the murderous words ; his nerves 
 were tense with a sense of resistance to the bloody-minded 
 cruelty of the careless proposition. " Ye fairly make me 
 hone ter git up an beat that empty cymblin o a head ofFn 
 them narrer, spindlin shoulders o yourn." 
 
 He had not gauged the effect of his words. Before Bas- 
 sett could reply Jepson whirled round, with a flash of the 
 eye that was fiery even in the pallid moonlight. 
 
 " An what ails you-uns ter take this suddint turn, Clem 
 Sanders ? " he demanded, his voice vibrant with scorn. 
 " The las time I hearn from you-uns ye war plumb crazed 
 bout yer leetle tongs, not kase they war bruk, but kase 
 they hed been mended. Feared like t would kill ye kase ve 
 could n t approve o that thar job. /war feard we couldn t 
 find a rope long enough nor a tree high enough ter hang the 
 man ez, war so gin ter pernicious ways ez ter fool with them 
 leetle tongs. An now ye pear not ter keer nuthin t all 
 bout them desolated leetle tongs. Ye can t hold ter nuthin , 
 Clem Sanders, an ennybody ez puts thar pendence in ye 
 air leanin on a broken reed, even ter shoein a horse- 
 critter, ef the truth war knowed." 
 
 Clem Sanders had palpably winced under this arraign 
 ment, despite his bluff courage, fearing that he had too 
 definitely evinced his changed feeling, and that in some way 
 it might result in eliciting the fact that he had divulged their 
 plans to Marcella Strobe. He detected the influence of her 
 fancied preference in the evident acrimony of Teck Jepson s 
 sentiment toward him, but he was not moved to reply until 
 the slur was cast upon his capacities as a blacksmith. Even 
 in this moment of supreme emotion his simple art was dear 
 to him. 
 
 " Whar 11 ye find a better blacksmith ? " he cried, spring 
 ing to his feet, and holding both arms outspread. " Whar 11 
 
288 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 ye find him ? Tell me, an I 11 walk a hunderd mile ter see 
 him ! " 
 
 The dignity of the worker who loves his craft and does 
 his utmost in its service was in his face and manner, as he 
 stood, and served to neutralize his overweening vanity. 
 
 " Ef he war ter tell ye, ye would n t b lieve him," said 
 Dake discerningly, as Jepson turned slightingly away, and 
 Clem sank back once more into the deep, elastic meshes of 
 the hay. 
 
 " Waal," Bassett resumed his objections, " air we-uns 
 a-goin ter keep this up till Christmus ? An what did we 
 begin it fur ? Ef it air perlite an agreeable ter hang Bain- 
 tree down hyar, why ain t it jes ez perlite an agreeable ter 
 go git him up in the mountings ? T would save time an 
 sleep, an be jes edzac ly the same ter him." 
 
 " Hang him fur what ? " demanded Teck Jepson suc 
 cinctly. 
 
 Clem Sanders, with a galvanic start, turned his head as 
 he lay in the masses of the hay, and stared at the speaker. 
 
 "Fur fur a-doin of whatever he air a-doin of," 
 said Bassett, to whom a reputation for a logical, level head 
 was by no means a cherished ambition. 
 
 Jepson shook his own head with an imperatively negative 
 gesture. * We hev got ter find out ez he air arter some 
 harm fust, some wickedness ez air agin the interns o the 
 kentry. He mought hev done nothin wuss n fool with 
 them leetle tongs ; an ef Clem s half the blacksmith he 
 makes hisself out ter be, he ought ter be able ter fix em 
 agin." 
 
 " Hang him fur a-killin of Sam l Keale, o course," said 
 Bassett casually, his unthinking face repulsive in its lack of 
 any expression that might attest some protest of humanity, 
 some reluctant though urgent and distorted sense of justice, 
 as he paused in his striding to and fro, and stood in the illu 
 mined square of the window. " Ye always lowed t war 
 jestice." 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 289 
 
 " Not now ! " cried Jepson vehemently, " not now." 
 He lifted a convincing forefinger, and laid it in the palm of 
 the other hand at every point he made, as if telling it off. 
 The other men, great, lumbering, massive figures in the sil 
 ver-shotted dusk, gathered about him, watching with ponder 
 ing intentness his gesture as he spoke, and slowly deliberat 
 ing upon the subject-matter. At fust, when the courts let 
 him go, I pealed ter Jedge Lynch. But now he hev ez 
 good ez got the promise o the k entry on it. He hev been 
 let ter go free an thout fear, an Brumsaidge hev peared 
 ter cornsent ter the verdict o the jury. An arter six month 
 an better Brumsaidge can t turn around now an say, * I 
 b lieve I 11 change my mind, bubby, an hang ye arter all. 
 Naw ; thout he hev done somethin fraish, he 11 hev ter go 
 scot-free. An t ain t likely he hev done ennythin agin 
 ekal ter killin Sam l Keale." 
 
 Clem Sanders had slowly drawn himself into a sitting 
 posture in the hay. He gazed at the speaker with startled, 
 dilated eyes, his suddenly formed conviction taking fast hold 
 upon his mind. In this reasoning, inconclusive though it 
 was, he thought he saw that trait of mercy, of humanity, 
 which Marcella had urged half heartedly upon him. and 
 then let fall, since he could do naught, she said. Could Teck 
 Jepson do more ? He wondered if this were her decision. 
 Had she thought Jepson more powerful ? Had she appealed 
 to him for the men she chose to befriend in the name of 
 sheer humanity ? How else could be explained this sudden 
 elaborate construction of the acquiescence of Broomsedge 
 Cove in the verdict of the jury ? What careful argument 
 was this for the delectation of lynchers, assembled for the 
 purpose of defying quirks and palliations, and administering 
 condign punishment for the deed done ? He scanned the 
 half-seen moonlit faces grouped about ; there was on more 
 than one a flouting indignation, and here and there a disap 
 pointed, blood-thirsty lower that he remembered to have 
 seen in the unguarded look of a sheep-killing dog glimps- 
 
290 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 ing a distant flock on a hill. But one trait made them all 
 alike, an expression of suspicious surprise. Had not 
 Gideon Dake spoken more truly than he knew when he said 
 that Teck Jepson was in league with those men ? And if 
 this were so, it was for Marcella s sake ; and these words 
 were almost trembling into sound upon the blacksmith s 
 quivering, angry lips, as he rose up slowly and confronted 
 Teck Jepson, still standing in the centre of the circle. 
 There was something so significant in Clem Sanders s man 
 ner that they all turned expectantly toward him. 
 
 Keen, keen on the frosty air, incisive, iterative, metallic, 
 fell the sudden stroke of a hammer on the anvil, and every 
 pulse thrilled to the sound. 
 
XVI. 
 
 THE moment had come. That fact took precedence of 
 every other impression, and annulled all the previous care 
 ful preparation. There was an instant rush toward the lad 
 der, and the floor quaked beneath the swift but heavy feet. 
 A voice checked the advance, that was like a rout in its 
 wild, unreasoning motive power : 
 
 " The fust man ez steps a foot on that thar rung, I 11 let 
 the light through him ! " 
 
 There was a sharp, decisive click, and the lynchers knew 
 that Teck Jepson had cocked the pistol, which he wore no 
 longer in his belt, but held in his right hand, as he stood be 
 side the aperture in the floor. 
 
 A momentary hovering about it, a sound of quick, excited 
 panting, and the massive figures fell back a little. 
 
 " Why n t ye say who air ter go fust, then ? " exclaimed 
 Bassett, in angry reproach. Ye air too durned sot in yer 
 way ter live, Teck Jepson. Ef we war right smart, we d 
 hang ye a leetle before we set out ter settle them t other 
 men." 
 
 " Don t quar l, boys, don t quar l," urged the paternal 
 peace-maker. " Teck knows jes what we d bes do." 
 
 There was scarcely a murmur of dissent to this, for the 
 usurper is more imposing than he who wields delegated 
 authority, in that his supremacy is the trophy and the tri 
 umph of his own bow and spear. These wild and lawless 
 men might hardly have accorded so ready an obedience to 
 Teck Jepson s mandate, had his power been conferred by 
 the State of Tennessee. 
 
 "Ye 11 stay right hyar till ye air wanted," he said des- 
 
292 THE DESPOT OF BROOMS EDGE COVE. 
 
 potically. " I be goin ter take one man an go down ter 
 see what they air a-doin of. Ef I fire my pistol, ye kin 
 come, the whole bilin of ye, ez hard ez ye kin travel. Me 
 an one man will go fust." 
 
 " I be that man ! " cried Clem Sanders turbulentlv. 
 
 Jepson could hardly say him nay, since he was the first 
 to volunteer. But his objection showed very plainly in his 
 eyes, and the blacksmith sturdily responded to it. 
 
 " It s my forge ! " He protested his special interest. 
 
 " Laws-a-massy, yes ! an it s yer leetle tongs, toa ! " 
 sneered Jepson, with the scorn of one who cares little for 
 material possessions, as he took his w r ay down the ladder. 
 
 Clem followed, and as the two emerged from the shadowy 
 barn upon the frost-whitened sward below and into the full 
 splendor of the moonlight, they were conscious of the eyes 
 that pursued them from the window above. Once Jepson 
 turned his head and glanced over his shoulder. It was not 
 a reassuring sight, even to one whom it in no manner threat 
 ened, that broad, low window of the simple log-barn, 
 filled with the bearded, eager faces of silent armed men, 
 some half crouching, others standing that they might look 
 over the shoulders of those in front. Behind them all was 
 visible, the hay piled to the roof, here silver skeins in the 
 light, and again full of shadows and indefinite suggestions 
 of depth. 
 
 As the two walked on together, Jepson took note of the 
 moon in the sky. " Ain t it some earlier cordin ter the 
 moon than t war that night when ye say ye kem so nigh 
 ter ketchin em ? " 
 
 " Dunno," panted Clem. " I hev hed suthin else ter do, 
 sence then, than ter stare-gaze the moon." 
 
 The tone of the retort arrested Jepson s attention. He 
 had hitherto taken little account of his rival s mental atti 
 tude toward him. As he turned his head, and, though still 
 walking forward, looked at Clem, he could scarcely inter 
 pret his expression. Antagonism he could read, to be sure, 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGi: COVE. 293 
 
 in the hard-set jaw, the gleam of his teeth between his half- 
 parted lips, the glitter of his eye ; but a sort of uncertainty 
 was shadowed in his manner, with a tumultuous, fluttering 
 excitement, a badgered, hopeless, yet still struggling anx 
 iety ? he could not account for these in the light of the 
 present surroundings. A much wiser man could hardly 
 have divined the turbulent perplexity that surged through 
 Clem s mind, the coercive rigors of decision and yet the 
 wild regret for whatever course he took. He seemed to 
 himself to be living at a climax. Every breath he drew 
 chronicled an emergency. He was in the clutch of contra 
 dictions, the victim of distorted and strangely reversed cir 
 cumstances. He had set the machinery of vengeance in 
 motion again when it had seemed to flag, and he had wished 
 to hinder. He had forced himself upon Teck Jepson as his 
 lieutenant in this abhorrent enterprise, hoping that in the 
 guise of lending him aid he might be able to frustrate him 
 utterly. Yet he was beginning to perceive that, should his 
 scheme in aught go awry, it would seem to Marcella as if 
 he had been foremost and active in the participation in the 
 deed which she deemed an infamous cruelty, and which her 
 father accounted a crime. His senses reeled as he sought 
 to escape his dilemma. He wished himself back at the 
 barn, leaving Jepson to conduct the affair at his own impe 
 rious will, and he wondered futilely and bitterly why he 
 should have come forth at all in obedience to an impulse 
 so strong, but so unreasoning. What had he, in his folly, 
 expected to do ? What could it avail to keep by Jepson s 
 side, and hold him under surveillance ? He realized acutely 
 that his simple brain was no instrument for clever schem 
 ing, that every course of action which he sought to plan 
 had only its preliminary impulse, thereafter dwindling to 
 vague nullity in lieu of logical sequences. Nevertheless, 
 he caught himself ever and anon casting sidelong glances 
 at Teck Jepson, informed with a wild inclination to spring 
 upon him unaware, and stifle his cries, and overbear him 
 
294 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDCE COVE. 
 
 for what ? Even the futureless Clem could look forward 
 far enough to anticipate the sallying forth of the reserves 
 at the barn after so long a time, in default of any sign from 
 the leader of the expedition. 
 
 " I don t wanter stan in Jake Baintree s shoes," he mut 
 tered, forecasting their fury if balked. His tone, though so 
 low, was audible, so silent was the night, to the man who 
 walked by his side. 
 
 Jepson cast a glance of deep objection upon him. 
 
 " His shoes air mebbe powerful safe foot-gear," he re 
 turned. " It depends on what he be a-doin of, an what 
 sort n account he kin gin o hisself. Ye air jes like them 
 men yander ; " he nodded his head backward toward the 
 barn. " They pear ter rate tharse fs with a pack o hounds 
 arter a wild critter what they hev got a nateral right ter 
 pull down. They fairly yelled ez ef they had struck the 
 trail o deer or bar, whenst they hearn that hammer fust 
 tech the metal." 
 
 Clem Sanders suddenly lost his scanty self-control. 
 
 " I know whar ye got all that thar fine talk from," he 
 flared out in jealous rage- ;< Powerful nice an perlite ter 
 be a-comparin baptized Christians ter hounds an sech. Ye 
 been a-talkin ter Marcelly Strobe. Them s her very 
 words." 
 
 The next moment, the tide of suspicion that had rolled 
 in so turnultuously upon him was ebbing gradually. Once 
 more he was to learn the irrevocability of a word given to 
 the air. The idea that sound-waves, once astir, infinitely 
 vibrate to perpetuate a record, albeit too subtle for mortal 
 ear, was not even a vague theory with him, but he experi 
 enced in some sort its practical illustration. Teck Jepson 
 had paused in the road, smitten motionless in amazement, 
 and the inadvertent Clem saw gradually dawning in his 
 eyes, widely opened and speculatively fixed upon him, the 
 counterpart of the view which he himself had entertained. 
 The inference was too plain for him to hope that it might 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 295 
 
 be passed over. It was now not difficult to divine his con 
 fidences, and where they had been bestowed. It was evi 
 dent, too, that with these words Marcella had received 
 them. 
 
 Jepson said nothing. He still stood where he had 
 paused, the moonlight a burnished glitter upon the barrel of 
 the pistol that he held in his hand. His face, white in the 
 pallid sheen, was reflective. He gazed now, not at Clem 
 Sanders, but beyond him, into the vague shimmer of the 
 frost amongst the black shadows of the woods ; the curled 
 dead leaves on the ground held within their curves the 
 fine sparkling incrustation ; every bramble of the under 
 growth close by the roadside showed lines of silver gleams, 
 and through the heavy interlacing boughs of the gigantic 
 trees above their heads, rising high into the clear air, 
 came the crystalline scintillation of the stars. Encircling 
 all, the mountains stood sombre and lofty, sharply defined 
 against the sky ; adown the road the heavy shadows 
 gloomed ; suddenly, athwart them a red light flared, and 
 the sigh of the bellows breathed forth. Teck Jepson, 
 reminded of their destination, turned abruptly from the 
 road, which they had hitherto followed, into the under 
 growth of the woods. 
 
 " Bes take ter the bresh," Jepson remarked in an under 
 tone. " They mought hev set a lookout ter watch the 
 road." 
 
 Despite its denudation by the autumnal storm, the 
 " brush " still afforded a dense covert, by reason of the 
 young growth of the pines, whose lower branches jutted 
 out level with the ground, and the predominance in its 
 midst of the ever-green laurel. The crestfallen Clem kept 
 close at Jepson s heels, as he pushed cautiously through the 
 shrubs, laden with the white rime and glittering with the 
 moon. Now and again some dry fallen bough cracked 
 beneath Clem s careless, heavy tread, and thorns of stripped 
 bushes caught and tore his garments, the rending of the 
 
296 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE, 
 fabric loud in the dumbness of the windless autumn nio-ht. 
 
 c> 
 
 And when this chanced Jepson cast over his shoulder a 
 warning glance, imposing silence and heed, so freighted 
 with the spirit of their expedition, so oblivious of all else, 
 that Clem, preposterously hopeful, began to breathe more 
 freely. Surely he had not so definitely committed himself 
 as he had feared. In the excitement of the moment, he 
 perchance did not distinguish between what he thought and 
 what he said. Jepson doubtless had not comprehended ; 
 had he not stood like a stock in the road and stared, mo 
 tionless and mute ? When he saw Jepson pause beneath the 
 gnarled, low-hanging boughs of a chestnut, gray with lichen, 
 and here and there glimmering icily as if in presentiment of 
 the coining snows, this idea had so possessed him that he 
 had no apprehension that his coadjutor had aught of sig 
 nificance to say. 
 
 Jepson lifted grave, intent eyes as Clem came stumbling 
 up. He was leaning, as he waited, against the tree. His 
 hat was thrust far back, and his face was all unshaded ; it 
 seemed melancholy, but the light was pensive, and his voice 
 had always those falling inflections. 
 
 " She war agin it, then," he said, and the tone had none 
 of the spirit of interrogation. 
 
 Clem took an unguarded step backward, recoiling as if 
 he had been struck. Then he clumsily recovered his equilib 
 rium, standing unsteadily on the uneven ground. He made 
 some feint of self-defense. 
 
 " Who air ye a-talkin bout ? " he demanded gruffly, 
 slouching his heavy shoulders forward and fixing his long, 
 narrow, gleaming eyes surlily on Jepson. 
 
 " Marcelly Strobe," Jepson answered promptly. " Ye 
 said she lowed them men war like hounds on a trail. She 
 war agin em, then." 
 
 Clem made still another desperate effort to shield himself. 
 " She said some men ginerally. How d she know cnny- 
 thin bout our goin s on ? " 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 297 
 
 " How d she know? Kase ye told her," retorted the 
 discerning Jepson. " An* it air ez much ez yer life air 
 wuth." 
 
 This knowledge, familiar enough to his own conscious 
 ness, became doubly impressive and coercively veracious in 
 another man s words. Clem Sanders, stout-hearted as he 
 was, felt the sudden thrill of panic. It sharpened his 
 faculties. 
 
 " It air jes ez likely ye told her ez me ef she knows" 
 he equivocated. " Hyar ye air, a-dilly-dallyin in the woods, 
 feard ter move hand or foot, doubtin bout whether she 
 air agin it or no. I ain t showed ez I set no sech store by 
 sech ez she thinks or don t think. Ef ennybody told her, 
 it mought jes ez well hev been you-uns" 
 
 Jepson s reproachful and surprised gaze dealt a poignant 
 wound to Clem s careless conscience, but it failed to elicit 
 confession. k - Ef she won t tell, the Lord knows / won t," 
 he thought, but knowing his uncontrollable tongue, he was 
 glad that Jepson began to speak of himself. 
 
 " I ain t one ter falter fur sech ez others say," protested 
 Jepson, " though I ain t got the pleasure in this hyar busi 
 ness ez folks in the old time peared ter take. Them in the 
 Bible never turned fur the sight o blood, an they hung 
 folks an chopped em into minch meat, an seemed ter find 
 a savor in sech doin s ez all my religion can t gin ! I can t 
 holp feelin sorter sorry fur the evil-doer wunst in a while, 
 specially whenst the avenger air hard on his track ; fur my 
 heart is weak an needs strengthenin from above. The 
 men o this day air pore, degenerate critters, an don t sense 
 jestice much more n Marcelly Strobe. But my hand air 
 nerved by a stronger power n I kin command, an I dare 
 all the mountings ter show the road whar I tuk the back 
 track, or tell the day." 
 
 He turned, resolutely pushing on toward the forge, and 
 Clem Sanders, greatly cast down and too much troubled to 
 even glance toward the future, kept at his elbow. 
 
298 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 The ringing clamor of the hammer came to them again 
 as they pressed on, not regular, but with fitful pauses ; and 
 by the time that they were at the verge of the woods they 
 heard voices, loudly conversing, casual voices. The tones 
 came from the forge, and alternated with the clink of the 
 hammer. 
 
 The next moment the little low-browed log shanty was 
 before them, seen through the arching vistas of the laurel 
 and the oak ; its slanting roof glistened with moisture ; the 
 crag loomed high above, with the sentinel pines on its sum 
 mit. Beyond the valley the dark mountains, black but for 
 dusky olive-green suggestions, were visible against the hori 
 zon ; and the moon, a sphere of gleaming pearl, swung 
 high in the violet sky. The long path of light it shed upon 
 the river stretched from bank to bank and seemed to part 
 the dark lustrous waters, and Jepson bethought himself of 
 that miraculous road in the midst of the Red Sea, when 
 Israel trod its ways dry shod, with the waves like a wall on 
 either hand. In front of the forge, a feeble red flare al 
 ternated with a fleeting brown flicker as the sigh of the 
 bellows again broke forth. When, suddenly, the two vigi 
 lantes stood in the broad, open doorway, a man was at the 
 anvil once more, and its keen, tine vibrations rang out 
 responsive to the shrill tone of the hand-hammer, for he had 
 no striker. 
 
 He did not move, for all he must have seen their eager 
 eyes fastened upon him. 
 
 " Hey ! " he cried out, with a gay intonation, not inter 
 mitting his labors. " Hello ! " 
 
 That he was a stranger, a man of medium size and slen 
 derly built, bending over the anvil in the shadow, since the 
 fire languished for the lack of the breath of the bellows, was 
 the merely momentary impression made upon Jepson s mind. 
 His eyes fell upon a woman sitting on an inverted keg in 
 the red light of the dusky, half-illumined room ; he did not 
 recognize her instantly, although she rose at once and 
 advanced upon them. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 299 
 
 Clem Sanders stepped back, a look of astounded doubt, 
 as if he could not believe his eyes, contending with the cer 
 tainty in his face. For the woman was his mother. 
 
 " Waal, I hev hunted fur ye, an hunted," she addressed 
 him in a tone of acrid exasperation. " An I hollered an 
 hollered. An I sent leetle Silas hyar " she pointed to 
 a small nephew of Clem s, a frequent visitor at the black 
 smith s house, whom Jepson had not seen until this moment, 
 a tow-headed urchin of twelve, who sat in a crouching 
 position on the hub of a broken wheel which lay on the 
 floor " ter hunt fur ye, an he could n t find ye. Hyar s 
 a strange man in the Cove kem up ter the house a-sarchin 
 fur ye, an wantin a leetle job o blacksmithin done, an ye 
 can t be rooted out from nowhar ! " 
 
 She was a tall, angular, thin-faced woman, with an ex 
 pression of gravity and care in her lined features, and she 
 had a tone that boded the rigors of domestic inquisition as 
 she demanded, " Whar hev ye been ? " 
 
 Clem s wildly anxious glance at his tools in the stranger s 
 hands availed nothing. The account of himself was evi 
 dently the essential preliminary. 
 
 Jepson touched his shoulder with his own as a secret 
 warning, as they stood side by side in the door of the forge, 
 but had the disclosure been far more significant the hap-haz- 
 ard Clem would have nevertheless blurted it out as he did. 
 
 " In the barn," he replied. 
 
 " Ye air tellin a story," his mother retorted, with a man 
 ner reprehensive certainly, but with a coolness as if con 
 templating an offense of infinitely multiplied precedents. 
 " I sent leetle Silas ter the barn, an he lowed ye war n t 
 thar, though he hearn harnts talkin in the loft, an they 
 made him feard. An ," lifting her bony arm, shaking her 
 forefinger, and lowering her voice impressively, as if fairly 
 cornering him, " I sent him agin ter climb up inter the 
 loft, ez no harnts would hurt him with me so nigh, an he 
 kem back, an ," triumphantly, " he say ye war n t thar, 
 nuther." 
 
300 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 The small Silas, disingenuous beyond his years and size, 
 turned his eyes, which were of a very light color, and with 
 a superabundance of white, that made them marked even in 
 the duskiness, with a pleading apprehensiveness upon his 
 uncle, but the excited, confused Clem was quaking, even at 
 this moment, with the danger overpast. How closely dis 
 covery had approached the vigilantes in the barn ! He had 
 not his wits sufficiently about him to reproach his mother 
 for believing the deceptive Silas rather than himself. 
 
 " Whar hev ye been ? " she demanded anew. Then with 
 the impetus of her long pent-up rebukes constraining her she 
 went on without waiting for an answer. 
 
 " Hyar be this hyar man, obligated ter hev his tools 
 mended, kase his work calls him betimes ter-morrer by day 
 light, an him a stranger in the Cove, an he lowed mebbe he 
 mought git a leetle blacksmithin done, though t war arter 
 dark, bein ez his work called him far up in the mountings 
 by daylight. An me an Silas kem down hyar ter see ef 
 we-uns could find yer tools, bein ez ye war nowhar, so ez 
 he could patch his pick hisse f. He lowed he knowed suthin 
 bout blacksmithin " 
 
 " Mighty leetle, I 11 be bound ! " cried Clem, his profes 
 sional consciousness restored by this arrogation on the part 
 of the stranger. He dropped the hang-dog look that he had 
 worn under his mother s lecture, and strode with his habit 
 ual easy, confident air across the room and stood beside the 
 anvil, watching the amateur smith s performance with an 
 air of silent, repressed ridicule and half-smiling scorn. 
 
 " Go ahead," he observed, with affected encouragement, 
 as the young stranger looked up and hesitated. " What air 
 ye goin ter do now, bet it some mo ? " as the other 
 turned doubtfully toward the fire. " Ho ! ho ! " with a 
 manner of bluff superiority. " Shucks ! Git out o the way, 
 my frien . Lemme show ye what blacksmithin air." 
 
 He shouldered the stranger summarily from his own post 
 at the anvil, then paused to take up the bit of iron, on which 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 301 
 
 the amateur had been working, and shook his head smil 
 ingly, as if with an unspeakable contempt, as he carefully 
 surveyed this handiwork. He turned and thrust it amongst 
 the coals, evidently rejecting it as a mere beginning, and 
 starting the process anew. 
 
 " I m willing," the stranger said, with a laugh, as if ac 
 cepting good-naturedly this cavalier criticism ; and Jepson 
 divined that he did not consider proficiency at the anvil the 
 chief object of existence. The amateur smith, however, 
 offered to work the bellows, but Clem, with a contemptuous 
 "Don t take two men ter do a leetle job like this," dis 
 couraged further proffers of assistance, and then bent 
 himself to the work with as complete an absorption as if 
 there were no ban(^ of expectant, eager, bloodthirsty men 
 waiting at the barn for a signal, and as if Teck Jepson s 
 presence, as he stood in the door, were not more significant 
 than his daily loitering there. 
 
 The white light of the fire flaring up as Clem worked 
 the bellows with one hand, while holding the metal in the 
 coals with the other, revealed the stranger to the scrutiny 
 of Jepson, who, recovering from his surprise, was taking 
 due note of him. He sought to be just; to contend with 
 mere suspicion ; to separate his consideration of the subject 
 from the personal interest that persistently linked itself 
 with the circumstances. How much had Marcella known ? 
 Had she taken any action in the matter ? And with what 
 motive ? He could not banish these thoughts, however, as 
 he gazed at the stranger, who leaned against the elevated 
 hearth, affecting to watch the smith s work, but with a 
 tense, alert attitude, and a wary eye that ever and anon 
 furtively sought the silent figure standing in the broad, 
 moonlit doorway, with the dark landscape, silver-flecked, 
 vaguely visible in the background. His light hair made 
 his head very definite against the black and sooty hood of 
 the forge. Now and then he put up a slender hand, and 
 pulled his long, yellow mustache with a gesture and man- 
 
302 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 ner alien to the mountains. His attitude and garb, the 
 very shape of his boot, marked and individualized him. 
 He was not of the region. 
 
 None of this did Clem Sanders observe as he worked. 
 Once he held up the precious little tongs. "This is yer 
 doin ," he said reproachfully, indicating a small protuber 
 ance where the piece, broken off, had been welded on again. 
 
 The stranger burst into a laugh, showing his strong white 
 teeth beneath his yellow mustache. A pleasant face he had, 
 with this more jovial expression upon it. Clem Sanders s 
 frown relaxed as he looked at him. 
 
 " So you ve found me out, have you ? This ain t the first 
 time I ve been here," he said easily. 
 
 And then, although it might not be s{iid how it was done, 
 for there was not a perceptible lifting of an eyelid nor a 
 hair s-breadth turning of the head, Teck Jepson was aware 
 that the stranger had covertly noted the effect of the words 
 upon him. Already he had made the distinction between 
 the two men as to which was to be feared. 
 
 "Yes, that s a fac ! " cried Mrs. Sanders, with an un 
 wonted animation. The singular event in her dull experi 
 ence had roused a not unpleasurable excitement, and she had 
 regarded the absorption of the two at the anvil with a re 
 luctant sense of being shut out from continued participation, 
 and having reached a finality. The allusion to the past 
 revived her capacity for extracting interest from the cir 
 cumstance. " What d ye think, Clem ? This hyar man 
 lows ez one night, not so long ago, he started over the 
 mountings, ter kem down hyar ter git his pickaxe mended, 
 it war bruk, an he los his way, an miscalc lated his 
 time somehows, an t war middlin late fore he got hyar. 
 An he kem ter the house, an knocked an knocked, an 
 never rousted up nobody. So ha, ha ! " the detail seemed 
 to commend itself to Mrs. Sanders s sense of humor, as she 
 sat bolt upright on the keg of nails and recounted ; " so ez 
 he war goin back he passed by hyar, an a suddint thought 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 303 
 
 streck him : he jes kindled up the fire, thar war a few 
 coals lef alive, an mended his tool hisse f. He say he 
 jes wondered what we-ims would hev said ef we hed woke, 
 an seen the light an hearn the hammer ! I d hev lowed 
 t war Satan, or a harnt, one." 
 
 She folded her arms, and with a deft motion of her head 
 shook her sun-bonnet a little further back, that she might 
 turn her smile upon the stranger ; not so pleasing a demon 
 stration as its good-nature might have desired to make it, 
 for she had lost several of her front teeth, and those that 
 were left were conspicuous in their isolation. It showed 
 Teck Jepson that the stranger had succeeded in winning 
 her good opinion ; and even Clem, more thoroughly informed 
 though he was, lifted his eyebrows and looked significantly 
 at his coadjutor, evidently accepting this candid and obvious 
 explanation of the mystery. Jepson began to see that he 
 need expect nothing but hindrance from both mother and 
 son, and that the least plausible wiles might prove effica 
 cious to hoodwink these simple souls. He still stood in the 
 doorway, but leaning against its frame, his arms folded 
 across his broad chest, his hat far back on his head ; and 
 although he often gazed up speculatively at the moon, whose 
 light was full in his face, he saw that the stranger still held 
 his every movement under notice, and gave him the atten 
 tion of a speculative glance after every phrase, as if seek 
 ing to judge how it impressed him. 
 
 The pause was broken only by a cricket, in some shel 
 tered nook among the eaves, and a wheezing coughing that 
 Silas presently set up, as if some of the lies he had told 
 were choking him, as he crouched on the hub of the broken 
 wheel. But when Mrs. Sanders remarked, that she would 
 give him some hoarhound when she got him to the house, 
 he contrived to swallow them all, and relapsed into wide- 
 eyed silence. 
 
 " That was the time I broke the tongs. I was here once 
 besides," said the stranger, who seemed to feel more and 
 more at ease. 
 
304 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 " Ye don t say ! " exclaimed Mrs. Sanders, who evidently 
 thought the intrusions a great joke. 
 
 "Waal, stranger," said Teck Jepson, and the man s 
 nerves became tense and his face rigid and watchful the 
 moment the melancholy, drawling, mellow voice sounded on 
 the air, " what mought yer work be on the mounting ? " 
 
 Mrs. Sanders cast a glance of indignant reproof at her 
 neighbor, for the slighest manifestation of curiosity con 
 cerning another s affairs is a flagrant breach of mountain 
 etiquette. 
 
 But the stranger answered quickly, as if he were pre 
 pared to meet the question and glad to have it asked. He 
 had a sudden, sharply clipped method of enunciation, 
 doubly marked in contrast with the mountaineer s elonga 
 tion of the vowels. His words were even more compact 
 and staccato than their wont. 
 
 " I m prospecting, prospecting for silver." 
 
 There was a momentary silence. Even Clem held the 
 hammer poised for an instant, while the iron glowed on the 
 anvil, and looked contemptuous comment from out his long, 
 narrow, twinkling eyes. Mrs. Sanders observed, " Law, 
 stranger, ain t ye got no better sense n that ? Thar ain t 
 no silver in these mountings, leastwise none the yearth s 
 a-goin ter spare. Jes enough ter fool fellers inter wastin 
 thar time." 
 
 " An breakin the p ints off n thar good pickaxes," added 
 Clem, examining the implement with some interest ; " fust- 
 rate one, too, oughter las ye a long time." 
 
 Jepson watched the stranger color with vexation ; then 
 recovering himself he casually observed, " I reckon may be 
 I 11 come up with a little silver, after a while ; indications 
 are first-rate." 
 
 " Thar war a man," Jepson began abruptly, " he lived 
 hyarabouts five year ago an better he b lieved thar war 
 silver hyar. He got put down in the mouth of a cave ; his 
 partner done it ; he war n t seen no more." 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. m 305 
 
 The stranger s light brown eyes were all afire. He leaned 
 forward, and held out one arm to Jepson. " Say ! " he ex 
 claimed, " do you know where that exact cave is ? " 
 
 Jepson turned an impassive look upon him. " Dunno the 
 edzac spot, an don t want ter know." 
 
 A patent disappointment was on the stranger s face. 
 Then he said, " I ain t one of the kind that gets put down 
 in caves ; you needn t be uneasy about me." 
 
 This was something in the nature of a flippant retort. He 
 was evidently sorry for it immediately afterward, and there 
 was a deprecatory expression on his face as he looked at 
 Jepson, who, however, showed no sign of feeling of any 
 sort as he inquired, 
 
 Who did ye hev ter strike fur ye when ye kem ter the 
 forge ? Could ye do sech work by yerself ? " 
 
 He fixed his contemplative eyes on the stranger s face- 
 It was not an ingenuous face, but the circumstances were 
 coercive, and it showed the heed, the fear, the vacillating 
 hope, that animated him as he replied, "Yes, I had Jake 
 Baintree to strike for me." 
 
 His lips were dry. He bit the nether one hard as he 
 looked at Jepson, seeing in his eyes thr.t he understood 
 much, much that was not said. 
 
 For Jepson knew well that this man had been warned, 
 and that he had flung himself for safety upon the truth, 
 perchance with some slight admixture, realizing that the 
 boldness of innocence alone could rescue him. As to Bain- 
 tree, it was eminently in character that he should cringe, and 
 cower, and lurk in hiding, knowing that the investigation 
 by vigilantes impended. 
 
 Nevertheless, despite Clem s confidences to Marcella and 
 the warning which she had doubtless conveyed, it was evi 
 dent that the facts could be elicited here and now as well as 
 if the men had been taken by surprise. The stranger made 
 no resistance to the inquiry, and this indicated that he rec 
 ognized its inevitable character, and had not sought to shirk 
 
306 TUE, DESPOT OF BROOUSEDGE COVE. 
 
 it. Jepson went on steadily, unmoved by any consideration 
 save the effort to perform his duty to the organization that 
 had intrusted him with his mission. But notwithstanding 
 its paramount interest, it seemed secondary in importance, 
 in Clem s estimation, to the necessity of forging the bit of 
 metal on the anvil, and the subsequent conversation took 
 place annotated by his ringing blows, from which the 
 stranger, his nerves on the rack, palpably recoiled, but 
 which had scant effect on the more impassive mountaineer, 
 save to induce him to slightly lift his voice. 
 
 " How long hev ye been bidin in the mountings ? " 
 
 " Since August." 
 
 " Dell-law ! " commented Mrs. Sanders. " Ye hev kep 
 yerse f mightily ter yerse f ; I 11 say that fur ye." 
 
 The logical inference might be that she commended his 
 magnanimity in sparing them his society. But the good 
 woman meant nothing of this kind, her exclamation being 
 simply a rural formula. 
 
 " Who hev ye bided with? " demanded Jepson. 
 
 The stranger colored slightly. Then making an effort to 
 put the matter in its most favorable aspect, he replied with 
 some show of communicativeness : 
 
 " With Baintree. You see I was his doctor I am a 
 physician by profession when he was in jail in Glaston, 
 the regular jail - physician being ill himself, and Baintree 
 told me about the silver mine he thought he had discovered. 
 So I came to see if it were true. I happen to know some 
 thing about mining. But Jake, he s a queer fish, he 
 was n t willing for anybody to know what we were after. I 
 believe he never tells me truly where his best find was ; he 
 thinks somebody will chouse him out of it yet." 
 
 " Ez ef ennybody would hev it," exclaimed Mrs. Sanders, 
 with sweeping contempt, " an ez ef thar war enny ter 
 hev ! " 
 
 " Whar hev ye bided with him ? " asked Jepson, seem 
 ingly all unaffected by any phase of the detail. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 307 
 
 " Waal, Teck Jepson ! " cried Mrs. Sanders, scandalized by 
 his curiosity, as she construed his persistence, " ye mils hev 
 heel yer tongue iled. I hev never hearn sech a lot o whys 
 an wharfores ez it hev got on ter the e-end o it ter-night." 
 
 But the catechumen responded at once, scarcely waiting 
 for her to finish her sentence. " We stayed for a while in 
 a deserted house, the old Jepson house, he said it was." 
 
 " His n ! " broke in Mrs. Sanders, identifying the locality 
 joyously, and pointing Jepson out still more unmistakably 
 with a long, bony index-finger. 
 
 " Is it yours ? " said the young stranger. " Well, the owner 
 came and fired out our traps, one day. while we were gone, 
 so we went to another deserted cabin, up near the summit 
 of the mountain." 
 
 * Mighty cur ous way ter be a-livin ," commented Mrs. 
 Sanders, with a very definite infusion of scorn. " An fur 
 a silver mine, ez mought be in the mountings, an then agin 
 mought n t. Look-a-hyar, stranger, ain t ye quainted with 
 nobody in Brumsaitlge Cove mo spectable n Jake Bain- 
 tree ? " 
 
 There was a sudden triumph in the young man s face. 
 He shook himself free from his unpalatable confessions, as 
 if they had been a cloak falling from his shoulders. I m 
 acquainted with some very respectable people, verv good 
 people. I in well acquainted with the Strobe family." 
 
 He had lived somewhat in the world, and was aware that 
 in some places people have been known to prop their social 
 standing by bragging of their acquaintances. He had never 
 thought that this necessity would supervene for him in 
 Broomsedge Cove. 
 
 " Dell-law ! " exclaimed Mrs. Sanders, seeming as de 
 lighted to meet the Strobes in the desolation of the stran 
 ger s social circle which had consisted, apparently, of 
 Jake Baintree as if she had encountered them in the soli 
 tude of a desert island. " Old Mis Strobe ! " 
 
 " Yes, old Mrs. Strobe," he said, " and the young girls, 
 Miss Marcella and little Isabel." 
 
308 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 The impartial, judicial interest with which Teck Jepson 
 had listened gave way suddenly. His eyes were deeply 
 glowing, and fastened intently on the stranger s face. His 
 cheek had flushed darkly. Somehow the idea of the warn 
 ing that Marcella had conveyed had suggested to his mind 
 no personal association. She had told Baintree, perhaps, 
 he had thought, or she had sent a message. But her name 
 upon the stranger s lips the very sound of it odd and in 
 congruous, with his unfamiliar accent and the unwonted and 
 punctilious title intimated abruptly the possibility of a 
 personal interest, of a longer acquaintance, of a future of 
 which Jepson had never dreamed. She had risked much, 
 with the transparent blacksmith to know that she was in 
 possession of the secret, she had risked much. And what 
 a dapper, slender, handsome young fool was this silver hun 
 gry stranger ! 
 
 " An Eli ! " cried Mrs. Sanders in a shrill crescendo of 
 pleasurable reminiscence. 
 
 " I never knew him before he was injured. But I had a 
 long talk with him this evening, and " he drew out his 
 watch composedly " I promised him that I would come 
 back if not too late, after I got through at the forge here. 
 A very respectable family, and very hospitable." 
 
XVII. 
 
 Ix Clem Sanders s ingenuous face was expressed at this 
 moment a sudden illogical, full-fledged anger and doubt, as 
 in the slow processes of his brain was revolved the idea of 
 the stranger s claim to consideration on the score of a friend 
 ship with the Strobe family. He repudiated it as a figment. 
 The normal repulsion for a cold-blooded lie, as he fancied 
 this to be, chilled even his good nature. He had been weak, 
 he knew, in treacherously revealing the secrets of his asso 
 ciates to Marcella, and he had incurred thereby heavy risks. 
 He was willing, since it was her wish, that this folly should 
 be utilized to save the man s life. But he had revolted 
 from sharing in the subsequent deceptions, from the double- 
 masked character which he was forced to assume, one of 
 the chief of the vigilantes and the secret ally of the culprit. 
 His conclusions had a certain quality of absolute conviction, 
 which triumphantly dispensed with logic. 
 
 u Ye don t know the Strobe fambly ! " he said suddenly. 
 " Ye never hearn o nare one o em till this evenin in yer 
 born days, thout t war through yer frien Jake Bain- 
 tree s vaporin s an maunderin s bout folks he ain t fit ter 
 sociate with. Eli bein a candidate fur office so frequent, 
 he hev a heap o wuthless folks a-hangin round him, created 
 by God A mighty furnuthin in this worl but ter vote at the 
 polls. Naw, sir ! ye ain t reg lar quainted with none o the 
 Strobe fambly ! " 
 
 He had ceased to work at the anvil. His brow showed 
 several corrugations in straight lines, his eyebrows were ele 
 vated, his narrow, long eyes were grave, his square jaw was 
 hard set. He still held the uplifted hammer in his hand, 
 
310 THE DESPOT OF BROOUSEDGE COVE. 
 
 and as a specimen of physical force he might have been 
 somewhat awe-inspiring to the slightly huilt stranger ; but 
 the paramount impression which he received was that this 
 was Marcella s informant, whose name she had not dis 
 closed, this bold and inconsequent Vulcan, the traitor to 
 the League of Vigilantes. 
 
 u Now crow a little louder, my cock, and I 11 have your 
 friends wring your neck, in short order ! " he said to himself, 
 feeling still master of the situation. 
 
 Outwardly he was dumb, silently marking the blacksmith s 
 demonstration with watchful eyes, leaning against the ele 
 vated hearth, the tips of his lingers thrust in the pockets of 
 his trousers. 
 
 " Clem Sanders," said the blacksmith s mother, much dis 
 pleased, " nuthin in this worl air so becomin ter a fool ez 
 a shet mouth. Then folks kin only jedge o what God 
 A mighty war in his wisdom disposed ye should look like." 
 
 But Clem, usually a dutiful son, gave her no notice. 
 
 " I m a-reelin ye out cornsider ble line, ennyhow," he 
 continued. " I 11 haul ye in, though, in about three shakes 
 o a dead sheep s tail, ef ye go ter tryin ter purtend ez ye 
 an Jake Baintree air favored guests yander at Strobe s." 
 
 For the sake of carrying out the theory on which he had 
 conducted his share in the episode, the stranger, feigning to 
 understand no more than the surface of affairs might be 
 token, lifted his eyebrows as in surprise, and shrugged his 
 shoulders with a sophisticated gesture intimating a facile 
 concession. 
 
 " I meant no offense, I m sure ; I should n t have men 
 tioned it. I had no idea the Strobes were so exclusive ! " 
 He could not have forborne this fling, had his life depended 
 on his withholding it. " But, my good fellow, don t question 
 me. Ask them if they know me. They will tell you, and 
 as you are so polite you will certainly believe them." 
 
 The blacksmith lowered at him, the red light of the 
 dwindling forge fire on his broad face and bare throat and 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 311 
 
 herculean arm. Only a portion of the reply was intelligible 
 to him, but he caught the covert satire it conveyed, and the 
 method of glib enunciation, with quick, flexible motions of 
 the eyelids and lips, the alert turn of the head, the gleam of 
 innuendo in the eye implying bridled retorts that chafed at 
 the curb of fear, all repelled him. He felt a sudden ebbing 
 away of confidence, of his credulity. He began illogically 
 to doubt every statement the stranger had made. Even the 
 pick in his hand how well it was mended, better than 
 new ; the goodly handicraft ! was in some sort a blind, a 
 disguise, a subterfuge. He frowned more darkly still as he 
 sought to divine the rascality that must lurk behind this feint 
 of mining. 
 
 Mrs. Sanders, still sitting on the keg, yawned with a 
 somnolent vocal refrain, and then rose stiffly to her feet ; 
 this gesture roused little Silas from a state of galvanic jerks 
 and nods in which he had been indulging, his white eyeballs 
 quite eclipsed, or now and then half showing unnaturally 
 upturned. He began to rub his eyes violently as he shuf 
 fled up from his seat on the hub, taking scant notice of the 
 fact that where there is a hub, spokes are of the vicinage ; 
 he stumbled over one or two of these, and fell in sprawling 
 fashion almost to the door. " Thar, now ! What did I tell 
 ye ! " Mrs. Sanders exclaimed acridly. And yet she had 
 not told him anything. 
 
 But Silas, who had voice enough for much loud whooping, 
 when such demonstrations were timely, seemed to be frugal 
 in volume on ordinary occasions, and it was in a very thin 
 wheeze that he made haste to stipulate that he " war n t hurt 
 nowhar," in a manner that implied that if he were injured 
 he might expect to have his bruises multiplied at the hands 
 of Mrs. Sanders, by way of annotating the lesson he had re 
 ceived to take more care. 
 
 Mrs. Sanders wore a disaffected air. All her interest in 
 the events of the evening had evaporated in the prospect of 
 a wrangle among the young men. She was of pacific prin- 
 
312 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 ciples, although her practices were not such as always tended 
 to preserve the peace of the neighborhood, since she arro 
 gated the prerogative of censorship in many particulars, and 
 earnestly resented the right of reciprocation. If angry 
 words were to be spoken, she liked them best of her own 
 framing, and zealously and fearlessly applied them. But 
 she sincerely deprecated a quarrel that was not of her own 
 making, and her second yawn as candidly denoted that she 
 was bored as her first. 
 
 " Ef ye boys air a-goin ter take ter quar lin , I be a-goin 
 home," she remarked, as if this were a threat. 
 
 There was no direct reply, but the stranger looked at her 
 with covert alarm and shame and entreaty contending in his 
 eyes. It humiliated him to be so definitely conscious of the 
 fact, but her presence here was a protection to him in some 
 sort, and he leaned even upon so slight a thing as the pre 
 possession in his favor with which he had inspired her. She 
 did not notice, or she did not interpret, the protest in his 
 eyes, as she and little Silas took their way through the 
 broad open door, and ii to that night of moonlight and 
 shadow. Not all of pensive mystery, not all of melancholy 
 magic, were these ethereal elements of contrast. Some 
 elvish spirit informed a phase with fine-spun mirth, that 
 failed not though none was there to see ; a tricksy fantasy 
 cut the leaves into grotesque shapes ; with a delicate twang 
 ing note snapped a twig to test the acoustic properties of 
 the crystalline silence ; furnished the skulking fox with a 
 nimble and crafty double to pursue him, at which he 
 glanced over his shoulder askance ; sprang up behind Mrs. 
 Sanders and little Silas, following them in their own like 
 ness to see them home through the woods, the silhouette 
 of her long, gaunt figure, with its grotesque sun-bonnet, and 
 Silas s small bifurcated image, with a slouched hat and a 
 big head. The stranger did not watch them out of sight, 
 for he became aware the next instant that Jepson had 
 moved. The mountaineer had left the door, and was 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 313 
 
 slowly advancing upon the two as they stood at the anvil. 
 His face was quite unmoved, placid and dispassionate in its 
 expression, but there was something in his eye which the 
 stranger felt it might be well to note. Jepson paused, put 
 ting one hand upon the anvil, and looking full and search- 
 ingly into the intruder s face he said, 
 
 " What mought be yer name, stranger ? " 
 
 " Rathburn, Eugene Rathburn." 
 
 Both mountaineers pondered upon this silently for a time. 
 
 " Ye lowed ye war a doctor ? " said Jepson. 
 
 " Certainly I am," replied Rathburn. " That s how I 
 happened to know Baintree. I attended him when he was 
 ill in prison." 
 
 "Waal," Jepson tapped the pickaxe significantly, 
 " ain t this a powerful cur ous bizness fur sech ? " 
 
 W T hy," Rathburn sought to laugh as he began to ex 
 plain, " I m young as yet. I have no large practice. If 
 I should find ore in quantities like the specimens Baintree 
 shows," despite his fears his eyes glowed, "I should 
 be a wealthy man, a millionaire ! " 
 
 He looked zestfully at the stolidly attentive mountaineers. 
 They were alike incapable of sharing or understanding an 
 enthusiasm such as this. A vague mental numbness, a sort 
 of paralysis, began to steal over him, as he gradually real 
 ized how impossible it was to explain to them the greed for 
 wealth, to move them to the love of riches. Yet he returned 
 once more to the attempt : 
 
 "Why, it would be a godsend to all this country. It 
 would be opened out. You would all get rich, new peo 
 ple in droves would come in. You would all get rich ! " 
 
 The two mountaineers looked at one another. 
 
 " Thar ain t nobody so special pore hyar, though some is 
 better off n others," observed Jepson calmly. 
 
 " You would all become educated and live high, like the 
 k valley folks. " 
 
 " La ws-a massy, I pray ter God I 11 never be like no val- 
 
314 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 ley folks ! " protested Clem. " Meanes blacksmith, cept- 
 in you-uns, I ever knowed kem from Colbury. Yes, sir ; 
 Grenup war his name." 
 
 " If you could strike paying ore on that little farm of 
 yours," the stranger, turning to Jepson, still essayed the 
 subject, " you might sell it for thousands and thousands 
 of dollars." 
 
 " I could n t sell it at all," said Jepson definitely. " My 
 folks is all buried thar." 
 
 Kathburn looked at him with an expression which pre 
 cedes a burst of astonished laughter, caught himself in time, 
 and said no more. 
 
 " So this air what hev brung ye from home an f rien s, an 
 kith an kin, ter hunt the mountings along of a murderer 
 fur a silver mine," said Jepson sternly. 
 
 Rathburn quailed slightly, but sought to defend himself. 
 " He is no murderer. The jury acquitted him." 
 
 " D ye happen ter know whar s Sam l Keale, the man he 
 didn t kill, then?" 
 
 " Of course I don t," said Rathburn, visibly nettled. " I 
 can only take the verdict of the jury on such questions. I 
 have no right to go behind that." 
 
 " Waal, I don t need twelve men ter swear my brains 
 inter my head," declared Jepson. " Whar s Sam l Keale ? " 
 
 The words rang out with the sonorous intensity of his 
 voice. A faint echo came from the crag above the forge. 
 The moonlight stood motionless in the door. Without, the 
 frosty woods glittered. 
 
 " Whar s Sam l Keale ? " he cried again. " Look-a-hyar, 
 stranger." He turned abruptly, and, with a lowered tone 
 and a fiery eye, he laid his hand upon Rathburn s arm, who 
 shrank under his touch. " Ye axed me whar s the mouth 
 o the cave whar Baintree hid him. The critter never tole ! 
 An / fund Sam l Keale s coat. An / fund Sam l Keale s 
 hat, in a gorge they never sarched. God an the mountings 
 only know the hidden place, an in thar mystery they will 
 not reveal it." 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COTE. 315 
 
 The stranger broke forth impetuously. " Then you, you 
 can tell me where that gorge is, and we can search the 
 chasms ! I feel sure that the silver is there, where the man 
 lost his life, the silver " 
 
 Jepson flung away from him with a gesture so abrupt that 
 Rathburn paused suddenly. 
 
 " What ails ye, man," cried the mountaineer, " to talk of 
 silver in the midst o the wharfores o life an death, an 
 a-sarchin the gorge fur gain stiddier jestice ? The place 
 air nuthin ter you-uns but the hope o gittin the riches 
 what one man los his life fur, an the t other man tuk it. 
 What sorter critter be ye ? His eyes were blazing with 
 reproach. 4k What sorter critter be ye ? " 
 
 " A sane one, I hope," retorted the stranger, fairly over 
 taken. tk I m not intrusted with the administration of the 
 laws. I have no right to sit in judgment on the justice of 
 Jake Baintree s acquittal. And it won t make Samuel 
 Keale any deader than he is if he is dead for me to 
 find silver where he looked for it." 
 
 u Ye air free fur me ter find it," said Jepson, but some 
 time ye 11 low the day ye los yer soul in the gorge, an tuk 
 silver fur its price, war a powerful dark day, the fore 
 runner o darker ones, an eternal gloom." 
 
 * I m not going to lose my soul there ! " cried Rathburn. 
 " I am going to take very excellent care of my soul. I am 
 going to strike it rich and be mighty good. Nothing in this 
 world combines like goodness and prosperity, natural 
 affinities. All the good people are prosperous, and that is 
 why they are so good. Adversity sours on the stomach, 
 and deranges the nervous system, and produces crime." 
 
 Jepson s eyes rested slightingly upon him. 
 
 "Ye kin persevere, fur I ain t of a mind ter bender." 
 
 Rathburn looked wistfully at him ; so flinchingly was he 
 sensible of this arrogance of permission, so did he yearn to 
 flout and retort. Much as he had dared, he hardly dared 
 this. 
 
316 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 " I see no harm in sech ez ye hev said o yer goin s on, 
 ceptin it air o the pride an the willfulness o the devil ; 
 an ef he hev a mind ter mark ye fur his own, I dunno ez 
 I feel called on in ennywise ter stay his hand. But thar 
 may be deceitfulness in yer words, fur I know ye war 
 warned aforehand by a woman." 
 
 Rathburn palpably started ; his eyes distended as he 
 gazed at his self-constituted judge. How omniscient the 
 masterful mountaineer seemed ! 
 
 Jepson lingered, he hardly knew why. on this phase, de 
 spite the pain with which it was fraught. " Leastwise a 
 gal," he continued, elaborately particularizing. " She 
 warned ye. An ye hev hed time ter collogue with Jake 
 Baintree, a skeery devil ; I s pose he war fraid ter kem, 
 an make up lies ter tell when questioned. But ye know 
 now ez ye air watched. Ef ye falter from the straight line, 
 it 11 go hard with ye. Take heed ter yer feet, fur ye will 
 find thar air men in Brumsaidge ez will medjure each 
 pace." 
 
 He terminated the interview abruptly, making no sign of 
 conclusion or farewell, moving with his long, deliberate, 
 supple stride toward the door and out along the moonlit road. 
 
 Clem Sanders lingered. He felt that he would like to 
 close his doors behind the audacity that, unlearned in the 
 art, essayed to work at his forge, and to protect the little 
 tongs and swage and hammer for each of which, in the 
 moment of its danger, he felt an almost paternal solici 
 tude from all non-professional intermeddling. He was 
 placing them in their wonted order, according to his habit, 
 when he suddenly noticed that the stranger had not moved. 
 Rathburn was still standing, gazing steadfastly after Jep- 
 son s his whole attitude informed with resentment and agi 
 tation and the thirst for revenge, and his face bespeaking 
 the passion and turmoil of his heart. 
 
 He turned with a quick gesture, as he became conscious 
 that the blacksmith s eyes were upon him. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOVSEDGE COVE. 317 
 
 " What s that man s name ? " he demanded. 
 
 Clem Sanders was aware that in some sort he had pro 
 duced a less forceful impression than his ally ; that his re 
 cent anger and taunts were easily overlooked, and his prob 
 lematic opinions were held as of scant consequence. A 
 trifle of surliness was engendered by the perception that he 
 was thus ignored, and he mumbled rather than pronounced 
 his coadjutor s name. 
 
 "Well, what s the reason he takes so much on himself, 
 damn him ! " cried Rathburn recklessly. 
 
 " Sorter robustious," explained Jepson s facile associate. 
 
 " Sorter robustious ! Good Lord ! Sets me free, and 
 conditions me, as if Don t anybody make any head 
 against him ? " 
 
 " T ain t wuth while ter try. Folks sorter like Teck, 
 an sorter don t. But they f oiler arter him. An ," with a 
 recurrent desire to do justice, " thar s one thing ez goes a 
 long way with most folks : he s mighty religious." 
 
 " Religious ! Oh, Lord ! " exclaimed Rathburn in a fer 
 vor of amazement. 
 
 Clem began to enjoy the role of biographer, since so 
 fevered an interest hung on his words. 
 
 " A plumb survigrous saint, he is. He hev got a mighty 
 fine voice fur quirin . When he sings, it sounds some like 
 the mountings hed bruk out a-psalmin ." 
 
 " How many men did he have at your barn to-night ? " 
 
 Clem Sanders gave him a long stare. " Ye wanter know 
 too much. Ef I war a smart man, I d stop hyar an forge 
 me an you-uns a chain ter tie up these hyar tongues o 
 ourn. I hev done talked too much a ready. Ef I hed n t, 
 ye d be a-danglin powerful limp ter one o them trees," 
 nodding his head toward the great bare limbs, " stone 
 dead, an the buzzards would be hevin a high time mongst 
 yer bones by ter-morrer." 
 
 It was not a pleasant picture under the blacksmith s crude 
 touch, but its power was heightened by a sense of its abso- 
 
318 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 lute veracity, and the very close propinquity it had to being 
 an event instead of a possibility. Rathburn shuddered a 
 little. 
 
 " It was you who let the secret slip, then," he said, his 
 face flushing slightly. A hot, infrequent moisture had risen 
 suddenly to his eyes. " That lovely, noble girl ! " he fal 
 tered. 
 
 Sanders lost the final words in his eagerness to impress 
 his theory of the clemency extended to the intruder, or it 
 might have been tempered. 
 
 " Ye see, stranger, I hev got a tongue ez minds me o a 
 cow a-swimmin . Ter see the critter ker-wallop round in 
 the water ye d think t war n t goin nowhar in special, an 
 fore ye know it the beastis air out n ear-shot. An Teck 
 air a sorter I-dunno-what I tell all I know when he 
 air around ; an ef ye 11 b lieve me, he got it outer me ez 
 we-uns war a-kemin down hyar, ez I hed let out the secret 
 ter Marcelly Strobe, an she war agin hangin . I dunno 
 how he guessed t war her ez warned ye, jes kase nobody 
 else knowed it. But that s how kem ye ain t dead now, 
 kase Marcelly war agin it." 
 
 " Is he in love with her ? " 
 
 " Yes," assented Clem, " but," with decision, " he air 
 barkin up the wrong tree. Ye kin put that in yer pipe an 
 smoke it." 
 
 Rathburn was silent for a few moments, while Clem clat- 
 teringly completed the orderly arrangement of the tools 
 about the forge. Then they both stood together in the 
 road, after the great barn-like doors were closed. 
 
 The moon hung near the meridian ; the shadows had 
 dwindled. There were wider avenues of frosty brilliance 
 in the dense woods ; the full splendor of the night was 
 climaxing. The stars were few, however, and very faint ; 
 the wide spaces of the indefinitely blue sky were a desert, 
 save here and there a vague scintillation that one might 
 hardly distinguish as sidereal glinting or some elusive twin- 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 319 
 
 kle of frost in the air. Midnight, doubtless, and a cock was 
 crowing. A muffled resonance the sound had, intimating 
 that the fowl was housed in lieu of camping out among the 
 althea bushes, in imminent danger of fox and mink, 
 according to the recent summertide wont of the mountain 
 poultry. A faint blare of a horn from the dense coverts of 
 the distance, and an elfin shout of hilarity, barely discerni 
 ble, betokened a coon-hunt on some far-away mountain. 
 Then there fell again the deep silence of the windless night. 
 When it was suddenly broken by a sharp sound, the inter 
 ruption smote with a jar the senses, lulled and quiescent in 
 the muteness of the resting nature. As Rathburn lifted 
 his head, he discriminated the tones of raucous disputatious 
 voices rising vehemently, and anon sinking down. There 
 was an unconscious inquiry, perchance, in his eyes as he 
 turned them upon Clem Sanders, who replied with a gut 
 tural chuckle, " Them boys at the barn a-quar lin with 
 Teck." 
 
 A renewed anxiety beset Rathburn. 
 
 You reckon they won t agree with him ? " 
 
 " They never do, sca cely. Teck s all one ter hisse f. 
 But they don t do nuthin agin his say-so. Dunno why, but 
 they don t. He be so durned robustious." 
 
 The blacksmith presently quickened his pace. Then with 
 a drawling " Good-by " he began to run lightly along the 
 hard, whitened road, feeling an accession of interest in 
 what might be going forward at the barn, his curiosity con 
 cerning his companion flagging in this new prospect of ex 
 citement. His footfalls sounded, regular and rhythmic as 
 machinery, long after he had disappeared amongst the white 
 frosted wands of the bare brambles and the silver-tipped 
 leaves of the luxuriant laurel. 
 
 Rathburn, thus summarily deserted, stood still for a 
 moment, then took his way alone. He had a certain pride 
 in the fact that even under these circumstances he could 
 keep his steps deliberate and even. He scrutinized his gait 
 
320 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 to assure himself on this point. Albeit policy had prompted 
 his course and the event had so far justified its wisdom, he 
 was well aware of the abundant resources of courage that 
 had made it possible. Still he listened with sharpened 
 sense, with every nerve tense, with an insidious chill stealing 
 upon him, and he felt a rage of humiliation that he should 
 be subjected to an anguish of fear like this, which but for 
 its physical testimony he would not acknowledge to himself. 
 If the voices rose or fell, he heard them only in the midst 
 of the beat of his own footsteps, for he would not pause. 
 Sometimes he fancied that another tramp was on the air, 
 other footfalls hasty, deranged, pursuing footfalls were 
 hard upon his track. He walked on deliberately, however 
 that curious icy thrill crept along his nerves, and now de 
 sisted, and now renewed its chilling quiver. 
 
 He had not hitherto, in his comings and goings, been in 
 sensible of the majesty of these dark ranges, the pervasive 
 effects of awe and silence of this nocturnal scene, never 
 so august, never so austere, as on this night of mingled 
 lustre and gloom ; but now a sort of repulsion for the in 
 animate mountain forms possessed him. He experienced 
 that strong hatred of place, a thousand times more potent 
 than the vaunted local attachments. He would fain have 
 never seen these grim encircling heights ; if he might, 
 he would have swept them away into vague annihilation. 
 There rose in his heart a sentiment, too, of reproach to the 
 insensate scene, grown so familiar ; and then he saw it, 
 purple or duskily brown, with heavy shadows lined about 
 with mystic strokes of luminous white and with that pure 
 pale sky above, saw it all through a shimmer, for the hot 
 tears had risen to his eyes, smitten out by his helpless rage. 
 This shabby ordeal, as he felt it, how little he had de 
 served it ! Even these ignorant savages could find no flaw 
 in aught that he had done, albeit they had thirsted for his 
 blood. They were bereft of pretext by the integrity of his 
 intentions. Such interest, such sense of adventure, as the 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 321 
 
 secret nocturnal expeditions to the forge had possessed had 
 given way utterly before this exigent necessity to account 
 for his freak. He began to appreciate more definitely than 
 before the danger that had waited upon it. And yet, he 
 thought, what sane being would not have ventured upon a 
 trifle of mystery rather than alienate a man who held a 
 secret like Jake Baintree s, now half revealed, and again 
 with a miserly clutch concealed ? Always Baintree s clumsy 
 subterfuges grew clumsier ; always his reticent, suspicious 
 nature was relaxing more and more. It seemed only a 
 little waiting yet, and still a little time. And if these clods 
 of mountaineers could not comprehend the value of even 
 the remote possibility of veins of ore commensurate in rich 
 ness with the specimen in Baintree s possession, Eugene 
 Rathburn congratulated himself that he could, and felt 
 anew that he stood ready to risk much very much of 
 bodily harm and mental indignity and anguish of fright 
 for the bare hope to live to possess the treasure. With 
 this, he felt he was soothsayer enough to read his future, 
 the long lapse of years filled with the satisfied cravings 
 his heart held dear ; without it, he could scarce foresee the 
 dull to-morrow that should follow to-day, and of which 
 naught save sequence might be predicted, the empty, 
 empty time ! He had a sudden spasm of an unnamed affec 
 tion, very well defined, however, the reverse of nostalgia, as 
 there arose the poignant recollection of his office in Glas- 
 ton, where he sat idle much of the time, in company with 
 a fly, that droned on the window-pane, and whence he was 
 summoned at inconceivably long intervals to attend some 
 charity patient. The reward of this exertion was a local 
 reputation of having intentionally assisted the demise of 
 certain well-known indigent worthies ; the popular, logical 
 surmise concerning his motive for the commission of the 
 deed being that he thought " pore folks " cumberers of the 
 ground. 8cience, although furnishing many rich and varied 
 instances of transformation, fails to give data concerning 
 
322 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 the gradual development of the professional man, artist. 
 author, physician, lawyer, from the waiting, eager grub ; 
 what causes assist at the metamorphosis, what influences 
 favor it, what casualties retard it, what circumstances pre 
 clude it utterly. Time seems no factor, and the poor worm, 
 with no instinct of forecast, must writhe indefinitely, not 
 knowing whether his sinuous carcass contains the possibil 
 ities of splendid wings, or merely continued wriggles. Rath- 
 burn had turned his eyes far afield ; he yearned for the 
 great cities that he had known as a medical student, and 
 their ampler opportunities. He thought that he longed for 
 wealth as a stepping-stone to the worthy practice of his 
 chosen profession, rather than his profession as a stepping- 
 stone to wealth. He was eager to forsake this state of 
 elaborately equipped idleness, this farce of postulance, this 
 endless waiting, with no certain result in view. But con 
 sciously or unconsciously, most of all he thirsted for riches ; 
 it fired his blood to think of the avaricious grasp of the 
 great rocky gorges. He dreamed by day as well as by 
 night ; and sometimes, so little was there that he would not 
 risk, that he would not do for his cherished hope, he 
 dreamed that it might be well to lay his strong hands on 
 Jake Baintree s neck that had escaped such catastrophe 
 so closely and tighten their grasp, till the secret that the 
 foolish, suspicious, obstructive, ignorant marplot so jealously 
 guarded should be choked out or remain with him, hopeless, 
 inert, and indeed incapable of telling his tale if he would. 
 But as yet Rathburn dreamed this chiefly by night. 
 
XVIII. 
 
 HE had left the road mechanically where it was inter 
 sected by the turn-row that led through Eli Strobe s corn 
 field. All frosted and melancholy and spectral were the 
 gaunt stalks in the moonlight. He could see the sky and 
 the summit of a distant mountain through the meshes that 
 the intertwisted bare boughs of the orchard wrought against 
 the horizon. But the house on the further side of the fruit 
 trees was still invisible, embowered amongst the red and 
 yellow sumach and dogwood foliage, that seemed to find a 
 prolongation of life in its genial vicinage. He stopped 
 twice, peering eagerly into its bosky surroundings ; he was 
 surprised to gauge the disappointment he experienced that 
 there was no glimmer of light. It seemed that no one had 
 awaited his return from the forge ; it had been accounted, 
 perhaps, hardly worth the while, since none knew that dan 
 ger menaced him there, none except Marcella. He would 
 go back, then, to his lurking coadjutor, hidden in the moun 
 tains. He could come again, and then he could thank her 
 once more ; he could never thank her enough. As he 
 turned, his heart leaped ; a tiny red gleam came through 
 the leaves, and as he took his way back toward the gate 
 with a quick step he saw in the moonlight a slight figure, 
 that he had learned to know, coming down from the porch 
 toward it. 
 
 Marcella distinguished him in the shadows as readily. 
 She hesitated for a moment, but by the time he had reached 
 the gate she had turned back, and she stood upon the porch 
 as he came up the steps. The light streamed out from the 
 open door, and fell upon his face. She saw his eyes, at 
 
324 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 once eager and soft and almost suffused, shining upon her 
 as he held out his hand to her. 
 
 She held out her own, but it was not a responsive gesture. 
 
 " Gimme that thar pick," she remarked stiffly. " I 11 
 set it in the shed-room. We-uns don t tote tools in the 
 house." 
 
 Her staid manner seemed only an added charm in his 
 eyes, whose glance she would not meet as she took the im 
 plement in question and bore it away. For he had only 
 sought to thus silently reiterate his thanks, since Mrs. 
 Strobe and the master of the house were both summoned 
 to the door by Marcella s words. 
 
 " Kem in, stranger ! " cried Mrs. Strobe. " Ye war a 
 power o time gittin yer pick mended. Take a cheer by 
 the ha th. A body would low twar a powerful tejious 
 business, cordin ter the time Marcelly hev been keepin a 
 lookout. Ef she hev been traipsin ter the gate wunst ter 
 look ter see ef ye war a-kemin back, she hev been fower 
 hunderd an ninety-nine times. I reckon, ef the truth war 
 knowed, she war a-hopin ye d bring Clem Sanders back 
 with ye. Clem s a mighty favorite mongst the gals." 
 
 The fire was burning blithely on the hearth, with great 
 beds of ashes about it to attest the late hour and the waste 
 throughout the day. The room intimated a presentiment 
 of winter, although the batten shutters were unclosed and 
 the door stood open. Bunches of herbs, that but lately 
 waved in the summer s wind, were already dried and dan 
 gling from the rafters. Seeds had been gathered, and fruit 
 dried, and red peppers strung, and gourds cut ; and the 
 tokens of this industry, marking the passing of the season, 
 the homely harvests of the primitive housewife, all had 
 place in the variegated pendants and festoons that swung 
 above their heads. There was no work afoot at this time 
 of the night. Isabel sat idle on an inverted noggin, seem 
 ing but just aroused from slumber. Mrs. Strobe perched 
 on her chair, with her feet on its rungs and her hands 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOM SF DC E COVE. 325 
 
 clasped in her lap, and fixed her shrewd small eyes on her 
 visitor. It was never too late to smoke, and Eli Strobe was 
 filling his pipe with a dried tobacco-leaf, which he crumbled 
 for the purpose. Rathburn drew his chair aside, that he 
 might still see Marcella, who had sunk down on a low bench 
 by the chimney-corner ; and as he responded to his host s 
 invitation to smoke he glanced at her, the glow of the coal 
 with which he kindled his pipe red on his face and in his 
 eyes as her father spoke. 
 
 " Marcelly seemed ter sense ez ef suthin motight be goin 
 for ard at the forge, some sort n row, or suthin ," he said. 
 " Seemed ter listen ez skeered an white ! An fower or 
 five times she wanted ter walk down ter the e-end o the 
 turn-row ter listen better." He puffed his pipe in silence 
 for a moment. " But I told her ez t war n t wuth while ter 
 be oneasy. This hyar kentry, stranger," he continued im 
 pressively, " air the peaceablest c munity on the face o the 
 livin yearth. Never hev no c motions hyar, naw, sir ; 
 no fights nor " He brought up short, recollecting his own 
 reduced state and his bandaged head, which were hardly 
 the kind of corroborative instances his statement needed. 
 " Thout," he qualified, " thout it air lection time, an sech 
 ez that. Ye don t hear o no stnrbances in Brumsaidge, 
 now, do ye? " He turned to Rathburn his haggard face, 
 full of the pride of his charge, and reiterated, " Now, do 
 
 ye?" 
 
 Rathburn had tilted his chair back slightly on its hind 
 legs ; he slipped the tips of his fingers in his trousers pock 
 ets ; his pipe was redly aglow, and the firelight flickered 
 over his face with its long yellow mustache and his close- 
 clipped hair, for he did not wear his hat in the house as Eli 
 Strobe did. 
 
 " You ve been cooped up a good while, Mr. Strobe. Let 
 me see, how long has it been since I came over here and 
 prescribed for you ? Well, no matter ; you did n t know 
 about that, when you were first ill. Broomsedge Cove has 
 
326 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 been having it pretty much its own way ever since then, 
 with the constable laid up." 
 
 Strobe looked a trifle crestfallen. Marcella, with a sud 
 den anxious impatience of manner, rose and passed to the 
 other side of the room and mechanically closed the batten 
 shutter, then purposelessly opened it again. Rathburn did 
 not follow her with his eyes. They were still fixed moodily 
 on the fire. When she seated herself again, she looked at her 
 father with a clearing brow. A slow satisfaction, even tri 
 umph, was creeping across Eli Strobe s face. " They need 
 me ter keep em straight," he observed. " Some powerful 
 fractious boys in Brumsaidge Cove," he declared, with a 
 slow, sidelong, convincing glance at Rathburn. 
 
 " I should think so, indeed," Rathburn affirmed, with an 
 accession of significant emphasis. He hesitated a moment, 
 then went on. " I fell in to-night with the ringleader of a 
 gang of lynchers, and if I had n t been warned beforehand 
 and known just how to talk to him I should n t have got off 
 with my life." He once more cast a swift glance at Mar- 
 cella, charged with much that he would fain have said ; but 
 her eyes were downcast, the long lashes almost touching the 
 rare rose a-bloom in her cheeks. 
 
 Eli Strobe turned his bovine stare of slowly kindling ex 
 citement upon the speaker ; his pipe-stem was quivering in 
 his hand ; his lips had parted, as if an ejaculation were 
 trembling upon them, but the alert maternal comments fore 
 stalled him : 
 
 " Dell-law ! the crazy buzzards ! What hed ye been 
 a-doin of, though, ter hev sech a pursuit ez that take arter 
 ye ? " Mrs. Strobe fixed an investigating eye upon the 
 stranger which intimated a cautious reserve of judgment. 
 
 " I d like for you to guess ; but you never could," said 
 Rathburn. 
 
 " It air in rank vi lation o the law, no matter what he 
 done nor what he done it fur," Eli Strobe declared impres 
 sively. Then he tremulously replaced his pipe in his mouth. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 327 
 
 " You see," said Rathburn, leaning forward and tapping 
 the burly mountaineer on the knee, looking up at him the 
 while with eyes that grew fiery revealing the angry, smarting 
 wounds to his pride, " I admit I was fool enough to agree 
 to Jake Baintree s idiocy in keeping the matter secret. I 
 have been trying to strike silver that he found here a few 
 years ago, and when we broke our tools I undertook to mend 
 and sharpen them at the forge, being a sort of Jack-of-all- 
 trades ; and I did it at night and in secret to humor him. 
 I wanted to keep him as communicative as I could, because 
 the fool puts me off and deceives me from day to day about 
 the place, the Lord knows why." He paused. " I d 
 like to throttle him, I d like to break his neck," he said, 
 as his preoccupied gaze dwelt on the fire for a moment. 
 Then flinging himself back in his chair in his former atti 
 tude, and slipping his hands into his pockets he continued, 
 " That s what like to have happened to me, though, I tell 
 you. It was a mighty close call. I got off by the skin of 
 my teeth." 
 
 " Whar s Jake, then ? " Eli Strobe turned his bandaged 
 head actively in -search of the supposed sharer of Rath- 
 burn s peril, as if thinking him near at hand. " Some o* 
 them boys air been keen ter see Jake stretch hemp ever 
 sence the jury acquitted him, miser ble, senseless critters ; 
 got no mo spect fur the law n so many painters an sech. 
 Whar s Jake ? They did n t ketch Jake, did they ? " He 
 rose stumblingly to his feet. 
 
 Rathburn laughed ; the gleam of his white teeth, show 
 ing under his yellow mustache, was capable of adding a 
 geniality to his ordinary expression, but now it gave only 
 a certain fierceness to his face, so little mirth did it imply. 
 
 " No, you may bet your immortal soul they did n t. By 
 this time he s mighty safe ; no more to be found, I 11 
 warrant, than Samuel Keale, ain t that his name ? I 
 reasoned with Baintree. I begged him to come boldly out 
 with me ; we could afford to stand the scrutiny of the vigi- 
 
328 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 lantes ; but he would n t. He s afraid of your good, law- 
 abiding population of Broomsedge, Mr. Strobe." He clasped 
 his hands behind his head and tilted himself back in his 
 chair, as his eyes retrospectively rested on the coals. " Jake 
 threw down his pickaxe and started the instant we got a 
 word of warning." 
 
 "Waal, ye war powerful lucky. Ginerally, in Brtim- 
 saidge, the lynchers an sech keep too close a mouth fur 
 enny words o warnin ter git a-goin , said Eli Strobe, who, 
 however he might congratulate himself in the interests of 
 law and humanity upon the result, felt a certain deprecation 
 of the futility of the enterprise as a work of art, as it were. 
 " I clunno how in this worl sech ez a word o warnin could 
 hev kcm ter ye." 
 
 u It may have come through a woman, but it seemed to 
 me through an angel of mercy ! " the young man declared, 
 his glowing brown eyes swiftly seeking Marcella s flushed 
 and grave and half-averted face. 
 
 Mrs. Strobe, unnoting the demonstration, gave a sharp 
 little satiric laugh, more like the fleering squawk of a jay 
 bird than any merely human flout. 
 
 " Dell-law, stranger, don t ye b lieve the haffen o that. 
 T war n t no n angel o mercy ! I ain t quainted with n an- 
 gels much myself, but I know enough bout em ter make 
 mighty sure ez n angels don t go lopin round the Big Smoky 
 seem arter the welfare o two sech good-lookin young men 
 ez ye an Jake Baintree. It don t need no wisdom from 
 above ter know it air mighty safe ter trest ye ter some 
 young yearthly woman, thout interruptin enny n angel in her 
 reg lar business o quirin roun the throne o grace. Don t 
 ye never make no sech mistake ez that." And once more 
 it might be doubted whether it were the satiric old woman 
 or some gay cynic of a bird that gave a short shriek of 
 laughter. 
 
 As a general rule, Rathburn cared little what these hum 
 ble, illiterate mountaineers said or how they esteemed him. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 329 
 
 But despite his appreciation of its infinitesimal consequence 
 he was at once surprised, and a trifle offended by the ridi 
 cule. He had turned to retort, when he saw Marcella s face 
 with the reflection of his own sentiment upon it. Those 
 crystal-clear eyes of hers were widely opened ; he noted 
 the upward sweep of the thick, fine lashes ; and why, since 
 her flush was so infrequent, why did it wear that exquisite 
 hue, deepening in the cheek, and merging by indistinguish 
 able degrees, like the fine sorceries of sunset, into the warm 
 whiteness of her brow, and chin, and throat ? Her lips were 
 more deeply red still, did ever a sculptor chisel a mouth 
 like that, where all sweet graces curved sedately ? It trem 
 bled slightly, and the sight of the quiver roused in him a new 
 lease of gratitude for her timely word ; even now he could 
 not measure the risk she ran in saying it. He would not be 
 laughed from his loyalty to the messenger who had brought 
 him safety, even rescued his life, perhaps. 
 
 " May have been a woman," he admitted ; she looked 
 like an angel." 
 
 "A triflin chit, I ll be bound," Mrs. Strobe declared. 
 " Hain t she got no better work ter do n ter keep her eye 
 on the young men, an her ear open ter all the talk bout n 
 em?" 
 
 She spoke all unaware that the belittled " n angel " was 
 one of her own fireside, or that any words of hers were ser 
 ving to deepen the flush on Marcella s cheek. 
 
 So preoccupied had Rathburn been hitherto in the signifi 
 cant and absorbing events of the evening that his mind had 
 had little tendency to even unconscious processes of deduc 
 tion which did not immediately pertain to the imminence of 
 his danger and the security of his escape. It had not as yet 
 occurred to him to speculate upon the influences which had 
 moved Marcella to so unprecedented a course as to lure 
 away the secret from one of the lynchers, and come with it 
 to the rescue of a stranger and the ostracized Baintree. 
 Mrs. Strobe s logic, all unwitting though she was to whom 
 
330 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 she applied it, had kindled an idea in his brain that glowed 
 and burned, and presently leaped like wild-fire from con 
 jecture to conclusion, carrying all before it in its irresistible 
 exhilaration. He was not a stranger to Marcella. She had 
 not forgotten him, evidently. Perchance it was some nearer, 
 more coercive, more personal interest that had nerved her ; 
 how else, indeed, could it be ? He had not hitherto thought 
 of her save that her beauty had impressed him as strangely 
 incongruous with the poverty of her surroundings, incom 
 petent even to afford the foil to the jewel, and of jarring and 
 discordant effect ; and earlier to-night his heart had only 
 been stirred toward her with genuine gratitude. It was 
 moved now with the sweet vanity of believing himself be 
 loved. He perhaps would have esteemed his state of mind 
 coxcombical in another man, but poor human nature is pro 
 vided with a keen vision for the defects of others, and a pur 
 blind perception of those same traits closer at home. He felt 
 a strong zest, a renewing interest, in reviewing the circum 
 stances, when Mrs. Strobe, drawing from her pocket a corn 
 cob pipe, proceeded to crumble into its bowl a leaf of tobacco, 
 asking the while, " An whar did this n angel find ye ? " 
 
 Once more he glanced at Marcella, who sat quite still, 
 quite grave, listening sedately. 
 
 " She started up the mountain, thinking she would go to 
 Baintree s people, and that may be they would know where 
 he was ; but she heard the picks as we were digging in a 
 gorge, and so she found us." 
 
 Mrs. Strobe seemed to revolve this statement when it was 
 finished, nodded her head several times, and emitted two 
 or three deliberate puffs of smoke. " She did, did she ? " 
 she observed, in default of more acrid comment, but bent 
 upon ridicule. 
 
 " Then she told us all she knew " 
 
 "Mighty easy done, I ll bet," interpolated the little 
 dame. 
 
 "Or had heard about the affair, and begged us not to 
 tell who told us " 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 331 
 
 " Tuk a power o pains ter keep herself safe from the 
 lynchers. I 11 be bound " 
 
 ik That she did n t ! " cried the young 1VJ >w. " That s 
 all she said about it, and left the rest to our discretion." 
 
 " Waal, that war a pore dependence, I will gin up," said 
 Mrs. Strobe, her pipe in her hand, her puckered lips, with 
 a laugh well hid in their corrugations, ostensibly grave. 
 
 The color surged to the young man s face. He was real 
 izing how few friends one has in the world ; how alone, how 
 piteously solitary, amongst the multitudes of one s kind. 
 He felt that Mrs. Strobe and her son, and all Broomsedge 
 besides, microcosmic illustration, would have cared lit 
 tle had the event resulted differently. One would have blus 
 tered a trifle about the outraged dignity of the law. The 
 other would have said some primitively witty things, hardly 
 decent of one so recently dead, and, hampered by her sense 
 of decorum, would have thought still more witty things, 
 which she would reluctantly have refrained from saying. 
 In Glaston and Colbury his most lenient obituary would 
 have been, " Poor fool ! " And his memory would have 
 served as a tradition in the mountains to warn the next 
 addle-pate that came prying into their hidden chambers; 
 seeking silver and gold and worldly treasures ! Only this 
 girl would have risked aught to save his life. Only this girl 
 truly cared that his life was saved. She seemed at the mo 
 ment the only friend he had in the world, surely, surely 
 the best ! That better nature of his, in its facile oscillations, 
 was reasserted anew. He forgot the flattering personal trib 
 ute which he had been disposed to arrogate to himself. 
 He did not speculate about her interest in him. He began 
 to entertain a more definite intention as he talked. There 
 was something it had almost been forgotten that he 
 must let her know. 
 
 " Mebbe," Mrs. Strobe resumed, the pause not being con 
 ducive to entertainment, ** mebbe the gal, or the n angel, 
 lowed ez ye hed been doin suthin a heap wuss, though not 
 
332 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 so foolish, ez sarch the mountings fur silver. From the 
 way ye an Jake Baintree talked the night ye kem hyar ter 
 physic Eli, me an Marcelly lowed ye mus hev killed a 
 man I don t mean through physickin him, but with a 
 pistol or stithin an war a-hidin from jestice." 
 
 " Killed a man ! Great Lord ! " exclaimed Rathburn, 
 aghast. He turned and looked at Marcella, reproach elo 
 quent in his eyes. Had she ever thought this of him ? 
 
 The girl incoherently sought to defend herself " Least 
 wise, granny said t war granny s word " and fell trem 
 ulously silent. 
 
 " Peared mighty reason ble ter me," asserted the una 
 bashed little dame. " Mebbe that s what the n angel thunk 
 too." 
 
 " If she thought it, she did n t say so," he replied slowly. 
 " But I wanted it to seem to the lynchers as if it were by 
 accident that I went to the forge and worked. So I came 
 over betimes, and went from here to the blacksmith s house, 
 and could n t find him ; and his mother gave me permission 
 to open the forge, and I told her I had worked there once 
 or twice before." 
 
 " I 11 be bound Clem war one o the lynchers ! " cried 
 Mrs. Strobe vivaciously. " Did they swaller that tale ? " she 
 demanded abruptly. 
 
 " No they did n t," he rejoined. " Their leader knew I 
 had been warned. and knew who had warned me." 
 
 " Marcelly, set down ! " exclaimed the old woman, with 
 a sharp note of reproof. " Ef ye hed been a harnt a-pop- 
 pin up out n a grave, ye could n t hev skeered me wuss with 
 yer suddint motions ! " 
 
 For the girl had started abruptly to her feet, her dis 
 tended eyes fastened upon Rathburn, her face paling, her 
 hand half outstretched, trembling violently. 
 
 " The leader ! " she echoed, sinking back upon the low 
 bench under the coercive touch of Mrs. Strobe s hand. 
 " Who told him ? " 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 333 
 
 " He did n t say. but somehow he got it out of the man 
 \vho let the secret slip." 
 
 Marcelia knitted her brows, and fixed her pondering eyes 
 upon the fire ; her breath was quick ; the rich color had 
 deserted her cheek. With one hand she mechanically 
 tossed back the brown curling hair that fell heavily forward 
 from her half-bent head, and ever and again she put back 
 the locks with the same tremulous, unconscious gesture. 
 
 " Hed them men no masks nor nuthin ? " demanded Eli 
 Strobe, a hand on either knee, as he leaned slightly for 
 ward ; he spoke with his pipe- stem fast between his teeth. 
 
 " Faces bare as my hand," replied Rathburn, holding up 
 the member in the light of the fire. 
 
 " Waal, sir, they be powerful brigetty an bold ! " said 
 Eli Strobe with displeasure. " They oughter hed the grace 
 ter kiver thar faces, knowin ez thar actions be plumb agin 
 the law, conspiracy, an riot, an ef they hed hung ye, 
 murder ; it air agin the law." 
 
 " That s why I am telling you," said Rathburn. " They 
 are a lawless gang, and if anything happens to me, you, as 
 an officer of the law, are in possession of the facts, and 
 know just how and where to lay your hand on the men, the 
 ringleader especially. I only saw two of them ; the other, 
 the blacksmith, is a hap-hazard fellow, and does his bidding. 
 The ringleader is the soul of the iniquity ; it could n t move 
 an inch without him." 
 
 The fire had been burning clearly ; the sticks across the 
 andirons had gradually become each an entire glowing coal, 
 of a live vermilion tint, and half translucent, yet still retain 
 ing the shape of the hickory logs they had once been ; here 
 and there an elusive amethystine flame flickered, but the 
 salient red and white blaze of the earlier stages was quenched, 
 and the room was all in a dusky red shadow save for now 
 and then a livid purple gleam. Isabel nodded as she sat on 
 the inverted noggin ; sleep seemed with her in some sort an 
 ailment, since it so reduced her from her normal state of 
 
334 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 conversation. It was as if a palsy had fallen upon her 
 faculties, and her face, bereft of its wonted animation, was 
 unfamiliar, and pathetic, and forlornly reflective. The dog 
 of the u frequent visitor " took note even in his slumbers 
 of the dwindling state of the fire, and, with a countenance 
 much solemnized by sleep and preternaturally sober, came 
 and stood before it for a time, steadfastly regarding it. 
 Then with a loud yawn, intrusive in the silence, he stretched 
 his elastic length, rasping his nails on the stones of the 
 hearth, and lay down once more before it. A cock crew, 
 a muffled alarum in the distance ; no other sound from the 
 frosty midnight without. The example of the old hound 
 had caused Mrs. Strobe to yawn too, with that epidemic 
 appreciation of fatigue which the demonstration usually 
 produces. She was not sorry for this, despite her ample 
 repositories of what she collectively termed " manners." 
 She was in hopes Rathburn would note it, and draw the 
 natural inference. 
 
 " He lowed he would n t bide all night, so he mought jes 
 ez well take the hint an stir his stumps away from hyar. 
 I never see sech a ow-el ez the man," she thought. 
 
 But Glaston and Colbury hours were later than those 
 kept in the mountains, and although Rathburn was aware 
 that his stay exceeded the customary limits, he had no idea 
 of its unprecedented extent. He went on after a momen 
 tary pause : 
 
 " He is a very dangerous customer. The eye of the law 
 could n t be better employed than fixed on that man. In 
 Glaston, or Colbury, or anywhere else, they d be awfully 
 pleased to get up any kind of a charge against such a dom 
 ineering blusterer as that, which would lock him up some 
 where, safe out of harm s way." 
 
 He nodded his head once or twice in emphatic confir 
 mation of the burden of his thoughts. He felt suddenly as 
 if civilization, the world, all the mechanism of law and art 
 and knowledge that he seemed to have been familiarized 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 335 
 
 with in some previous state of existence on some alien 
 planet, were not so far away, after all, save in sentiment. 
 What could be easier than to place the headstrong despot 
 of Broomsedge Cove under the surveillance of a law stronger 
 even than that which he wielded with so arrogant and abso 
 lute a temper ? He was not so far from the county authori 
 ties, who might take more cognizance of such matters than 
 the constable of Broomsedge Cove ; as lynch-law and the 
 domination of a community according to the will of regu 
 lators might to them perchance be less familiar. The recol 
 lection, ignominious he felt it to be, of his fear ; the terrible 
 strain on his nerves ; the mere chance that had saved his 
 life, this girl s word of warning and his own clever di 
 plomacy in its use, all were bitter still to him, and his 
 escape held none of the sweets of triumph. 
 
 He would rejoice to be revenged : not upon Clem 
 Sanders, who seemed, in his hap-hazard lack of logic, as 
 irresponsible as a child not upon the unnumbered, unin- 
 dividualized, unimagined vigilantes at the barn, but upon 
 Teck Jepson. With all the fervor of a deep, suddenly 
 awakened hatred he longed to see him cringe and cower. 
 He resented his lofty serenity, his calm admission of the 
 usurpation of power, his deliberate, open avowal of his in 
 tentions and of his conditional clemency. He should like 
 to see this doughty mountaineer face the law he had in 
 sulted. His lip curled at the thought ; he stroked his mus 
 tache in the satisfaction that the mental picture afforded 
 him. He too could follow out a scheme ; he too could plot, 
 and lie in wait, and capture. " With stronger toils, my fine 
 fellow ! " 
 
 He encountered a sudden rebuff in the sequence of the 
 idea, the ridicule that would attach to the revelation in 
 Glaston that in his perfectly tame and lawful prospecting 
 for silver he should have been hauled up before the captain 
 of vigilantes. He felt, too, that there was a certain element 
 of derogation in his very enterprise. Unless he should find 
 
336 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 silver, he hardly cared that it should be known in his world 
 that he had sought it. And yet he quivered with eagerness 
 at the very thought of vengeance upon Teck Jepson. Fine 
 sport, to be sure, to run down this big game of the Smoky 
 Mountains. 
 
 " For all he is so pious ! " he exclaimed with a sneer. 
 
 Eli Strobe turned a slow glance upon him. 
 
 " Who be ye a-talkin bout ? " he demanded quietly. 
 
 " That fellow I saw over at the forge there, the ring 
 leader of the lynchers. Teck Jepson is his name." 
 
 An uncomprehended sensation, of which Rathburn never 
 theless was aware, swept through the circle. He felt a vague 
 surprise to see Marcella start up in the dusky red glow of 
 the dwindling fire, and sink back uncertain, with a pallid, 
 distraught face. In the puckers of Mrs. Strobe s wizened 
 little countenance, dimly white in the gloom, his transitory 
 glance detected a strange embarrassment and discomfort. 
 Isabel had roused herself, and was peering at him from her 
 lowly seat. His host s head was bent toward him, the long 
 neck outstretched, his tangled locks and beard hanging for 
 ward, as he stared in the utmost amazement. 
 
 " Ye never seen Teck Jepson to-night at the forge, young 
 man." 
 
 " But I did," protested Rathburn. " That was what 
 Clem Sanders called him, a tall, powerfully built man." 
 
 " Light-complected ? " asked Strobe. 
 
 " As a girl, and he lias blue eyes, and very dark hair 
 and beard, and is slow stepping, and solemn spoken." 
 
 Eli Strobe had thrown himself back in his chair. The 
 deep bass rumble of his laughter sounded a trifle muffled. 
 He was laughing to himself. " Ye never seen Teck Jepson." 
 
 A crash, and the women cried out, fetaitled; but it was 
 only the breaking of the logs, long delayed, and the chunks 
 falling, some within and some beyond the andirons, were 
 sending up streams of white flame. Rathburn turned in 
 stantly back to see the constable lying at ease in his chair, 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 337 
 
 the laughter fading from his face as he reiterated, " Ye 
 never seen Teck Jepson." 
 
 He pulled himself forward, and leaning over laid his 
 hand on the guest s knee ; looking into Rathburn s face, he 
 said significantly, " He s dead ! " 
 
 Bathburn sat silent for a moment, as if doubting his senses, 
 " I saw him, he spoke to me, not half an hour ago," he in 
 sisted. 
 
 " Ye never seen him." Eli Strobe shook his head, with 
 its long, melancholy locks, slowly from side to side. " Ye 
 never seen him. Ye seen his harnt. He hev sot out ter 
 walk. I seen his harnt wunst, myself. He s dead ! " 
 
 He sank back in his chair, while Rathburn, perplexed 
 and uncomprehending, gazed startled at him. The white 
 firelight had conjured all the room from out the dusky nul 
 lity that had been creeping over it. The pendent trophies 
 from the rafters seemed to sway as the light chased the 
 shadows through their midst. The glad scarlet of the 
 strings of peppers asserted its tint anew, and many hanks of 
 saffron yarn lent it contrast and company. Marcella s fair 
 face shone out upon the background of flickering brown and 
 fleeting gold, and the night seemed to have grown younger 
 with this sense of movement and life and light ; the nerves 
 took less heed of the lateness of the hour. The dog turned 
 his neck in a way that challenged dislocation, and looked 
 about the room ; then rose slowly and stiffly, taking it for 
 granted that, with this new cheer, it was day, and now and 
 then wagging a languid tail as he glanced around at Mar- 
 cella, expecting to see her set about getting breakfast. Not 
 once did Rathburn s absorption flag as he sat and stead 
 fastly gazed at his host ; he hardly moved an eyelash, so 
 tense, so fixed, so strained, was his attention. 
 
 As Eli Strobe glanced up from the fire he encountered the 
 intent inquiry in Rathburn s face. 
 
 " Ye seen his harnt," he reiterated, in reply to the look. 
 " He s dead. I kilt Teck Jepson myself, an I oughter 
 know. He s dead." 
 
338 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 A sudden swift expression crossed the stranger s face like 
 a flash of light. Marcella saw the gleam of his teeth, white 
 under his yellow mustache ; he put up one hand and stroked 
 it, as was his wont in excitement. 
 
 " Why, now, that s a fact ! " he rejoined coolly. " I had 
 forgotten that I had heard that." 
 
 The next moment he leaned forward, extending the other 
 hand half closed, and with a delicate tentative gesture he 
 laid it on the constable s wrist. 
 
 " Let me feel your pulse, Mr. Strobe," he said irrelevantly. 
 " You are still getting better, I suppose ? " 
 
 The constable silently submitted. Then pursuing the 
 subject, he added. " They can t do nuthin ter me fur it, 
 though, me bein officer o the law, an Teck engaged in 
 a onlawf ul act. I pulled Teck off n his hoss-critter an bruk 
 his neck." He nodded his head in doughty triumph. " 1 
 war sorry some arterwards. Teck war a good man in the 
 main." 
 
 " Well, his * harnt ain t a good harnt, " the young man 
 flippantly declared. 
 
 His tone jarred upon Marcella, so sensitive she was for 
 her father s sake, so wounded in the pride she had once felt 
 in his preeminence. The wound ceased to ache as she no 
 ticed the deep attention with which Rathburn regarded the- 
 invalid. In truth, Eli Strobe well and hearty was not half 
 the man, in his estimation, that Eli Strobe was with this 
 strange malady, and the contemplation of the perfection of 
 reason could not have so enthralled and invigorated his 
 jaded perceptions as did this forlorn folly of a mental de 
 lusion. He made no further allusion to the spectral ring 
 leader, although more than once he turned again and sur 
 veyed with his keen professional gaze the constable s face. 
 In his deft choosing of a subject of discussion, he seemed to 
 to experiment with the invalid s capacities, and Marcella 
 was amazed to note how rationally, with what strong good 
 sense, Eli Strobe talked, reminding her of " dad s con versa- 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 339 
 
 tion " of yore, in which she had experienced such filial 
 pride. 
 
 At last the guest rose to go, and she listened, as she stood 
 in the doorway, to the faint footfalls on the hard ground, 
 growing ever fainter as the distance increased, listened 
 and looked out at the still and solitary night, so white with 
 the moon and the frost in the midst of its normal gloom. 
 So mute it was, so replete with a sense of loneliness. It 
 seemed that not even some belated vigilante could be astir 
 in that desert of dark mountains, and icy white glintings, 
 and profundity of silences. The fear that could but quiver 
 at the thought grew still after a moment, and she became 
 conscious that her grandmother had twice spoken to her. 
 
 " Marcelly," cried the irate little dame, " what ails ye ter 
 stan thar in the door a-lookin out at the moon ez big-eyed 
 ez a ow-el, ez ef ye war bound ter watch ter see the man 
 go ? I ain t a-wonderin at ye nuther " (sarcastically) ; " he 
 makes the shortes visits o enny o the fool folks ez kerns ter 
 this house. Bein ez he air a doctor-man, nex time he 
 kerns I be a-goin ter ax him ef he hain t got enny lotium ez 
 will brace up a sensible woman s back ter endure the strain 
 o hearin a young fool talk fower hour at a stretch. Ye 
 need n t stan thar stare-gazin the moon, I tell ye, a-think- 
 in ye look so powerful pritty an enticin , with yer eyes 
 stretched so big an shinin ," becoming suddenly sensible of 
 the ethereal beauty in the girl s fair face. " Thar s lots o 
 wimmen in this worl ez spends thar time lookin pritty fur 
 nuthin . Fur ye mark my words, ye can t cut out that 
 n angel o a gal ez brung him the news bout the lynchers ; 
 he air dead in love with her, else all signs fail ! " 
 
 " Oh," faltered Marcella, " I low ye mus be mistaken 
 t war jes jes " 
 
 " Jes what ? I reckon I know folks in love whenst I see 
 em. Strange ez it may pear, I war wunst a fool o that 
 kind myself," she added, with a whimsical pucker of the 
 lips, as she began to cover the fire with the abundant ashes, 
 that it might last till morning. 
 
340 THE DESP07 OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 She paused presently with a deeply reflective counte 
 nance, shown half in the glow of the lire, and half in the 
 brilliant moonlight, falling through the open window and 
 door. " I wonder which o these hyar mounting gals the 
 idjit lows looks like a n angel. Mus hev heen Em line 
 Bolter, ceptin I reckon no n angel air ez freckled ez her, 
 reg lar tur-r-key-aig ; or else Ar bella Jane Perkins, 
 though she air some cornsider ble red-headed. But laws- 
 a-massy, that don t make no diff ence. "When a man sets 
 out ter be a fool, an fall in love, Providence in its mercy 
 warps his judgment, an mos enny gal mought pear like a 
 n angel. Ye Marcelly, quit hangin on that door, a-saggin 
 it off n the henges an a-stare-gazin the moon." 
 
 It was lower now in the sky, and showed through the 
 fringes of the pines ; its pensive light was in the girl s lus 
 trous eyes a moment longer, and then the door was closed. 
 
XIX. 
 
 IT was close upon dawn when Rathburn reached his des 
 tination. He could hardly have defined the time when he 
 began to appreciate that daylight had invaded the mystic 
 moonlit splendors. There the golden sphere still hung ; out 
 of it the fine ethereal fires were dying paling, and grow 
 ing yet more dim above the purple Chilhowee ; definite- 
 ness was gradually evolving out of the shadows ; a valley 
 was shaping its sinuous course where violet vagueness had 
 seemed a plenitude of form and fixity before. A dull, 
 gray, hard color never known in the fine lunar chromatics, 
 lay upon a stretch of leafless woods. A dark, sombre 
 green, cold and funereal, betokened the pines and the laurel 
 groves, As the moon dulled and the day dallied, stars had 
 suddenly bloomed out with palpitating splendor. One of a 
 white glister shone above the rugged eastern crags, and 
 was the herald of the dawn. He was feeling the strength 
 of the matutinal resurrection in his veins, in his lungs, ex 
 panding to its fine, keen freshness. He hardly realized 
 that he had been awake all night, after a long day s tramp 
 with his pick through the rugged gorges of the mountains. 
 He had long since ceased to glance apprehensively to the 
 right and left, lest there might be still an avenger lurking 
 upon his track, as he took his way along the herder s trail 
 through the savage wilderness. Confidence came renewed 
 with renewed freedom. He stopped to see, through a gap 
 in the mountain, all along the summits of the misty purple 
 ranges, a line of vermilion rise, expanding into the broad 
 spaces of the pale sky, for the living sun was in the vital 
 air. He hears an eagle cry, the sound infinitely wild and 
 
342 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 joyous with a savage enthusiasm in life ; the splendid sweep 
 of the great hird s wings describe long curves in the light 
 air, and the yellow glow slants so far, so far ! A warm 
 day, for where is the frost ? That fine vaporous tissue, 
 all that there is to show for those premonitions of winter in 
 the vanished white rime ! All going down and down to 
 Hang-Over Mountain, to lurk about the cold currents of the 
 Little Tennessee. 
 
 There was moisture on the full yellow leaves of the hick 
 ory, the splendid red foliage of the scarlet oak and the sour- 
 wood, shaken out afresh as bravely as if summer burned 
 still in the sap ; there were ferns green yet, here and there. 
 He stooped to pick a spray of the lilac " Christmas flower," 
 and thrust it jauntily in the button-hole of his blue flannel 
 shirt ; then, as his path curved abruptly, he came within 
 sight of the deserted cabin which he and Baintree had lately 
 made their camp. 
 
 Somehow, with its dark little roof beneath that vast sky, 
 so splendidly aflare, the gigantic vigorous trees on every 
 hand, the gallant wind a-blaring all its bugles down the ra 
 vines, the sense of great openness and infinite space, it 
 seemed doubly mean, and the plots devised there curiously 
 sordid, and the episode and escape of last night grotesquely 
 ignominious. In the midst of the conscious physical luxury 
 that every respiration of the high air afforded, he wished 
 he had never seen the place ; his cherished scheme, for 
 which he had risked so much, palled for the nonce. He 
 became aware of a great infusion of bitterness toward Jake 
 Baintree, that was not less strong because of contempt. 
 
 " And where has he gone, I wonder ? " he said, as he 
 approached the cabin. 
 
 For there was no smoke from the chimney and the place 
 was silent. He checked his pace as he went toward the 
 door. The unhewn logs that had once formed the steps to 
 ascend to the threshold had rotted down at one side ; the 
 wood quaked and gave way anew under his tread, as he laid 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 343 
 
 his hand on tha latch. It was not fastened, and the door 
 easily swung back under his touch. 
 
 The room was vacant, illumined less by the rifts in the 
 broken batten shutter than by the pale stream of light that 
 came down the chimney, for the embers had died on the 
 hearth. A repugnance, a paroxysm of fastidiousness, seized 
 him as he looked in at the desolate discomforts, the sordid 
 bareness, of the place. 
 
 " This is no way to live ! " he exclaimed, forgetful for the 
 moment of the wealth that barely eluded his clutching hand ; 
 and as he remembered it he thought it would be hardly 
 earned. He had not cared heretofore for the deprivations 
 v/hich he had endured although he had found scant con 
 geniality in his comrade. The suspicion of crime, how 
 ever, which attached to Baintree had seemed but the touch 
 of romance to the backwoods desperado. But Jake had 
 proved himself little fitted for that stanch role ; and how 
 ever natural his flight when he heard of the danger, Rath- 
 burn had not the dispassionate temperament to regard it 
 leniently. He felt that it savored strongly of cowardice, he 
 mentally designated his comrade a " contemptible cur," and 
 he began to feel a certain absorbing curiosity concerning 
 the whereabouts of Samuel Keale and how he had met his 
 fate. 
 
 When he had kindled a fire and sat down before it, clasp 
 ing his hands behind his head, waiting for the coals that he 
 might prepare the primitive meal, which in his rough expe 
 rience he had learned to cook, he entered upon a continuous 
 expectation of Baintree s return. This grew to an irritable 
 suspense. More than once he rose, walked to the door, and 
 stood looking over the vast landscape and scanning the little 
 path that their feet had worn to the spring, with the vivid 
 intimation that in another instant he should see the tall, 
 thin figure, the cadaverous face, the sleek black hair, emerge 
 from the clustering laurel. But except for a rabbit, leaping 
 along, and pausing to feed itself upon a succulent green 
 
344 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE, 
 
 leaf, held very humanly between its fore-paws, except 
 for this wayfarer, and the slow paces of the sunlight loiter 
 ing on to noon, naught came and naught went. Sometimes 
 when Rathburn returned to the fire he examined anew the 
 specimens which together they had found, all strangely 
 inferior, strangely meagre, in contrast to the rich bits of 
 ** float " which Baintree had showed him in the prison, and 
 with which he had lured him on from day to day. 
 
 " He never found this beside that torrent in the gorge, 
 he may swear till he is blue ! " Rathburn looked at the bit 
 of rock, shook his head, and replaced it on the rude shelf 
 that served as mantelpiece. And once more he went to 
 the door. 
 
 There should be no more delays, no more tortuous lies, with 
 which he had borne merely seeking to humor the ignorant 
 mountaineer, to familiarize him with the idea of a coadjutor, 
 to wear out the constitutional distrust of the man. He 
 would wait no longer ; let him lay hands again on Jake 
 Baintree, he unconsciously clenched the/n, and he 
 would have out of him the secret he so foolishly, so zeal 
 ously, guarded. And yet he thought that daily Baintree 
 intended to reveal it; and when they would set forth to 
 find the spot, the mountaineer would first become preoc 
 cupied, then silent, and presently stop short and pretend in 
 clumsy fiction to recognize landmarks, and both would go 
 through a fruitless feint of digging to find mineral that both 
 knew was still far to seek. 
 
 " There has been enough of it ! " Rathburn declared be 
 tween his set teeth, in his reverie. 
 
 The prospect had all apparently seemed equitable to 
 Baintree. He had rejoiced at the idea of securing an ex 
 pert in some sort as a partner ; he had voluntarily offered 
 to divide. Perhaps the inchoate wealth of his secret had 
 become more precious to him ; perhaps he merely doubted 
 the good faith of his partner. But the summer months 
 had gone, and autumn was waning. " And it s time there 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 345 
 
 was an end of it," Rathburn said, still looking out of the 
 door. 
 
 Exhaustion prevailed at last and overpowered vigilance. 
 He had lain down upon the floor, pillowing his head on a 
 saddle that had been flung there, intending merely to rest ; 
 but he was soon asleep, and the sun swung vertically above 
 the Great Smoky, and gradually took its way down the 
 steep western slopes, and presently the light faded from the 
 purple earth, and the stars were in the great altitudes of the 
 sky, alternating with vast spaces of gloom, for the night had 
 brought clouds, and the moonrise was impenetrably veiled. 
 Still he slept, unheeding that the fire had died to an ember 
 on the hearth, unheeding that the wind howled in the gorge. 
 The door shook in its rude grasp ; the roof creaked ; sharp 
 draughts came through the crannies, and scattered the dry 
 ashes about the floor. Suddenly there was a sound outside 
 other than the swirl of the dead leaves about the rotting 
 threshold. A stealthy step came to the vindow. A face 
 peered in through the rifts of the batten shutter. 
 
 Rathburn might have seen it, for the embers sent up at 
 that moment a fitful blue gleam which played over the room, 
 showing its dishevelment and his own recumbent figure, 
 with its yellow head on the old dark saddle, and showing as 
 well the face that looked in, but he was too deep, far too 
 deep, in his dream. 
 
 The tiny flame dropped ; the red ember glowed ; the room 
 was lighter than the black wilds without, and perhaps the 
 recumbent figure beside the hearth was still visible to the 
 peering eyes, themselves now invisible from within. The 
 subtile influence of their long, steadfast scrutiny shook even 
 the deep securities of slumber. It pervaded Rathburn s 
 consciousness, how, with all his science he might hardly 
 have explained. He shifted his attitude once or twice ; then 
 with a great start he struggled up to his feet. 
 
 For a moment the stupefying pain of a sudden awaken 
 ing possessed his torpid consciousness. The next, he heard 
 
346 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 the wind trumpeting a blast that he had learned to know, 
 and he reluctantly realized his surroundings. Once more 
 he felt the chill of those scrutinizing eyes upon him, a 
 vague uneasiness which he could not recognize. His long- 
 drawn sigh of somnolent reaction was checked midway. 
 He stooped to the fire, and vainly sought to coax the embers 
 to kindle anew. The sound of his own voice in an impa 
 tient exclamation had a strange echo in the empty lone 
 liness of the place. He had matches in his pockets, or, 
 like the provident mountaineers, he would not have suf 
 fered the fire to die. It was only a moment or two before 
 the long, ribbon-like unfurlings of the white flames of pine 
 knots were flying up the chimney, and there was no face at 
 the window, and no sound but the riotous play of the wind 
 without. 
 
 He had taken a chair before the fire when his alert ear 
 discriminated in the elemental stir a step that deliberately 
 approached. There was a hand upon the latch. 
 
 " Come in ! " he sang out, without rousing himself, or 
 hardly turning his head. He felt sure of the identity of 
 the new-comer. He could measure, too, the deprecating 
 envy and embarrassment that the contemplation of his 
 serenity and bravado would excite in the wary and timor 
 ously suspicious Baintree, and he was in the mood to-night 
 when that display of manly superiority was a grateful solace 
 to his feelings and pride, so seriously jarred by the events 
 of last evening. He did not look up until Baintree was 
 drawing the other rickety chair to the fire, turning toward 
 him an eager, inquiring face, every muscle cf which ex 
 pressed surprise, suspicion, and an earnest plea to disarm 
 criticism. 
 
 " Howdy do, Jake," observed Rathburn, enjoying his 
 suspense. " The weather is getting to be some, if not 
 more, ain t it? Listen at the wind, will you." 
 
 " The wind s sorter harsh ter-night," said Baintree. He 
 sat down quietly in his chair, taking his cue from Rath- 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 347 
 
 burn s manner and emulating his composure. Neverthe 
 less, to the trained medical eye he was showing many symp 
 toms of overwrought nerves, of long, harassing anxiety ; he 
 had doubtless been without food, without sleep, for many 
 an hour. 
 
 Rathburn was conscious that in the coming interview he 
 would derive an advantage from the long, restful slumber in 
 which the day had passed, and which had given brain and 
 will again into his own control. The professional conscience, 
 however, stirred at the sight of physical need. 
 
 411 Get you something to eat, Jake," he said with his pro 
 fessional manner. " You want it. Must be something on 
 the shelf." 
 
 But Baintree, rubbing together his long, thin hands, a 
 trifla chilled, for the temperature without had changed, de 
 clared that he was not hungry. 
 
 u All right," returned the doctor, lightly. " I can lead 
 a horse to water, but I can t make him drink." 
 
 The last word seemed to remind Baintree that there was 
 a bottle on the shelf as well as food. He got up with his 
 alert, soft step, took a long pull at it, and came back to his 
 comrade with its effects distinctly apparent in the aroma 
 upon his breath and the confidence which it served to im 
 part to his manner. He pushed his hat far back on his 
 sleek black head, rubbed his face once or twice between his 
 hands, and then, leaning his elbows on his knees, he spread 
 out his thin, almost transparent fingers over the blaze. He 
 looked craftily up, presently, at Rathburn, who sat gazing 
 placidly into the fire, one hand stroking his long yellow mus 
 tache. Few people could have augured from his easy com 
 posure and his debonair grace that he had lately been in 
 danger of his life at the hands of a mob, or that he owed 
 his security to aught that he could plan or compass. 
 
 * Marcelly Strobe mus hev been foolin we-uns some. 
 Funnin , I s pose," Baintree hazarded. 
 
 " She told the truth, as she always does, I am sure." 
 
348 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 Baintree s outspread hands quivered despite the fictitious 
 courage imparted by apple-jack. His eyes dilated. 
 
 " War war thar ennyhody thar sure enough ? " 
 
 " Plenty of em. But only two came to the forge." 
 
 " What what did they say ? " 
 
 " Oh, they were civil enough," returned Rathhurn in an 
 offhand fashion. 
 
 " How did you git away from em ? " 
 
 " Oh, I had no trouble. I did just as I told you I 
 should : went to the blacksmith s house and roused up his 
 mother, and pretended to be hunting for him." 
 
 " Did that tale go down ? " asked Baintree, his relish of 
 deceiving the enemy even by proxy causing his eyes to 
 glitter. 
 
 u Not a bit of it. That devil Teck Jepson had got wind 
 of our being warned, and of who warned us. He just felt 
 sort o good, I suppose, and let me off." 
 
 " He would n t ef I had been thar," said Baintree with a 
 pessimistic nod of the head. 
 
 " He would ! " 
 
 Baintree did not retaliate with a counter-retort. He was 
 silent for a moment. Then he observed, " Teck an Mar- 
 celly useter keep comp ny tergether. I 11 bet she got 
 skeered arter she warned us, an let him know she hed gin 
 us the word." 
 
 " She ain t one of that kind. She don t scare worth a 
 cent. She s worth any ten men ! " 
 
 There was something so fervent in his tone that it seemed 
 to give a ne\v and unique direction to Jake Baintree s 
 thoughts. 
 
 Presently he said, " She air a powerful good an pritty 
 gal, Marcelly air ! But she ain t in no wise like them young 
 town gals in Glaston. I useter see em on the street whenst 
 I war fetched from the jail ter the court. Them s the sort 
 ye been quainted with, the kind that walks with par sols. 
 She ain t in no wise like them fine town gals." 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE, 349 
 
 " And what if she ain t ? She a better than them all put 
 together, and a thousand times prettier." 
 
 It was hardly twenty-four hours since she had bestirred 
 herself to save his life, and his heart was still warm toward 
 her. 
 
XX. 
 
 BAINTKEE lifted his sleek black head for a moment, and 
 covertly surveyed his fireside companion, whose eyes were 
 fixed meditatively on the coals. There was an expression 
 of acute though surprised comprehension in the face of the 
 crafty mountaineer ; his elevated eyebrows, keen, quick 
 glance, and thin pursed lips betokened much deft and agile 
 deduction and analysis, although none of these swift pro 
 cesses were indicated in the reflective mien into which he 
 had relapsed before Rathburn s attention once more reverted 
 to him. 
 
 " Marcelly air pritty enough," he said, still spreading his 
 thin fingers to the blaze. " Thar ain t no two ways bout n 
 that. I reckon a man mought take a righteous oath ez thar 
 ain t sech another lookin gal in the Newnited States but 
 she ain t like them young citified Glastcn gals, v hat walks 
 with par sols, in no wise like them ez walks with par sols," 
 he repeated the phrase with relish of its aptness, for to him it 
 expressed the totality of the status. " An she don t know 
 none of the things they know. Why shucks ! even the men- 
 folks in the mountings air a thousand million o miles away 
 behind the times. I fund that out through jes goin ter jail in 
 a sure-enough town. I reckon they would fall down stunned 
 ef they war ter see a three-story house. I 11 be bound they 
 would be plumb afeard ter go inside o one, thinkin bein 
 so high it mought fall in onto em an mash em tee-to 
 tally ! " He looked up half laughing, half sneering at the 
 thought of his compatriots ignorance, and Rathburn s face 
 wore a responsive gleam, Jake Baintree s attitude of 
 superiority expressed so definitely how relative a thing is 
 sophistication ! 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 351 
 
 " The folks in the mountings don t know nuthin scarcely," 
 he went on, evidently bitten by that tarantula of decrying 
 the home-keeping things which besets more learned travelers 
 in wider circuits. " But they won t b lieve that, though. 
 "Why, even me T useter think thar war n t no kentry but 
 Tennessee, an No th Carliny, an Georgy, an sech. It 
 liked ter hev knocked me down whenst that man ez war my 
 cell-mate in Glaston ye member, he hed a chronic mis ry 
 in his throat an bless the Lord, he showed me Ashy an 
 Africky an Europe on a map he hed, an 1 could n t sleep 
 none that night the news liked ter hev tuk my breath 
 away ! " 
 
 He reached behind the chair to the woodpile, lifted a 
 great log split in half, and flung it on the fire, which sent 
 up a myriad of sparks and a cloud of smoke, and then 
 seemed to dwindle in discouragement for a season, only now 
 and then emitting a timorous blue or yellow flame to coil 
 like a thong around the bulk of the wood, disappearing the 
 next moment in the slowly ascending gray wreaths that had 
 usurped the place of the dancing blazes. The room had 
 grown very nearly dark. Rathburn could ill distinguish the 
 crouching figure, with its elbows on its knees, seated in the 
 rickety chair on the opposite side of the hearth. It seemed 
 lighter without than within. He could see through the rift 
 in the batten shutter a section of the deeply purple sky 
 athwart which the leafless twigs of a bough near at hand 
 moved fitfully, fretted by the wind. Once in their midst a 
 great white star shone, pulsating in some splendid ecstasy, 
 and then the clouds surged over it anew. The lush-like 
 blaze sprang out once more about the log, and he caught 
 Baintree s eye, still illumined with a jeering laugh, and a 
 twinkling appreciation of the incongruity between his pres 
 ent fully-posted estate and his former ignorance. 
 
 " Did ye see Eli ? " he demanded presently. 
 
 Rathburn nodded. 
 
 " Hev he got sensible agin ? " asked Baintree, remember- 
 
352 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 ing the constable s delirious condition when they visited the 
 house together. 
 
 " He talked very sensibly indeed, this evening," the physi 
 cian replied evasively, the professional punctilio instantly 
 on the alert, " especially about lynchers and law-breakers 
 generally sound views." 
 
 Baintree became suddenly rigid. 
 
 "Ye war n t fool enough," he said, sitting stiffly upright, 
 " ter go tellin Eli Strobe, the offcer o the law, bout n them 
 men by name they d hang ye fur a informer, ef they lied 
 nuthin else agin ye, ef enny of em fund it out." 
 
 " That for their slip-knots ! " cried Rathburn, snapping his 
 fingers and laughing in gay bravado. " I m not in collu 
 sion with em, an I 11 do nothing to protect em. I 11 give 
 em away every time ! " 
 
 Baintree visibly winced at the mere idea of this defiance. 
 He made no response for a moment, but looked doubtfully 
 over his shoulder at the broken batten shutter. It shivered 
 and shook as if in sympathy with his glance. 
 
 " The wind is harsh ter-night," he said again. 
 
 " I m through with this skulking and hiding," said Rath- 
 burn, the superficial composure and friendly tone that he 
 had maintained giving way suddenly. " I 11 say what I 
 mean, and what I think, and what I feel. And I m going 
 to hire twenty fifty hands to sink shafts in both those 
 gorges where the best indications are." 
 
 Baintree had been startled by his sudden change of tone, 
 and had listened with relaxing muscles and lips parted. 
 A certain hardening took possession of his features as the 
 final words fell on the air. A covert triumph, a definite ap 
 preciation of his own cleverness, shone in his eyes, incongru 
 ously enough with the mild tenor of his speech as he said, 
 " Waal, Eugene, I wish ye well I wish ye well ! Ye an 
 me hev been mighty frien ly tergether an I hev enjyed yer 
 comp ny." 
 
 Rathburn, tilted back in his chair with his hands clasped 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 353 
 
 behind his head, looked, with curling lip and sarcastic, glow 
 ing eye, the sneering protest that it was futile to speak. 
 Since he had been so free with his company he could not 
 logically quarrel with Baintree for presuming to find it 
 agreeable. 
 
 " I be sorry ye hev got tired o me. I ain t ez school- 
 lamed ez ye, though I ain t like a ignorunt mountaineer, 
 nuther. I hev larned some in books, an I be one o them 
 ez kiri larn out n em, too. Thar s a heap o things I know 
 through jes bein knowin ." His look was the very es 
 sence of boastful slyness as he cast his eyes up obliquely at 
 the flushing face of the young townsman. He had his el 
 bows once more on his knees, and his chin in his long bony 
 hand, and his drawl was not as distinct, thus hampered, as 
 it might have been. " Eli Strobe hev been ter Glaston time 
 I war tried, likewise Teck Jepson. They never larnt thar 
 what I larned bout town ways ; they never seen thar 
 what I seen ! Though Teck Jepson hev got sech a survi- 
 grous vision ez he kin view the prophets o the Lord lopin 
 around the Big Smoky Mountings ! when the men never 
 war out n Ashy in all thar born days, ceptin they hed a 
 sorter stampin -ground o captivity in Egypt." He gave the 
 self-flattering laugh of conscious cleverness, and then went 
 on with that manner compounded of mock-humility and fra 
 ternal familiarity which had become so offensive to Rathburn. 
 " But I ain t ekal ter sech ez you-uns, Eugene, an I don t 
 wonder none ef ye hev in an about hed enough o me. I 
 don t wish ye nuthin but well. Mebbe ye mought hire 
 some o them men ez war along o Teck Jepson at the black 
 smith s barn ter-night ter kem an dig an sink shafts." He 
 rubbed his chin in pretended cogitation upon ways and 
 means. " Folks in Brumsaidge ain t gin over ter diggin 
 much seems ez ef it in an* about kills em ter hev ter 
 scratch the top o the ground enough with thar shallow 
 plowin ter put in the leetle bit o corn an sorghum an 
 sech ter keep the life in em. But mebbe ef ye war ter hire 
 
354 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 em, they would be cured o thar dad-burned laziness, an 
 would jes jump fur jye fur the pleasure o diggin down 
 sixty or sebenty feet in the hard groun . They would git 
 used ter giant-powder an sech, too, arter a while an 
 would n t low the Devil war in it." 
 
 Eugene Rathburn was chewing the end of his mustache, 
 now and then pausing with his white teeth set, and looking 
 at Baintree with antagonistic eyes, his anger held in bounds 
 only by the sense of being at a disadvantage, and the de 
 moralizing effect of sustaining an unrequitable rebuff, for 
 Baintree s sarcasm admitted of no successful retort. It was 
 merely for the sake of going through the motions of self- 
 confidence and asserting independence, that he said in an 
 off-hand way, " Oh, I meant laborers from Glaston Irish 
 ditchers ; they are willing to dig, I fancy." 
 
 Jake Baintree affected to receive this with solemn con 
 sideration. " Yes, sir ! They f d dig. Useter see a gang 
 a-workin on that thar new railroad whilst lookin out n 
 the jail winder." 
 
 It seemed a wide and varied expression of the world and 
 of life that that jail window had given upon, so much had 
 the crafty observation been able to glean therefrom. 
 
 " They d stonish the mounting folks ! Thar ain t no 
 sech dirt-slingers nowhar. But pears like ter me, Eugene, 
 they mought be sorter expensive ef ef , ye know it war 
 ter turn out ez thar war rit silver in payin quantities. Ye 
 know bes , Eugene, what with yer book-larnin , yer g ology 
 an sech, an yer leetle assay in consarns, but ez fur ez I kin 
 jedge, ye air powerful welcome ter enny min ral in them 
 two gorges. I m willin ter gin ye my sheer ! " He had 
 spoken gravely, but suddenly a glancing smile lighted up 
 his eyes and curved his lips with so spontaneous an expres 
 sion of malicious enjoyment that it seemed in his rare relish 
 of the situation his will had lost control of his muscles. He 
 instantly recovered himself, and although he noted the fact 
 that Eugene Rathburn, quietly looking at him, had marked 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 355 
 
 the dropping of the mask, he went on in the same mock- 
 fraternal vein, " I dunno ez I be hopeful bout n it, Eugene 
 but I wish ye well, I wish ye well, Eugene." 
 
 Rathburn was holding his every muscle in a sedulous 
 placidity. There was a conscious, intent, exacting calmness 
 upon his face and in his voice. 
 
 Baintree," he said slowly, " I am glad I slept to-day. 
 I am glad I have my nerves abnormally tinder my control. 
 Otherwise I should kill you, I should strike you dead 
 where you are. No man under ordinary circumstances 
 could resist the temptation." 
 
 Baintree cast a searching glance upon him ; then embold 
 ened by his quiescent aspect, he sneered as he laughed. 
 
 " Then I m glad, too, ye slept. Thanky kindly, sir ! But 
 I hain t slept none. An I kno^y ye would n t low ez I war 
 right perlite ef I war ter kill ye an take yer life, kase I 
 hain t lied my nap. I m glad, too ; I never s picioned afore 
 how much inteuest I oughter take in yer sleepin sound an 
 satisfactory." 
 
 Rathburn felt the blood rush to his temples, and he heard 
 his hurrying pulses beat surcharged with the impetus of 
 rage. He did not stir. He still sat with his hands clasped 
 behind his head, his chair tilted on the hind legs. He 
 looked very trim, and sinewy, and lithe in his close-fitting 
 blue flannel shirt and trousers, with the well-shaped high 
 boots coming to the knee, in contrast with the long and lean 
 Baintree, upon whose gaunt frame his ill-made brown jeans 
 hung with many a crease and wrinkle. Beside the florid 
 young physician, the jail-bird seemed to have no blood in 
 his veins, so pallid was his clearly-cut face. As they stead 
 fastly gazed at one another, the comparison might have in 
 terested a third party looking on in the firelight, now richly 
 aglow once more ; but they were alone in the vastness of 
 the Great Smoky Mountains, the slope of this lofty dome 
 inhabited by naught else save bear, or panther, or wolf. 
 Only the mist peered in at the rift of the batten shutter, 
 
356 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 white-faced, and wild, and disheveled, fleeing forever before 
 the ousting wind that made the timorous silent thing a va 
 grant. It seemed as if to escape the antagonistic element 
 that it sought to enter the rift in the shutter, sending in a 
 hesitating wreath, slow-stealing, pausing aghast in the glow 
 of the fire, and disappearing in the instant. 
 
 As the two comrades faced each other it was hard to say 
 which had the advantage, the clever man with the aid of cul 
 ture, or the clever man so clever despite the lack of culture. 
 
 Baintree s insidious sarcasms, with their ever-ready thrust, 
 had acquired an edge from the attrition with his malicious 
 mirth. And Rathburn found that his seriousness weighted 
 his anger and, since he would not sanction its outburst, 
 made his defense clumsy. 
 
 " I don t understand you, Jake," he said at last in a mol 
 lifying tone, " to save my life I can t understand you. 
 You go fooling me along with a bait of rich float from 
 month to month pretending to show me where you found it. 
 And when I tell you that it is impossible that you could 
 have found it here, and there, and elsewhere, because the 
 formation proves you a liar, you make out all at once that 
 you were mistaken, and we plod about, and you affect to 
 recognize other landmarks, and so we have the whole tom 
 foolery over again. If you were half as smart as you think 
 you are, you would realize that you can t light hap-hazard 
 on any similar rich spot you have got to go where you 
 found that piece of float, and follow it up or dig there." 
 
 " Laws-a-massy, Eugene," said Baintree, adopting in 
 turn a more pacific tone, and holding out both empty hands 
 with the palms upward as if to express a vacuity of unwor 
 thy intention, " don t I try an try ter find the percise spot, 
 an ef I fool ye don t I fool myse f too ? T war toler ble 
 long ago whenst I fund that rock, an the Big Smoky 
 Mountings seem sorter roomy whenst ye take ter huntin 
 fur one percise leetle yard medjure o groun , whar a boy 
 five year ago picked up a rock." 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 357 
 
 Somehow as he became less acrid the temper of the other 
 waxed stronger, feeling the opposition lessen. With this 
 spirit encroaching upon his self-control Rathburn said sud 
 denly, " I don t believe one word of it. You know the spot 
 well enough. You are afraid to go to it." 
 
 Baintree, whose attitude remained unchanged, barely 
 having had time to shift to a defiant sneer the deprecating 
 earnest look he had worn, seemed petrified for one moment 
 as he sat still holding out his hands, his laugh rigid on his 
 startled face. 
 
 " Fraid ! " he echoed, glancing over his shoulder at the 
 spectral mists that came in at the crevice in the shutter and 
 paused at the sight of the fire, and shivered into invisibil 
 ity. " Fraid!" 
 
 Suddenly the rain came down on the roof with a thou 
 sand tentative touches upon the clapboards, as if to try their 
 sonorous capacities, and elicit what element of melody so 
 unpromising an instrument might add to the music of the 
 storm. Through its iterative staccato beat might be heard 
 the blended, un individualized fall of the floods in the dis 
 tance, a low, mellow resonance. A chill blast came in un 
 der the door. The chimney piped. The pallid mists were 
 torn from the rift in the shutter, and one could see upon the 
 black and limited space of darkness without certain fine 
 gray palpitating lines of rain, close at hand, continuously 
 shifting, but never ceasing nor breaking into drops. 
 
 " I believe," continued Rathburn, " that the silver is at 
 the spot where you ki where that man Samuel Keale lost 
 his life." He did not fail to note that Baintree winced at 
 the name. " And you are afraid to go there, and igno 
 rant fool that you are ! you think because silver is there, 
 it is anywhere else, and if we dig hard enough we will find 
 it somewhere in the mountains." 
 
 Baintree said nothing. He sat moistening his thin dry 
 lips with the tip of his tongue, and looking at Rathburn 
 with eyes small, bright, and with an expression that re- 
 
358 THE DESPOT OF BHOOUSEDGE COVE. 
 
 minded him of the eyes of a rat in a trap, timorous, fur 
 tive, and bespeaking mercy that it did not hope to receive. 
 
 " Where is that cave ? Tell me that," urged Rathburn, 
 all his eager desire for the hidden treasure goading him 
 anew with the recollection of how long he had been forced 
 to dally upon the verge of an opulent discovery. 
 
 " Where is that cave ? " he demanded. He was fain to 
 raise his voice to be heard above the din of the elements, 
 and the commanding tones added to,, the sense of power that 
 possessed him more and more as Baintree s confidence col 
 lapsed. " I don t ask you to tell me where the float was 
 found simply where is that cave ? " 
 
 Still Baintree met his eye like a caged and helpless thing. 
 He nevertheless had something in his power, to be 
 speechless ; and as Rathburn perceived a resolution in his 
 dumbness he persisted more vehemently. 
 
 "Tell me ! Tell me ! Then, if you won t, Teck Jepson 
 will be ready enough to tell me where he found the man s 
 coat and hat, and I suppose the cave can t be far away in 
 the gorge. I shall find it I shall find it I shall never 
 cease to search until " 
 
 As he spoke he caught a glint of triumph in Baintree s 
 eyes. He realized how far afield his hopes had carried 
 him, that long and devious distances lay between the spot 
 to which he might be guided and the spot he sought. 
 
 With a sudden savage cry and the agility of a panther 
 he flung himself upon the man at the fireside and grappled 
 at his throat. 
 
 " Tell me ! " he ground out between his set teeth. " Tell 
 me! " 
 
 A hoarse, half-strangled, intermittent scream for help 
 filled the log-cabin, and penetrated to the stormy voids of 
 the wilderness without. How vain ! The heedless rain 
 beat upon the roof. The unrecking wind passed by. They 
 were alone in the lofty fastnesses of the mountains, and 
 one was at the mercy of the other. Eugene Rathburn had 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 359 
 
 never thought to put his knowledge of the mechanism of 
 the human throat to such uses, but the mountaineer s supe 
 rior strength had enabled him only to rise and to writhe 
 helplessly upon the verge of strangulation, under the scien 
 tific pressure of those fine and slender hands upon his bare 
 throat, practically demonstrating how nearly a man may be 
 choked and still live. For now and again their grasp re 
 laxed, not to permit that hoarse, futile cry which twice and 
 thrice ensued, but as the essential means of an answer to 
 the question, 
 
 " Tell me, where did you find it ? " 
 
 Baintree, taken by surprise, his eyes starting out of his 
 head, his face almost purple, both unnerved hands grasping 
 Rathburn s lifted arms, seemed in these intervals, in catch 
 ing his breath, to regain a modicum of his faculties. He 
 ceased his instinctive efforts to tear away the strong clutch 
 at his throat. He swiftly passed his arms around the waist 
 of his assailant, and with a sudden wrench sought to fling 
 him to the floor. But the lithe Rathburn kept his feet, and 
 the two went staggering together across the room ; crashing 
 over the chairs ; dragging the saddle that lay on the floor 
 under their clumsy, stumbling steps, the stirrup-irons clatter 
 ing on the puncheons ; now swaying this way and now that ; 
 overturning the table, with its scanty store of crockery break 
 ing unheeded on the hearthstone. The red firelight, sole 
 witness of the strife, flickered bravely on the brown walls ; 
 the green wood, with the sap still in the fibres, sang a mel 
 low elfin song, fine and faint, all unheard. Their shadows 
 had loct the pacific habit of many evenings of fraternal com- 
 munings when the silhouettes smoked many a pipe in Bar- 
 mecidal fashion, and drank together in dumb show, and 
 imitated their hilarious, genial, and hopeful gestures. Now, 
 adopting their example anew, they reeled furiously after them 
 as they went. 
 
 Baintree s vise-like grip failed when the pressure on his 
 throat was renewed ; the strength of the convulsive struggle, 
 
360 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 in which all his unconscious physical forces were asserted, 
 proved futile. There was a different expression in his 
 bulging eyes he was beginning to believe that the reply 
 to the question was the price of his life. Perhaps Rath- 
 burn noticed and interpreted the sign of subduement. The 
 pressure of the deft fingers relaxed again. 
 
 " Where did you find the float tell me ! " he reiterated. 
 
 " I lever fund it," Baintree gasped. The fingers tight 
 ened on his throat, then loosened, for he was about to speak 
 again. " Sam l Keale fund it." 
 
 " Where where ? " demanded Rathburn, his teeth set 
 hard and his breath fluttering. 
 
 " I dunno," gasped the victim, " he would n t never tell 
 me!" 
 
 " You killed him for that ? " Rathburn ask*:d swiftly 
 suddenly his fingers began to tremble. Had he too been 
 tempted to this hideous crime through the lure of that bit of 
 float ? " What ever became of him ? " 
 
 He asked this question less with the desire of response 
 than with an instinctive effort to elude even to his own con 
 science the tracing of so repulsive a parallel. But Baintree 
 could not divine his train of thought nor that aught had 
 served to weaken that clutch upon his throat save the wish to 
 facilitate reply. He was in momentary expectation of its 
 renewal. He had yielded and yielded utterly. 
 
 " I never knowed," he sputtered, " ez the Lord air my 
 witness I never knowed. He jes disappeared one day, an 
 I traced his steps ter the mouth o a cave, thar hed been 
 a rain, an I never seen him agin." 
 
 " Was the cave where Jepson found his hat and coat ? " 
 Rathburn demanded. 
 
 " Naw ! " exclaimed Baintree, his eyes growing suddenly 
 intent with anger. " Naw ! Ef I hed knowed at the trial 
 ez Teck Jepson war a-goin ter find them old clothes in the 
 gorge, an make sech a power o a miration over em arter 
 ward at the baptizin , I d hev tole whar the cave war sure 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 361 
 
 enough whenst they put me on the stand. An Teck Jep- 
 son would n t hev liked that so mighty well, I reckon, kase 
 all the kentry knowed ez him an Sam l war at logger 
 heads." 
 
 Why ? what would Jepson have cared ? " cried Rath- 
 burn. 
 
 It was only because of the revived interest of the moment 
 that his muscles grew tense, but his grasp had the intima 
 tion of coercion to Baintree, who instantly responded, with a 
 nod of the head, 
 
 kt Kase the cave s on his land in Teck Jepson s woods. 
 That s why ! An folks war powerful worked up an ex 
 cited then, an mought hev s picioned him." 
 
 Rathburn s hands fell from Baintree s throat to his shoul 
 ders. u Jake," he said, amazed, his voice bated with uncer 
 tainty and excitement, " why did you never tell this before, 
 if you had no hand in Keale s death ? " 
 
 " What did I want ter tell fur ? How d I know what ter 
 tell an what not ter tell? Nobody knowed how nut-bin 
 would strike the jury not even the lawyer. An I lowed 
 ef they fund Sam l thar," he shivered a little at the sug 
 gestion, he d hev looked turrible, mebbe, an hev bed his 
 bones bruk an that would hev made it all go harsher at 
 the trial. Ev rybody knowed he had been consortin with 
 me, a-sarchin fur silver, an war seen las along o me. So 
 I jes purtended I could n t find the spot agin, an the steps 
 ez led ter the cave ; it bed rained mo , an the groun war 
 washed up cornsider ble. An they all lowed t war up in 
 the gorge whar them clothes war fund. Why n t I tell, an* 
 why n t I tell ? " he reiterated. " I be sorry now I hev tole 
 what I hev tole." 
 
 He cast his anxious eyes absently about the room with 
 a harried, hunted look. Evidently the disclosure he had 
 made was of paramount importance to him, and precluded 
 for the moment consideration or realization of the coercion 
 which had elicited it. 
 
362 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 " That s of no importance you could n t be tried again 
 for the same offense," said Rathburn reassuringly. 
 
 " Waal that rule don t hold good in Jedge Lynch s 
 court," returned Baintree gloomily. 
 
 Rathburn walked away a few steps with his hands in his 
 pockets. It was difficult to assume a casual air after the 
 episode of the evening, but his efforts were aided by Bain- 
 tree s fixed attention upon the engrossing subject of Keale s 
 disappearance rather than his recent injuries. 
 
 He stopped short suddenly. " Thought you and he were 
 scuffling and playing when he fell into the chasm ? " He 
 looked at Baintree with a revival of suspicion. 
 
 " I lowed that whenst I war confused an did n t know 
 what ter say," replied Baintree. "We war n t playin nor 
 nuthin . He lef me a-diggin in the gorge an lef his 
 hat an coat thar an lowed he war a-goin ter a spot ter 
 peck at the rocks a leetle furder down ; an I waited an 
 waited, I waited a week fur him, whenst I fund his track 
 ter the cave feard ter go home. He ain t kem yit." 
 
 Rathburn sank down into his chair beside the fire with a 
 dazed, baffled sense of loss. He was trembling with excite 
 ment, and exhausted by the struggle. His eyes were fixed, 
 unseeing, on the fire, and he panted heavily as he drew out 
 his handkerchief and passed it over his forehead. 
 
 " Why did n t you tell me before that it was he who found 
 the float ; that you did n t know where in this big, thrice- 
 accursed wilderness it came from ? " 
 
 " Kase I war feard ye would n t low t war wuth while 
 ter sarch, then," responded Baintree, with the promptitude 
 of the instinct of self-defense. " I lowed ef Sam l Keale, 
 knowin the leetle he did bout min ral, could find sech ez 
 that, ye with all yer book-larnin could. What s the good 
 o yer g ology, an all yer other gear, ef ye can t ? " 
 
 "I can t find silver if it isn t in the rock," returned 
 Rathburn. This was not said in the tone of a retort. A gnaw 
 ing sense of shame, a burning self-reproach, had the ascend- 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 363 
 
 ancy in his consciousness, even the vanishing prospects 
 of wealth, diminishing gradually in the far perspective of 
 probability, were secondary for the time. He could not jus 
 tify his deed he blushed for his motives. He felt in this 
 cooler moment of reflection as if he had suffered some 
 metamorphosis some translation into another sordid en 
 tity, whose every impulse was followed by an anguish of re 
 morse. He gazed down at his hands, still red and smart 
 ing with the strain to which he had subjected them, as if he 
 could hardly endure to acknowledge them after the work 
 which they had done for him so well and cleverly. His lids 
 drooped a little as he looked up at Baintree, and he eva 
 sively glanced hastily away. 
 
 " Jake," he said in an embarrassed and husky tone, 
 the mountaineer had seated himself opposite and was un 
 winding a large handkerchief which he had worn around 
 his throat, the folds, as they fell, showing the bruised and 
 swollen flesh, "I am sorry I got to quarreling with you. 
 I don t know what in the world made me do it." 
 
 Baintree paused in unrolling his neck-gear, and glanced 
 keenly at the troubled and downcast face. 
 
 " I dunno what made ye do it, nuther. I be sorry, too. 
 1 hev got reason ter be. An if ye call it quarTin it s 
 toler ble survigrous quar lin , I will say." 
 
 The flames in the chimney cowered as the wind swept 
 down, and crouched like a beaten thing. The smoke puffed 
 into the room. The gusts had a wild, insurgent, menacing 
 note. The batten shutter rattled. The rain redoubled its 
 force upon the roof. The place seemed infinitely solitary, 
 and distant, and forlorn. 
 
 " I wish I had never heard of the silver. I wish I had 
 let it alone," said Rathburn, from out his moody reflections. 
 
 " That ain t goin ter do ye no good," declared Baintree 
 suddenly. " Ye 11 go right back ter it, same ez a frog ter 
 water. Them ez hanker arter it hev got the love of it 
 rooted in em. Hey, Lord ! I lowed wunst ez I hed enough 
 
364 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 o it. I lowed thar war a everlastin curse on it. Arter 
 Sam l Keale, he jes vamosed like he done, an they rested 
 me, an I hed ter go ter jail an be tried fur my life an 
 paid everything I hed in the world, even my gun, an my 
 pistol, ter the lawyer, fur defendin me I lowed t war 
 kase I hed hankered arter the silver ez the Lord hid away 
 in the hills. An I did n t keer no mo fur it then. Not 
 even whenst ye kem ter physic me, an seen that piece o 
 float I hed kerried jes by accident in my pocket. Not even 
 whenst ye peared so streck of a heap, an kep sayin how 
 rich, how rich t war. Naw, sir ! An whenst I kem 
 home, I tuk conrsider ble pains ter git religion. I lowed I 
 war n t goin ter gin the Lord no mo excuse fur goin back 
 on me. I got religion an sot out ter save my soul. I hed hed 
 enough o sarchin arter silver an hevin nuthin ter kem o 
 it, so I hed sot out a-sarchin arter salvation. I wanted ter 
 find suthin this time ! I wanted ter be a prosperous saint 
 o the Lord, an what with knowin how ter read an write, I 
 mought git lected ter office some day, ef I stood well in the 
 church. Could n t find salvation, nuther ! This hyar Teck 
 Jepson kem a-pouncin down on me at the very water s 
 aidge, whenst I war a-goin ter be baptized an wash my 
 sins away, an git the right sperit ter lead my feet ter 
 heaven, an he war a-totin Sam l s old gyarments what I hid 
 ter be rid of em, an Pa son renounced me. So now I hev 
 got ter go ter hell but hevin lived sech a life in Brum- 
 saidge ez hev been my sheer, I reckon t won t be secb a 
 turr ble change ez most folks find it." 
 
 "Come, Jake, you don t have to be baptized to go to 
 heaven ! " exclaimed Rathburn. He was looking at his 
 fireside companion with, an anxious commiseration upon his 
 deprecatory, flushed face, despite the laugh that fluctuated 
 over it. 
 
 But the rustic, however he may be awakened to a sense 
 of his ignorance of mundane matters, stoutly maintains all 
 the arrogations of a spiritual adept. The mountaineer 
 sneered the theological proposition scornfully away. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE, 365 
 
 " Ye dunno nuthin bout n it I hev hearn ye say things 
 ez makes me low ye ain t haffen a b liever ; ye pear ter 
 sense religious things mighty porely ! Ef ye read the Bible 
 mo , an yer g ology an min rology, ez ye call em, less, 
 ye d be mo able ter entertain the sperit, ef ye ever war 
 ter hev a chance." 
 
 As he shook his head drearily over the fire, the sombre 
 reflections evoked by his review of his forlorn, distraught 
 fate imprinted on his pallid, clear-cut face, his throat mo 
 mentarily showing more definitely the marks of the fingers 
 that had clutched it, his poverty, and its concomitant hope 
 lessness, despite his native cleverness, expressed in his rough 
 jeans clothes, and his broken boots, and his bent old hat, 
 Rathburn s heart smote him anew. 
 
 " Jake," he said, an insistent inward monitor clamoring 
 against him, " you don t know how sorry I am that I was 
 so so harsh." He adopted in his uncertainty a word 
 that Baintree often used ; it expressed for him many phases 
 of the physical and temporal world. " You don t know 
 how badly I feel about it. 
 
 " Waal," said Baintree, carefully abstaining from any in 
 timation of being appeased, although he made no definite 
 sign of resentment. " I feel toler ble bad myse f." He 
 touched his throat with a gingerly gesture, as he rearranged 
 his neck-gear. It appealed to Rathburn with all the power 
 that the sight of physical injury, however slight, exerted 
 upon him. He could without compunction have lacerated 
 his fellow-creature s sentiments, but for his cuticle he had a 
 humane professional regard, and remorse found him an easy 
 prey. 
 
 " I d give a hundred dollars if I had n t done it," he said. 
 
 "Waal I would n t," Baintree protested, with mock 
 earnestness, " kase I never hed a hunderd dollars in ah 1 my 
 life ter give," he added dryly. 
 
 Rathburn turned aside, clearing his throat with a sound 
 that was much like a stifled oroan. 
 
366 THE DESPOT OF BROOVSEDfJE COVE. 
 
 There was silence for some moments between them. The 
 rain splashed ceaselessly into the gullies below the eaves. 
 The roof leaked in more than one place, and now and then 
 a solemn, intrusive series of drops fell upon the floor, with 
 a deliberate iteration of chilly intimations. Once Rathburn 
 thought he heard a wolf howl at no great distance, and then 
 doubted if it were not the wind sounding a new and savage 
 pipe. 
 
 He began to fancy that Baintree, relishing his contrition, 
 was disposed to make the most of it, and give him as 
 much to be sorry for as his capacity for repentance could 
 accommodate. But he strove to banish this caviling mood, 
 incongruous with the injury he had done, and the regret 
 and humiliation that it had entailed. His perceptions, how 
 ever, could not be denied the prominent lugubriousness of 
 Baintree s mien, albeit his mental faculties were interdicted 
 any deductions therefrom. 
 
 Baintree s voice had a latent reproach in its very tones as 
 lie resumed : 
 
 " An then whenst I war a-tryin ter git over that back 
 set findin out thar war n t no mo room fur me in heaven 
 than thar war on y earth up ye hed ter pop, like a devil 
 out n a bush, a-goin ter sarch in the mountings fur silver, 
 sech ez that float ez I hed. An ye got me set ter honin 
 an hankerin arter silver an sech whenst I mought hev 
 knowed ez Satan war in it, through Sam l s takin off bein 
 so durned cur ous." He rubbed his hands silently for a few 
 minutes as he looked at the fire. " That war the reason I 
 tuk ye ter Jepson s old cabin ter bide a-fust I lowed ye 
 mought find sech float mongst them steep ledges an rocky 
 slopes." 
 
 Rathburn looked up at him with an alert and kindling 
 eye. His sense of humiliation, his troubled conscience, 
 were forgotten in an instant. " We never went near the 
 cave ! " he exclaimed. " That was where the fellow was 
 going. That is where you tracked his steps, Jake." He 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 307 
 
 rose to his feet and leaned over and clapped his comrade on 
 the shoulder. " We 11 find it yet. There s the ore. We 11 
 explore the cave ! " 
 
 The color had flared into his face ; his lips curved hope 
 fully under his yellow mustache ; his hand stroked it with 
 his wonted alert, confident gesture. 
 
 The mountaineer looked up at him with a face cadaver 
 ous in its extreme pallor and the elongation of all its traits. 
 His remonstrant eyes had a presage of hopeless defeat in the 
 midst of their anxious entreaty. 
 
 " That won t do, Eugene," he said, in palpitating eager 
 ness. " Laws-a-massy, boy, we can t go rummagin round a 
 dead man s bones fur silver ! " 
 
 He seemed to take note of the unmoved resolution in 
 Rathburn s expression. In his despair and fear he sought to 
 assume a casual air of confidence which might impose upon 
 his companion, however little root it had in fact. 
 
 "But shucks! ye wouldn t dare to go a mcddlin round 
 dead folks. Ye know ye be afeard o em ! " 
 
 " I? " exclaimed Rathburn, glancing down at him with a 
 bantering smile, " I ? afraid of dead men s bones ? " 
 
 Still looking up into his flushed, handsome, triumphant 
 face, full of life, and light, and spirit, Baintree quailed. For 
 did he not remember, so late though it was, his coadjutor s 
 profession ? And had he not once seen, in the backroom of 
 Rathburn s office, a bleached white skull that the young 
 physician considered a beautiful thing? The sight was re 
 newed to Baintree s recollection with the vivid dread of a 
 nightmare. He felt a suffocating pressure upon his chest. 
 A hoarse, wheezing, half-smothered unconscious cry broke 
 from his lips. 
 
 " Why, Jake ! " Rathburn began, in a cheerful, rallying, 
 reassuring tone ; but the mountaineer had started to his feet, 
 and the impetuous torrent of words would not be stopped. 
 
 " Ye air puttin a rope round my neck ! Ye knowin 
 the Brumsaidge boys like ye do ! Ef they war ter find his 
 
368 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 bones ye know, ye know what would happen! O God 
 A mighty ! " He struck his long, lean hands together as 
 he held them above his head. " An ye d do it ! Ye d 
 put a rope round my neck fur the bare chance, the bare 
 chance o findin the silver ! O Lord ! I hev been gin over 
 plumb gin over ! What ailed me," he went on, in fran 
 tic self-reproach, " what ailed me ter tell the true place, 
 many a lie ez I hev tole ? Even the Devil fursook me, 
 never whispered me nare lie ter tell this time, this time, 
 when a lie would hev saved my life ! What ailed me ter 
 tell the place the place " 
 
 " Oh Jake, stop hush ! " exclaimed Rathburn, irritably. 
 
 " Oh, I never lowed ez ye d sarch that spot ez ye d 
 put me in danger the man ez gin ye all the chance ye 
 ever hed " 
 
 " Mighty good chance ! " sneered Rathburn, losing pa 
 tience. " A piece of float that another fellow found, God 
 knows where, stop that racket, Jake ! " 
 
 " Stop ! " cried the mountaineer, still clasping and unclasp 
 ing his hands above his head as he moved convulsively about 
 the floor. " Why n t ye ax that thar worm in the fire," 
 he pointed his quivering hand at a wretched, writhing thing 
 that the heat had summoned from its nest in the rotten heart 
 of the log forth into the midst of the flames, to turn hither 
 and thither in a futile frenzy until consumed, " why n t 
 ye ax that worm ter stop ? " 
 
 " Go on, then, and have a fit," said Rathburn coolly, " or 
 work yourself into a fever." He pointed to a small medi 
 cine-chest. "Shan t cost you anything, got that advan 
 tage over the worm." 
 
 His ridicule and his assumption of indifference were salu 
 tary. Baintree paused, looking restlessly about for a mo 
 ment, then he returned to the hearth, shoving his chair with 
 his knee back into the corner where he had sat before. His 
 fear was not allayed, however, nor his sense of injury as 
 suaged. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 369 
 
 " Oh, ye air a mighty aggervatin cuss, Eugene Rath- 
 burn ! " he declared, lowering hopelessly at him across the 
 hearth. " Ef I lied lived the life other men do, an hed lied 
 my sheer o the good luck other folks gits, I d hev too much 
 sperit ter let ye kerry things like ye do. I d kill ye afore 
 I d let ye harm me ! " 
 
 " I ain t going to harm you," said Rathburn casually. 
 He did not even remember his clutch on his comrade s 
 throat. 
 
 " Ef I hed n t been through with jes what I hev been 
 through with, ye would n t treat me so. Ye would n t dare 
 treat another man Teck Jepson, say this-a-way." 
 
 " Now I m not afraid of Teck Jepson ; you can bet high 
 on that," Rathburn protested, with a sudden flush. " You 
 are such a fool, Jake, though you think yourself very smart 
 indeed, that you make all sorts of mistakes, and you want 
 me to make them, too. You ought never to have said that 
 the man fell into a cave or chasm for you don t know it." 
 That continually recurrent doubt again crossed his mind, and 
 he cast a quick, suspicious glance across the hearth at Bain- 
 tree, whose trembling hands were spread out to the fire, his 
 pallid face bearing that recent impress of a strong nervous 
 shock, indescribable, but as unmistakable as the print of a 
 blow. " You ought never to have hid his coat and hat, 
 and, by the way, the Broomsedge despot took no measures 
 to punish you for that, and I dare say if the man s bones 
 were found even now in a cave on his land, people would like 
 to know how his cave came by them." 
 
 Baintree looked up with a sudden flash of his former sly 
 intelligence, then bent his brooding eyes once more on the 
 fire. 
 
 " Especially," Rathburn continued, after a pause, " as 
 they were always on bad terms. You would be in a better 
 position to stand such a discovery than Jepson, for the jury 
 has said that you had nothing to do with his bones. What 
 did Jepson quarrel with him about ? " 
 
370 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 Baintree never spoke of the victim of the catastrophe save 
 with a bated voice and a strained, anxious expression, al 
 most a contortion in its speculative keenness to detect the 
 lack of confidence that was the usual sequence of his words. 
 
 " Bout n the way he treated his wife." 
 
 " His wife ? thought he was a young fellow, a mere 
 boy." 
 
 " He war married young, bout twenty. Gal war young, 
 too. They did n t agree tergether. Some folks lowed he 
 beat her, but Sam l s kin declared they jes fought ter 
 gether her bein ez survigrous ez him. But Jepson went 
 over thar one day whenst she hed her head tied up, lowin 
 her husband hed busted it, an he gin Sam l a turr ble 
 trouncin . He hed his head tied up arter that." 
 
 " I suppose she did n t mourn her loss ? " suggested Rath- 
 burn, with a jeering smile. 
 
 " Took on turr ble a-f ust, an married agin fore the year 
 war out." 
 
 " Glad to get rid of him, eh ? " 
 
 " He d hev been mighty glad ter git rid o her. Useter 
 low sometimes ez he d run away from her ef he hed enny- 
 whar ter run ter, an from Jepson, too. He war turr ble 
 feard o Jepson. He useter low sometimes ez he wisht he 
 hed never kem from North Car liny, whar he useter live an 
 work in a silver mine. It gin out, though, an war n t wuth 
 nuthin ter its owners." 
 
 " I wonder," said Rathburn speculatively, " if that is n t 
 where he is right now." 
 
 " Hed n t been hearn on thar at the time o the trial," 
 said Baintree. 
 
 " Or else," pursued Rathburn meditatively, " if in troun 
 cing him, according to his royal prerogative, Jepson might 
 not have overdone the chastisement, and stowed away the 
 evidences of how justice had overborne mercy in that cave 
 of his." 
 
 Both would have liked to credit this, but Baintree shook 
 his head. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 371 
 
 " / don t believe Keale fell into any cave," Rathburn pres 
 ently resumed, "a deft-footed mountaineer ! He either 
 went in there searching for silver, or he was put in there 
 for some purpose, or he has run away from his matrimonial 
 infelicity and the despot of Broomsedge Cove." 
 
 He paused to kick the chunks of the logs together, be 
 tween the stones that served as fire-dogs, for they were 
 burnt out now save for their bulky and charred ends. The 
 flames leaped up anew. The smoke had ceased to puff into 
 the room, but its aroma, with the pungent fragrance of the 
 wood, lingered in the air. The worm, in which Jake Bain- 
 tree had descried a parallel of cruelly perplexed anguish, 
 was gone, and the world was as if it had never been. The 
 sinuous contortions of his fear and harassment continued 
 with hardly more hope of ultimate rescue. Nevertheless, 
 like the worm, he could but strive. 
 
 " Eugene," he said, " let s leave the cave alone. Su thin 
 dreadful will kem o it ef we go meddlin thar. Ye know 
 ye don t want ter put me in no danger wuss n I be in now. 
 Ye would n t, now would ye ? " in an unctuous, coaxing 
 voice, and with an appealing look. 
 
 " Why, not for worlds, Jake, not for worlds ! " exclaimed 
 Rathburn heartily. 
 
 A sigh of relief was on the lips of the suspected man, a 
 gleam of renewing life in his jaded eye. There had not yet 
 been time to evolve doubt, suspicion, qualification, before 
 Rathburn spoke again. 
 
 " Nothing that I am going to do can injure anybody. I 
 was placed in far greater jeopardy by your concealments and 
 mystery about the forge than ever you will be by anything I 
 counsel or do." 
 
 " Ye mean ye won t go ter the cave ? " said Baintree, his 
 lips dry and moving with seeming difficulty. 
 
 " Now don t be an ignoramus and a fool, Jake. Of course 
 I shall look for more of the float about the cave. I believe 
 that s where the man found it. I should be a fit subject 
 
372 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 for the lunatic asylum if I did n t search there, and that s 
 just what you are. No harm in the world can come of it. 
 Why," taking a bit of paper from his pocket and deftly roll 
 ing a cigarette, " why, Jake," he spoke in answer to 
 Baintree s silent look, " what would you have done if, 
 some of those days when we were at Jepson s house, I had 
 stumhled on the mouth of that cave ? " 
 
 He cocked the cigarette between his teeth, its tiny red tip 
 brightly flaring, for the room was growing dull and dusky, 
 and looked with an expression of good-natured argument 
 at Baintree across the hearth. 
 
 The mountaineer s ruminative eyes were fixed upon him. 
 "I tuk good pains ye shouldn t," he admitted, in a tone, 
 however, which implied that he had yielded the previous 
 points of controversy. " I never guided ye in that d rec- 
 tion." 
 
 Rathburn took his cigarette from his mouth, emitted an 
 airy wreath of smoke, and shook his head seriously from 
 side to side. Then as he smoked on he said, " I have a 
 very pretty quarrel with you, Jake. By your own confes 
 sion, you have systematically deceived me for a matter of 
 six months or more. You made me believe that you had 
 found the float, and of course knew where you found it, 
 when you were only trying to get the benefit of such scien 
 tific knowledge as I had, to discover mineral where there 
 was no reason to believe it to be. If you were not so igno 
 rant you would n t have tried a foolish, hopeless dodge like 
 that. You have made me work very hard at this wild-goose 
 chase, digging, and tramping, and blacksmithing, and you 
 got me into a scrape that might have cost me my life. In 
 deed, but for that timely warning that put me on my guard 
 and made me behave like a man instead of a sheep-killing 
 dog, I believe it would have cost me my life." 
 
 His face grew grave and conscious at the thought of Mar- 
 cella. He sat silent for a moment or two, looking stead 
 fastly at the fire and turning the cigarette delicately between 
 his fingers. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 373 
 
 " It is absurd, because you are afraid of this, and afraid 
 of that, to ask me to give up the whole thing or to go and 
 search where there are no indications, or very slight ones, 
 as you had me do all summer, when you knew where the 
 only chances lay. But I forgive you, and I m not going to 
 do anything that can possibly injure you." 
 
 Baintree was sitting so still in the dusky gloom of the 
 darkening cabin that he hardly seemed alive. With the 
 brown color of his coat dimly suggested on the duller tones 
 about him. he looked like an effigy of a man rudely fash 
 ioned from a root. 
 
 " What be ye a-goin ter do ? " he demanded. 
 
 The lack of candor could hardly be urged against Eu 
 gene Rathbnrn among his many and conspicuous faults. 
 
 " I m going to search that cave from end to end, if the 
 good Lord spares me," he asseverated. u That s what I m 
 going to do. There s nothing there that I shan t find." 
 
 His cigarette, so far spent it was, required some deft ma 
 nipulation that it should not burn his fingers or lips and yet 
 yield the last treasures of nicotian luxury that it contained. 
 His attention was fixed upon it, and he lost the look with 
 which Jake Baintree received this unequivocal statement. 
 When he glanced up, the mountaineer had risen and was 
 filling his pipe from some tobacco on the mantelpiece. 
 
 " Going to smoke ? " asked Rathburn. u Well, good-night 
 to you, for I m going to turn in." 
 
 He spread upon the floor a thick rug and a heavy blanket, 
 placing one end over the saddle to serve as pillow, and as 
 he lay before the dying fire he seemed to take scant heed of 
 the vigil of the silent, watchful Baintree. still erect in his 
 chair, and still smoking his pipe. Only once the young 
 townsman stirred after he lay down. " How good the rain 
 sounds on the roof," he said drowsily. A few moments 
 afterward he was doubtless asleep a sound, dreamless 
 slumber, the close counterfeit of death, motionless, silent, 
 deep. Nevertheless Jake Baintree hardly felt sure of its 
 
374 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDUE COVE. 
 
 genuineness until after he had arisen and arranged his own 
 pallet with some unnecessary stir, that might have seemed 
 an experiment to judge if the sleeper would rouse again on 
 any slight provocation. Then he sat down once more and 
 meditatively eyed the red embers, dwindling, still dwin 
 dling in the white and gray ashes. 
 
 The monotone of the rain still beat on the roof ; he heard 
 the wind from far away ; the vague stir of the crumbling 
 fire was distinguishable, although it might seem so fine and 
 subtle a rustle would have been lost in the sound of aught 
 else. The muffled figure on the floor was still discernible 
 in the red glow ; even the yellow hair showed in a dull gleam 
 amidst the umber tones of the shadows. Jake Baintree s 
 eyes were upon it as with a careful hand he reached into a 
 crevice of the jamb of the chimney and drew forth some 
 thing that had a sudden steely glitter even in the semi-ob 
 scurity, and laid it oautiously on his knee. 
 
 He did not move for some time afterward, although in 
 the increasing dusk his shadowy figure could hardly have 
 been distinguished from the inanimate shadows about him. 
 Presently his hands were moving softly to and fro with swift, 
 industrial intentness. 
 
 Even the embers seemed to cling to life and yield it with 
 the reluctance and vacillating struggle pathetically typical 
 of the passing of human breath. Their sparkle, and verve, 
 and flamboyant energies were all spent, but suddenly they 
 sent forth an unexpected red glow, strong in the midst of 
 the ashes, that was like the transitory revival in the last" 
 flickering moments of a doomed creature. 
 
 It irradiated Baintree s wary bright eyes fixed abruptly 
 upon it, as he sat in the corner. So sudden was its flare 
 that he had not an instant to prepare for it, and a whisking 
 feather in his hand still mechanically moved to and fro as 
 he oiled a pistol, now and then dipping the tip of the quill 
 into a tin vessel that stood on the jagged edge of the jamb 
 beside him. He gazed with alert anxiety at the sleeping 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 375 
 
 man upon the floor. The room was fully revealed in the 
 melancholy red suffusion ; Rathburn s face was distinct with 
 its far-away, unconscious expression. He did not stir ; he 
 saw naught of what he might have thought strange enough 
 in the dead hour of the midnight, Jake Baintree slipping 
 cartridge after cartridge into the six chambers of Dr. Rath- 
 burn s neglected revolver, not loaded before since he had 
 come to the mountains in August. 
 
XXI. 
 
 THE storm wrought great havoc in the aspect of the outer 
 world. The dull light of the autumn days that ensued 
 served to show how the red and gold of the leaves had faded, 
 and what resources of brown and a sere tawny gray the ulti 
 mate stages of decay held in store. They were thickly 
 massed on the ground now, and most of the boughs were 
 bare and wintry, and swayed, black with moisture, against 
 the clouds, that in their silent shifting illustrated an infinite 
 gradation of neutral tints between pearl and purple. Yet 
 they seemed still, these clouds, so imperceptibly did each 
 evolution develop from the previous presentments of vapor. 
 
 Far away the gray mountains appeared akin to the dun 
 cloud-masses they touched, as if range and peak were piled 
 one above the other almost to the zenith. Certain fascinating 
 outlines of the distance, familiars of the fair weather, were 
 withdrawn beneath this lowering sky, and strangely enough 
 the landscape seemed still complete and real without them, 
 as if they had been merely some fine illusions of hope, some 
 figment of a poetic mood, painted in tender tints upon an 
 inconstant horizon. Close at hand the heights loomed grim 
 and darkly definite. In dropping the mask of foliage they 
 showed fierce features hitherto concealed, gaunt crags 
 and chasms, and awful beetling steeps ; ravines, deeply cleft 
 in the heart of the range ; torrents, flung headlong down 
 the precipices to be lost in the river ; many sterile, bare 
 rocky slopes. 
 
 To Marcella a new glow of interest was shed upon the 
 sombre scene ; often she looked up at those more open ex 
 panses, wondering where, in the vast bewilderment of the fast- 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 377 
 
 nesses, the stranger and his mountain guide had made their 
 temporary home. Far away as they were, he seemed near 
 in the definiteness of her new knowledge of him. And this 
 she supplemented by knowledge not so definite. With this 
 basis for speculation, her imagination constructed, with all 
 the ease of that airy workmanship, a status for his previous 
 life, endowed him with a series of predilections and preju 
 dices, and many noble ideal qualities with which Rathburn 
 might have found himself somewhat embarrassed, having 
 had but scant experience with such fine aesthetic gear. 
 There were circumstances connected with his recent danger 
 which gave her an intense satisfaction, she had requited the 
 good deed he had done that night when he had come to her 
 father s aid through the storm. She had repaid the debt 
 fourfold. She remembered, with a certain soft elation, how 
 he had recognized the risk she had encountered, how he 
 had esteemed it of no slijht magnitude. It might have 
 been vanity, it might have been some tenderer thrill astir, 
 but it was sweet to her to hear again as so easily she 
 might, when she would the quiver in his voice when he 
 had declared that an angel of mercy, an angel had rescued 
 him ! Often she paused at her simple tasks to recall anew 
 those fervent words, those earnest, swift glances, which said 
 so much that the subtlest words might fail to convey. His 
 gratitude held all the finest essences of the incense of flattery, 
 and she recognized a unique delight in the fact that the 
 words and the glances were so cleverly calculated for her 
 alone. Always her lips curved, with that rarest relish of 
 laughter, when it is for joy alone, unmarred by any element 
 of scorn or ridicule, when she remembered her grandmother s 
 satiric flouts at his " n angel " and subsequent speculation as 
 to which of the mountain girls he fancied, in his sentimen 
 tal folly, had any resemblance to a celestial being. These 
 thoughts were undulled by repetition. But one afternoon, 
 OH a bleak hillside, into their midst a certain shadow fell 
 a shadow as gray, as chill, as prophetic, as if it were akin 
 
378 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 to the gray, chill, prophetic shadows of the day that stood, 
 dejected, on every slope, and waited as for a doom. She 
 had gone out to salt the sheep, and she carried a gourd of 
 salt in her hand. Her bonnet it was of a gay yellow 
 calico hung on her shoulders, the strings knotted about 
 her neck, and her heavy, waving brown tresses falling over 
 it almost hid its assertive color beneath their curling lux 
 uriance. Her dress was of a more sombre tone ; it had 
 encountered disasters in its dyes, and had not withstood the 
 test of soap and water. It was difficult to say whether the 
 result were a darkly brownish green or a darkly greenish 
 brown. It was not incongruous with the dulling tints of the 
 landscape ; as she stood, it served to define her light, lithe 
 figure distinctly against the tawny stretches of broomsedge 
 behind her, that rose gradually to the summit of the hill. 
 There seemed the full development of its tentative shade in 
 the dark green of the pines clustering along the background 
 of the mountain. Gray rocks cropped out of the red clay 
 gullies that scarred the descent at her feet. In all the monot 
 ony of the scene, the flaring yellow about her throat seemed 
 a triumphant climax of color, so luminous and intense it was. 
 Her eyes were fixed on the gray sky opposite, for she looked 
 far over the sere valleys, where it bent its great concave to 
 a low level. Her hand hesitated as it was thrust into the 
 brown gourd that she held. The sullen elements had no 
 power to dim the fair, rich tints of her face, and grave 
 though it was, it bore the happy trace of recent smiles. The 
 sheep pressed close about her, the black sheep of the flock, 
 all unaware of his unenviable metaphorical notoriety among 
 men, preferring his claim for salt with calm assurance. 
 She was motionless for a moment, then, as if the thought 
 had come to her for the first time, " Why hev he never, 
 never kern agin ? " she said. 
 
 Her mind went back slowly, to count the days. It was 
 difficult to differentiate them, they were all so alike. As 
 she reviewed the trivial incidents that might serve to 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 379 
 
 individualize them, keeping a tally with her fingers on the 
 gourd, she began to realize what she had not noticed before, 
 that lately there had been many visitors at the house, 
 not her own, nor her grandmother s ; men, chiefly, wanting 
 to see Eli Strobe. The doctor s orders had precluded their 
 entrance, being rigorously obeyed since they subserved the 
 pride of the women, who had sought to shield Strobe s in 
 firmity from general observation in Broomsedge Cove. 
 
 " We-uns don t want em round hyar a-crowin over Eli 
 in the pride o sech brains ez they hev got, till he hev hed 
 a fair chance ter git well," Mrs. Strobe had said to her 
 granddaughter. " Folks knowed ez he war out n his head 
 with fever an his mind wandered some whenst he war fust 
 knocked down, but nobody suspicions ez he hev plumb gone 
 deranged bout killin Teck Jepson ceptin them two doctor 
 men an Andy Longwood, an I know they ain t goin ter 
 tell." 
 
 Many, then, had been to the door of late, but the yellow- 
 haired young stranger had come no more, and Marcella 
 wondered, with a dull presage of gloom, would he ever come 
 again. 
 
 When next the chords of memory vibrated with his dec 
 laration that an angel had saved him, it had a javring clan 
 gor of doubt, of ridicule, that made its wonted dulcet itera 
 tion a discord. Human nature is not generally so recogni- 
 zant of celestial condescension and kindness that much is 
 necessarily implied in the protestation of equivalent grati 
 tude and indebtedness to an earthly benefactor. Marcella 
 did not realize this. Was it thus, she asked herself, that 
 he would have passed her by if he had felt in his heart the 
 word upon his lips ? 
 
 Now and again the gourd in her hand was nudjed by the 
 soft nozzle of a sheep, and she would once more bethink 
 herself to cast a handful of salt down upon the rock as the 
 flock pressed about her. There was no other stir in all the 
 broad spaces she overlooked save the vibrations of the wind 
 
380 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 in the bare boughs that clashed together with a dull rattling 
 sound, and the rustling shiver through the tawny tufts of 
 broomsedge. 
 
 She gave a great start when her eyes were abruptly con 
 centrated upon an object in the midst of its tall growth half 
 way down the hill, beginning slowly to move, to rise. It 
 seemed to her suddenly recalled attention, still dazed by the 
 transition from the world of thought to the more exigent 
 material sphere, as if it were some gigantic mushroom toil 
 ing up the ascent, having just come in sight above a pro 
 jecting knoll of earth. Beneath the broad bent hat she 
 presently discerned a chubby dark-eyed face, and the rest 
 of the person of a fat young fellow-creature of the age of 
 four, perhaps, arrayed in a short, stout homespun skirt and 
 a straight waist tightly encircling a singularly round body, 
 was revealed to view. 
 
 So unexpected was this apparition, despite its simplicity, 
 that as she gazed she was not aware that a man had as 
 cended the hill farther to the right, and stood leaning on a 
 long rifle silently contemplating her. Not until he spoke 
 did she turn. 
 
 "Ain t ye goin ter gin me nare word. Marcelly?" said 
 Teck Jepson. 
 
 She flushed deeply. Surprised and taken thus at a dis 
 advantage, she forgot for a moment her anger toward him. 
 
 " I never seen ye howdy," she said meekly. 
 
 Her flush was instantly reflected on his face as the red 
 glow of a sunset irradiates the alien eastern sky. There was 
 a new light in his eyes. She detected in his voice something 
 of the impetus of the false hope that lured him, although he 
 only said casually, as if seeking to formally acquit her of any 
 discourtesy, 
 
 " I seen ye war noticin Bob, thar, he air a mighty 
 s prisin sight down in the Cove, I know." 
 
 Even so slight a pleasantry seemed odd from him, so ex 
 acting a gravity he bore in his daily walk and conversation. 
 
THE DESPOT OP BROOMSEDGE COVE. 381 
 
 She subtly understood it as the outgushing happiness of the 
 mistake under which he had fallen ; so trifling a hope, so 
 slight a relenting counted for much in the depths of despair 
 into which he had sunk. She would have been glad to un 
 deceive him, but she was still agitated and confused by the 
 sudden severance of her troubled and absorbed train of 
 thought, and the abrupt surprise of his presence here. She 
 merely said, " Air that leetle Bob Bowles, yer nevy ? " 
 
 He nodded, his face relaxing into its infrequent smile as 
 he looked down at the plodding plumpness approaching 
 through the broomsedge. 
 
 " He air visitin ye, then, I reckon." 
 
 " Not edzac ly ; he hev runned away from home." 
 
 The fat Bob sat down upon one of the outcropping ledges 
 of the rock near where the sheep crowded about Marcella, 
 at whom he looked with apprehensive eyes. Mrs. Bowles 
 was the only woman in his very restricted social circle with 
 whom he was acquainted, and his experience with her did 
 not tend to foster confidence in the sex. 
 
 " He looks at me ez ef he lowed I d hurt him," cried 
 Marcella, flushing and suddenly affronted. " I never knowed 
 I war so turr ble ez all that." 
 
 " Bob Bob, ye look the other way ! " Jepson admon 
 ished him. 
 
 But Bob, with scant regard, evidently, for Jepson s man 
 dates, continued to gaze wincingly up at the fair face of the 
 girl, meeting her indignant and grieved eyes. Detecting at 
 last a protest in her expression, he lifted his chubby arm 
 and crooked it over his head, a forlornly inadequate guard 
 against the blow he expected. 
 
 " He thinks I d hurt him ! " she cried in a wounded 
 manner. " Why, don t ye know I would n t fur nuthin , 
 fur nuthin ? " 
 
 She sat down by him on the rock and took his little sun 
 burned hand in her soft clasp. His eyes were alight and 
 alert with fear. With a wonderful show of elasticity he 
 
382 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 edged bouncingly along the ledge to evade her overtures ; 
 but a sheep had lain down across the rock, and although he 
 pressed close into the wool of the creature, it did not rise, 
 and he was at the mercy of his captor. She still held the 
 gourd of salt, and the flock crowded about with insistent, 
 rummaging nozzles. One of the sheep, standing on the 
 higher ground behind her, looked pensively over her shoul 
 der at the broad mountain landscape, the delicate, slender 
 head of the animal almost touching the bright hair so heav 
 ily curling on her yellow sun-bonnet, still hanging loosely 
 about her neck. 
 
 The graceless Bob ! Jepson could only lean his six feet 
 of helplessness upon his long rifle, and earnestly breathe 
 that sinking hope against hope known only to those who 
 have callow relatives placed in a conspicuous and exacting 
 position, with every opportunity for lamentable infringe 
 ment of etiquette. Did ever so doubtful, suspicious, and 
 terrified a look, as Bob cast upward, meet such suave, sweet, 
 smiling eyes ? Was ever a round, dodging, bullet head so 
 evasively shifted from beneath so light a caress as the touch 
 of those falling curling tresses ? How wasted, how inop 
 portunely wasted on Bob her soft words, 
 
 " I love ye an I want ye ter love me ! " 
 
 But Bob, who evidently harbored a distrust in amazing 
 disproportion to his small size and his tender years, was 
 proof against even so enchanting a siren. He merely 
 knitted his limited eyebrows in perplexity because of the 
 unexpected nature of the attack, for that unhappy and strik 
 ing developments were to ensue he did not permit himself 
 to disbelieve for an instant. He left his hand in hers, for 
 his theory that least resistance resulted in the minimum 
 smart had been proved often enough to commend it. A 
 short little puff of breath in an adult it might have been 
 called a sigh escaped from his half-parted lips, and be 
 tokened suspense. 
 
 " How ye all mus hev treated him up on the mounting ! " 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 383 
 
 Marcella exclaimed, flashing her angry eyes upward at Teck 
 Jepson. " He s feard an jes see the leetle size of him ! 
 He s feard ; he would n t dodge that-a-way ef he hed n t 
 been hit a heap o times fur nuthin . Who treats him so 
 mean ? " 
 
 Jepson hesitated. Certainly he owed naught to Mrs. 
 Bowles, but they had been of the same household, and he 
 had a reluctance to expose her to scorn and contumely, 
 however richly merited. 
 
 Marcella noted his hesitation and broke forth impulsively, 
 " I don t wonder ye look shamed of it." 
 
 He shifted his position suddenly, and as he gazed at her, 
 still leaning on the rifle, his eyes widely open, his lips 
 parted, his breath coming quick, it might have seemed that 
 he had need of his weapon to uphold him, he was shaken 
 as if by a blow. 
 
 " Marcelly ! " he exclaimed, and the voice hardly 
 seemed his, so unlike was the husky quaver to his wonted 
 full, mellow tones, " kin ye think that o me, ez t war 
 me ez hev persecuted that thar leetle bit of a critter ? " 
 
 He paused and looked about him with an air of finality. 
 His nerves were still distraught ; his lip quivered. She sat, 
 a little pale and shaken by the sight of his agitation, gazing 
 up at him from under her eyebrows, and hardly lifting her 
 head, expectant, waiting, but making no sign of denial. 
 
 " Waal," he said, drawing himself to his full height, 
 " this finishes it. I hev b lieved, I hev lived in hope ez 
 some day ye mought kem ter keer fur me, spite o all that 
 hev kem an gone. But now ez I hev fund out how awful 
 mean ye think I be, ez ye kin b lieve fur one minnit ez I 
 hed enny hand in tormentin a leetle trembly soul like that, 
 I 11 gin hope up. I 11 trouble ye with my feelin s no mo . 
 An I 11 never f urgive ye whilst I live ! " 
 
 Marcella sat quite still and with downcast eyes during 
 this outburst. There was something very like a sob in his 
 throat as he spoke the last words, but when she glanced up 
 
384 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 again his face was so calm, his gaze so loftily discursive 
 as he cast his eyes over the landscape, his attitude so im 
 pressive and striking, that she interpreted this serenity of 
 pride as triumph, and she suddenly felt a goad in his last 
 avowal. 
 
 " Waal, strange ez it may seem," she said, tossing her 
 hair backward, and the breeze, catching the locks, flung 
 them gayly about, " I kin live without it. An I hev hearn 
 ye talk bout yer feelin s an sech till thar s mighty leetle en 
 tertainment lef in em. An treatin this hyar leetle chile 
 mean, till he looks ter be beat ef a body glances thar eye 
 at him, pears ter me mightily of a piece with bein the cap 
 tain o a gang o lynchers an sech evil doin s." 
 
 There was a momentary silence. Her eyes, restless, un 
 seeing, wandered vaguely over the broad brown expanse of 
 valley and mountain. Once more she bethought herself of 
 the sheep, and poured the salt out of the gourd on the 
 ground. The excitement of the moment pulsed heavily in 
 her temples ; she felt a gnawing pain at her heart, and she 
 was unhappy. 
 
 The cause of all this trouble hardly comported himself 
 in a congruous manner. Bob was relieved when her atten 
 tion was diverted from him, and gave a fat little sigh of 
 content. He sat for a moment quite still, looking very ro 
 tund in build, contemplating the resources of the scene for 
 juvenile enjoyment. Then leaning forward, he placed his 
 broad white wool hat on the unsuspecting head of a sheep 
 near at hand, and it was difficult to say whether the smoth 
 ered " baa " that proceeded from the eclipsed beast, or its 
 groping as it rose to its feet, or its unique aspect as it stood, 
 with the hat on its head, uncertain what might ensue, was 
 the chief factor in eliciting a low, jovial chuckle from the 
 distended gleeful lips. 
 
 But neither of his elders noticed the wiles of the callow 
 martyr, for Jepson s attention was fixed upon the revelation 
 contained in Marcella s last words, and she, realizing no < \v 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 385 
 
 their full significance, was nervously biting her lips in futile 
 regret that they had thence escaped. 
 
 " I hev no call ter gin account o sech ez I do ter you-uns," 
 he said, with that serene arrogance which she had always 
 felt was intolerable, and which she had in vain sought to re- 
 dace. " I d hev been mighty pleased ef ye bed thunk well 
 o my deeds an could hev put enny dependence in me, but 
 ef ye don t, it don t make me think no ill o myself nor my 
 aims. I ain t got two faces, ter turn this one, an ef ye 
 don t like its looks, turn that one. I be led by sech light 
 ez the Sperit hev revealed ter me, an I don t ax ye nor 
 enny other human ter show me the way an guide my 
 feet." He paused, looking reflectively at the broomsedge 
 waving about his high boots ; then he recommenced sud 
 denly. " Bein ez ye hev got a interns in the man ez tole 
 ye I war a captain o a gang o lynchers, ye hed better warn 
 him not ter let his jaw wag too slack, not about me ; I 
 ain t keerin what he say bout me, but them t other men 
 mought hear o his talkin too free, an I ain t round about 
 the Settlemint much, an couldn t bender em ef they war 
 ter set out ter do him a damage. Tell him that. They air 
 powerful outdone with me ennyhow, kase I would n t gin my 
 cornsent ter sech ez they wanted that night he kem ter the 
 forge." 
 
 Marcella hardly breathed, so strong upon her was the 
 terror of jeopardizing the safety of Rathburn. 
 
 " How do ye know who tole me ? " she demanded, gaz 
 ing up at him with a feint of defiance in her contracted eye 
 brows and curling lip. " Ye may be talkin bout one man, 
 an me bout another." 
 
 He looked straight into the clear depths of her eyes. 
 They faltered suddenly, and the long lashes fell as he 
 said, 4 
 
 " Naw, we be both talkin bout n that Doctor Rathburn, 
 ez he calls hisse f, that be who we air talkin bout." 
 
 She leaned back silently against a rugged bowlder 
 
386 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 amongst the outcropping ledges, the gourd, empty now, the 
 neck of it still in her listless hand, lying beside her on the 
 trampled broomsedge. Her greenish-brown dress was much 
 like the mosses in the fissures of the gray rock, against the 
 cold monotone of which her fair young face seemed so deli 
 cately and finely tinted. The flock had scattered, feeding 
 amongst the brambles and on tufts of grass that seemed, 
 beneath the fallen leaves, to have escaped the frost. The 
 sheep that had worn the hat rid himself of it at last, and 
 looked on stupidly when the little mountaineer, with an agile 
 elasticity of gait incongruous with his infantile rotundity, 
 ran out and triumphantly crowned another, slipping back to 
 his seat beside Marcella, and attracting no notice save from 
 the placid flock, pausing to gaze in mild-eyed wonder. 
 
 4< I ain t lookin ter see that man agin," said Marcella, 
 her eyes fixed on the summits across the broad valley. " I 
 can t tell him." 
 
 She paused, in the hope that he might ask if she had not 
 seen him lately, but Jepson could be betrayed into no un 
 seemly show of curiosity, and she was presently fain to con 
 tinue. 
 
 " I ain t seen him sence he war at our house that night. 
 I dunno what s kem o him." 
 
 He stood impassive, silent, leaning upon his rifle, which 
 he held with one hand, while the other was thrust in his 
 leather belt. When she spoke he looked down at her, and 
 his eyes met hers, but when she was silent he glanced with 
 grave preoccupation at the leaden sky or the sombre ranges. 
 
 " I lowed mebbe he hed gone home," she said, after one 
 of these intervals. It was so recently that she had become 
 definitely aware how long it had been since he was at the 
 house, how fully the recollection of his words had sufficed 
 in the certain expectation of his return, that she was for the 
 first time canvassing the probabilities. 
 
 " Mebbe so," he replied non-committally. 
 
 She gave a sudden quick gasp, and turned pale. 
 
THE DESPOT OF DROOMSEDGE COVE. 387 
 
 " Them men them men, mebbe, hev tuk him at las . 
 They waylaid him agin, hev they ? hev they ? " 
 
 " Not ez I hev hearn on," he replied. 
 
 His evident lack of excitement in regard to the possibility 
 roused her anger anew. Her nerves were all a-quiver un 
 der the unexpected strain. She hardly sought to control 
 her words ; they were a relief to her tense, overwrought 
 anxiety. 
 
 " How kin ye stand thar an low, * Not ez I hev hearn 
 on/ ez keerless ez ef I war a-talkin bout a fox ketched in 
 a trap ? Ye don t keer, Teck Jepson, ye don t keer ! Ye d 
 jes ez soon he would be kilt by them mis able Brumsaidge 
 rangers ez not. Ye air a cruel, bloodthirsty man. Ye don t 
 keer ef the innercent stranger war kilt." 
 
 Despite his protestations of independence of spirit, he was 
 roused to defend himself against this imputation. 
 
 " Ef I hed n t keered," he said, his lip curling with a 
 scornful half laugh, and his eyes far away, u I would t hev 
 gone with them fellers at the barn. I lowed I could hen- 
 der em from doin ennything onjust, or hasty, or mischiee- 
 vious, though ef the stranger hed been at enny wicked de 
 vice, I dunno ez I would hev pertected him an sot him free 
 like I done." 
 
 Marcella s heart was throbbing with contending emotions, 
 the dominant feeling a resentment that Teck Jepson should 
 thus credit himself with the rescue of Rathburn, the merits 
 of which that young gentleman s rhetoric had greatly ex 
 alted in her estimation, for she had thought it a simple, 
 natural, matter-of-course action when she had first been 
 moved to do aught in his behalf. She had logic enough to 
 realize, however, that her timely warning and Rathburn s 
 clever boldness would have availed little had not Jepson s 
 nuod been judicial, and the sway which he exerted over his 
 comrades perfect and complete. Nevertheless her claim was 
 not to be easily belittled. Her ingenuity renewed its hold. 
 
 ** Then," she said, " ye let him off, I 11 be bound, not kase 
 
388 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 ye knowed t war right an jestice but jes kase ye fund out 
 ez t war me ez hed warned the man, an ye lowed t would 
 put me in a good humor with you-uns ef ye war ter holp 
 me out an save his life. Ye done it ter please me." 
 
 He was not quite sure he understood her at first. He 
 seemed dumfounded ; then, as the light of comprehension 
 dawned in his eyes, he looked down into her face and 
 laughed. 
 
 " Kem, Bob," he said, turning away, " it s time we-uns 
 war a-travelin ." 
 
 But Bob had met a young friend of somewhat his own 
 tastes and disposition. A lamb had strayed near where he 
 was sitting, and the two had spent some profitable moments 
 in gazing silently at one another with that irresistible curios 
 ity and manifest fellow-feeling which infancy has for in 
 fancy. What they thought each of the other no one can 
 ever say. That the scrutiny was not mutually derogatory 
 in its results may be inferred from the fact that the lamb 
 leaped suddenly to one side on its slender, knobby little legs, 
 with a sort of aquiline alacrity, and kicked up some very 
 frolicsome heels. Whereupon Bob mitigated the intensity 
 of his stare, and began to run about nimbly with his short 
 skirts flying, his round body very straight, his agility seem 
 ing necessarily somewhat knock-kneed in order to give free 
 play to such redundant calves. He showed a very merry 
 pair of heels, that served him as well as the lamb s two 
 pairs, and neither of the blithe young things took the smallest 
 notice of Jepson s summons. 
 
 Marcella gave them no heed. She had never been so 
 deeply wounded as by Jepson s evident surprise, his laugh, 
 disclaiming the motive to please her. Always he had seemed 
 to her secretly subservient to her power, however he might 
 seek to assert his own independence. She was humiliated 
 that she should have suggested her influence and received a 
 renunciation rather than a protestation. It was as if he 
 had told her that he did not love her so much as she 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 389 
 
 thought not so blindly, so idolatrously. She had over- 
 flattered herself ; her vanity had palpably convicted her. 
 Strangely enough she was not angry. Every emotion was 
 absorbed in the idea that he did not love her as she had 
 thought he did he had laughed at the supreme power 
 which she assumed to wield over him. 
 
 She glanced up at him aslant under her long lashes. He 
 was not looking at her. He had shouldered his rifle and 
 was advancing upon the swiftly revolving Bob and his nim 
 ble four-footed acquaintance. 
 
 " Kem on, bubby. Kem on, Bob. We-uns mus go home 
 now." 
 
 But the gleeful Bob, with distended ruddy cheeks, and 
 two rows of snaggled white teeth, and gleaming eyes almost 
 eclipsed in rolls of fat, continued his blithe circuit, finding a 
 new joy in flapping his arms, in which he had an advantage 
 over the lamb, who had no arms to flap, and who often 
 paused with meditative lowered head to gaze at these gyra 
 tions. 
 
 " Kem on, Bob or I 11 make ye ! Ye 11 repent it, sir ! 
 Kem on ! " 
 
 And once more Jepson approached the elusively whisking 
 Bob. " Kem on ! Like a good boy." He resorted to en 
 treaty. 
 
 But Bob evidently disbelieved in retribution from this 
 source, and was hard-hearted enough to disregard softer 
 suasion. 
 
 " He be a powerful obejient chile ! " Marcella remarked, 
 with a little satiric laugh. 
 
 " He s young yit," returned Jepson, flustered and morti 
 fied. " Whenst he gits a leetle older he 11 do better. Bob, 
 I 11 let ye tote my shot-pouch, like ye love ter do." 
 
 But Bob, with a soul above bribes, circled as before. 
 Marcella, with an arch sidelong glance, turned from him to 
 Jepson. " How mean ye must treat him ! How feard o 
 you-uns he do be ! " she exclaimed with laughing irony. 
 
390 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 A flush rose suddenly to his brow, and she saw anew how 
 deeply wounded he had been by the ignoble and odious ac 
 cusation. Little wonder, since he felt it so, that he had de 
 clared he would never forgive her. 
 
 " I furgot he hed a stepmother," she faltered by way of 
 excuse. 
 
 " I never said nuthin agin his stepmother," he rejoined 
 sternly, darkly frowning. 
 
 Bob was beginning to show signs of exhaustion. As Jep- 
 son turned toward him again Marcella gave a sudden start. 
 She felt she had done him a grievous injustice and she re 
 pented it. With some vague apologetic intention she sought 
 to detain him on some pretext, on any pretext, and she 
 spoke upon the impulse of the moment. 
 
 " Mus I tell the folks at home ez ye never wunst thunk 
 ter inquire arter them ? " Her eyes were dewy and bright ; 
 a faint flush was in her cheek ; the tender curves of her 
 red lips wore a half-smiling sweetness ; as she lifted her 
 head upward to look at him, the hair curling on her shoul 
 ders fell still farther down over the dangling yellow sun- 
 bonnet. 
 
 He turned a changed face. " I war feard ter ax, Mar- 
 celly," he said, in his low melancholy drawl. " I know ye 
 feel so hard ter me bout n Eli an I never kin forgive 
 myself, though I never went ter do no harm. I hear bout 
 Eli constant thout hevin ter harry yer f eelin s by axin 
 ye arter him." 
 
 The girl felt a certain reassurance, a satisfaction that in 
 this at least he had not changed. Since he had wrought so 
 grievous an injury to Eli Strobe, remorse was the meet se 
 quence. But her alert intuition presently apprehended a 
 tone not altogether applicable to the past. 
 
 " He air thrivin toler ble, now," she observed. 
 
 He glanced at her with the keen suspense of an unex 
 pected hope shining in his eyes. " Then what they say at 
 the Settlemint ain t true ! " 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 391 
 
 She felt a sudden fear clutch at her heart. Her face 
 paled her eyes dilated. 
 
 " What air they sayin agin him at the Settlemint ? " she 
 asked, trembling, yet roused into instant defiance. 
 
 " T ain t faultin Eli noways," he explained anxiously. 
 " Tliey low, though, ez his ailment hev streck his brain, an 
 he hev gone deranged." 
 
 Her short, sudden scream rang out shrilly in the dull si 
 lence of the gray afternoon. She sprang to her feet. " Who 
 hev tole that who hev tole that on him ? I 11 be bound 
 them sly foxes at the Settlemint air plottin su thin agin 
 him. They won t gin him time ter git well, an they don t 
 want ter let him be constable, what he hev done been lected 
 ter be. Who hev tole it? Who hev tole it?" Her eyes 
 flashed an insistent inquiry at him and he could only reply 
 doubtfully, 
 
 " I dunno, Marcelly. I jes hearn a whole pack of em 
 at the store " she winced visibly at the idea of this wide 
 dissemination of the rumor " a-talkin bout n it. But I 
 dunno who set it a-goin fust." 
 
 " I do ! " she exclaimed franticallv. "That stranger 
 he peared tickled ter death whenst he fust noticed it. Never 
 seen a man so streck by nuthin in yer life. Tuk an felt 
 his pulse, sir, an peared like he d ruther hear sech foolish 
 ness talked n the sober wisdom o Sol mon ! I war mad 
 then but what though bein called a u angel " She 
 broke off suddenly. " T war him t war him kase no 
 body else knowed it. Dad hain t seen nobody else ceptin 
 him an Andy Longwood one day, but Andy hain t got 
 larnin enough ter feel folkses pulses an sense thar short- 
 comin s an seen. T war him ! T war him ! Oh, ye air 
 all alike. I never see nobody ez I take a notion air mighty 
 good an fine, an 1 I go round like a fool studyin bout em 
 all day, but what ef I know em long enough I find 
 out they air jes plain common men-folks sech ez hev been 
 sence the worl began, jes like Adam, rather guzzle a 
 
392 THE DESTOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 apple n bide in Paradise." She smiled reflectively, a scorn 
 ful retrospection, as if the thought of some past folly were 
 both bitter and ludicrous. 
 
 " Waal," she resumed, turning upon him, " what war they 
 lowin at the store they war goin ter do bout n it ? " 
 
 He shifted his weight to the other foot, then leaned heav 
 ily on his gun. "I hate ter tell ye, Marcelly," he said with 
 a low-spirited cadence. " I hoped t war n t true." 
 
 " I mus know," she asserted insistently. 
 
 " Waal," he reluctantly began, " they lowed ez some o* 
 them smart Alecks of politicians an sech hed gin infor 
 mation ez thar war a crazy in the county ez oughter be 
 restrained o his liberty." A short exclamation, little less 
 than a scream, came from her with an accent as if it were 
 wrung forth by physical pain. "Ef the county court ap- 
 p ints the sher ff ter summons a jury fur a inquisition o 
 lunacy, an they see Eli an low he air insane, they think 
 they kin git up perceedin s ez will take away his office." 
 
 She listened silently as she stood holding the empty gourd 
 in her hand. He felt as if he were pronouncing a sentence 
 of some terrible doom, in thus destroying her pride. She 
 esteemed the humble office so high and noble an estate, its 
 shattered incumbent the chief of men ! 
 
 " Marcelly," he said, " look here. No matter what ye 
 want ter do bout n it, ef ye kin do enny thing, I stand ready 
 ter help. Promise me ye 11 let me know. Promise me 
 ye 11 let me help." 
 
 She looked up at him. Her lips were compressed. Her 
 eyes were dry and steady. " Help ! " she echoed bitterly. 
 " It s you-uns ez hev brung all this torment on dad. An 
 now ye talk about help. It s too late too late ter help." 
 Then she turned away. 
 
 He stood watching her as she went ; her dull greenish- 
 brown dress was long visible against the tawny tints of the 
 broomsedge ; her head was bare, the yellow sun-bonnet still 
 hanging upon her shoulders. A leaden cloud was coming 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 393 
 
 down the opposite mountain side, rapidly advancing across 
 the valley ; she seemed to be going to meet the storm, and 
 suddenly it was as if she had been caught up in it. The 
 sombre vapors enfolded her ; there was a swift, transient, 
 ocherons gleam, then she was seen no more, and the dreary 
 sound of the invisible rain, falling, falling in the beclouded 
 valley, filled all the air. 
 
XXII. 
 
 WHILE hardly a tuft of the broomsedge stirred on the 
 red clay slopes of the hill, the fitful gusts were rioting in 
 the valley, and Teck Jepson, standing in the midst of the 
 tawny growth, absently watched the cloud approaching in 
 the air, and the dead leaves all set a-whirling in devious 
 routes along the brown ground. He heard in the voice of 
 the wind the first bated threatenings of the storm, though 
 but a murmur, full of latent strength, and with a steadily 
 increasing volume that bespoke the prescient elation of the 
 liberated element, free to come and to go as it listed. 
 There were occasionally black boughs dead, doubtless, 
 brittle, and easily wrenched from the tree, for the wind had 
 not yet stretched its muscle to be seen thrashing along 
 clumsily for a little way, then falling to the earth, harried 
 up again presently by the boisterous blast, and set a-going 
 anew in their simulated flight. 
 
 Suddenly the broomsedge bowed down to the ground; 
 he heard the forest quake ; the clouds were closing in, and, 
 with an abrupt realization that the storm was upon him, he 
 caught the small Bob up on his shoulder and ran for honLe. 
 It was a swift, short dash over the broken ground against 
 the buffeting wind, so uncertain of mood, now rollicking, 
 now fierce. The little mountaineer s gay laughter and 
 shrieks of exhilaration from his lofty perch mingled with 
 its sound, as he clutched Jepsoivs collar and looked back at 
 the wild rout behind them ; the clouds seeming to roll on 
 the ground, and tossed by the turbulent wind ; the erratic 
 flight of leaves and sticks ; the disheveled woods, all their 
 boughs turning from the blast as if holding out clepre- 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 395 
 
 eating, quivering arms in plea for mercy. Even after they 
 had reached the haven of the porch, they heard once and 
 again a wild aerial hilarity echoing along the deep chasm, 
 in which the river was locked as in the isolation of a lake, 
 and anon a low, menacing roar. But the storm was defi 
 nitely angry when it fairly burst, and they were housed 
 none to soon. The thunder s peal was augmented to even 
 alien ferocity by the reverberations in the rocky abysses, 
 above the deeply sunken channel of the river ; the lightning 
 flashed, tracing sinister characters across the black clouds, 
 fading out before one might read this terrible script ; the 
 slopes below and the crags above had disappeared in the 
 multiplicity of the interposing lines of rain ; the garden, 
 sere and faded, save for a forlorn prince s feather here and 
 there clinging to the stalk, was gradually effaced from the 
 world, and presently the mists were in the porch, and be 
 ginning to sift in at the open door. Jepson rose from be 
 fore the fire which he had kindled, and shut them out, to 
 stand shivering there, or to press pallid and white against 
 the door, like some forlorn spectral outcasts, forbidden to 
 haunt the place which that human love, which even death 
 cannot kill, makes them fain to tread once more. 
 
 The white flames of the pine knots leaped with glad 
 elastic bounds up the chimney ; the shadows in the dark 
 corners shifted continuously with the glancing shafts of 
 light. The little house had many tokens of its previous 
 occupants : a spinning-wheel, where now only the spiders 
 drew out long, shining threads, stood in the corner ; sun 
 dry gowns, all of rich, gay colors, despite their homely 
 material, garnet, or orange, or dark blue, hung on the wall, 
 as if Jepson s mother had just placed them there. Her 
 yarn, in dusty hanks, swung from the rafters, and the quilts 
 she had " pieced," folded somewhat eccentrically, were piled 
 high on the " corner-shelf " which they had burdened of yore. 
 Against the jamb of the chimney, on a slight out-jutting of 
 the clay and sticks, serving as shelf, was a great brown 
 
390 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 gourd, half filled with bright-tinted scraps, and buttons, 
 and the bulbs of plants that would never bloom now, but 
 should lie idle and fall to dust, with all the farther possi 
 bilities of life unfulfilled. In a splint basket at one side of 
 the fire lay a rough coat, worn and torn : her needle had 
 rusted in the patch ; the coarse waxed thread would never 
 be drawn through and her last sti tch completed. 
 
 It was for these vagaries, the preservation of the tokens 
 of the old home-life, that Mrs. Bowles esteemed Teck Jepson 
 somewhat "teched in the head." Could she have beheld 
 the dust which plentifully covered them all, the sentiment 
 which she contemned would have impressed her as but a dis 
 traught trifle in comparison with the rank madness which she 
 would have deemed his system of housekeeping. Bob, how 
 ever, gazed about with undisturbed serenity, as he stood stur 
 dily on his fat legs in the middle of the floor. Only when 
 he turned about in search of a seat did his countenance fall. 
 
 " This air the bes ez I kin do fur ye, bubby," Jepson re 
 marked, tendering him a full-grown chair. " I hev got no 
 leetle cheers hyar." 
 
 But when Bob s plump bulk had scaled the heights of the 
 chair, the soles of his feet reaching but little beyond its 
 verge, and his aspect presenting a singular study of fore 
 shortening as he sat and gazed at the fire, content descended 
 upon him as before, and occasionally he glanced at Jepson 
 with a lively little grin, all his snaggled teeth on parade, 
 confident of sympathy in his satisfaction and unaffrighted 
 freedom. But Jepson could not unreservedly share this pla 
 cidity. As he sat opposite, smoking his pipe, his reflective 
 face lighted by the fire, he observed : " Ye re cornsider ble 
 of a puzzle, Bob. I dunno what I oughter do with ye. I 
 reckon, ef the truth war knowed, I oughter take ye up the 
 mounting ter yer mam. Likely ez not they air sarchin fur 
 ye now." 
 
 " No-o," returned Bob, with a resolute rising inflection. 
 " I be a-goin ter live in de Cove ! Right hyar ! " And 
 
THE DE-POT Or BROOMSEDGE COVE. 397 
 
 he looked about him with a pleased, adoptive gaze. He had 
 heard Mrs. Bowles bemoan her sad fate in being wrested 
 away from the Cove, but the naturally high opinion of the 
 locality which this fostered was hardly adequate to the real 
 ity, in his estimation, as for the first time in his memory he 
 was within its charmed limits, resting in the security of Jep- 
 son s coveted companionship. 
 
 The big man would not argue so unpleasing a subject with 
 th3 little man ; he still meditatively smoked, heedless of the 
 discursive, juvenile babble, and answering only at random 
 when a direct appeal was made to him. Presently these 
 queries grew fewer ; intervals of absolute silence ensued ; a 
 drowsy mutter, and Bob succumbed finally to the influences 
 of warmth and quiet, and the fatigue of his long jaunt down 
 the mountain before he had met Jepson in the road. He 
 sat, or rather lay, in the armchair, his flushed round face 
 with its happiness still upon it, as if the sweetness of secu 
 rity, of kindness, of the sense of being held of value, had per 
 vaded his dreams. It would have been long, long, before 
 the faces of Sim and A minty could have learned those 
 serene curves. But Bob s adaptability had stood him in 
 good stead hitherto, and one need hardly have wished him 
 more retentively sensitive that his little life might have been 
 still more dismal than it was. * 
 
 The rain fell with dull monotony ; only at long intervals 
 a sudden acceleration betokened a down-pour in sheets, and 
 the increased volume of the torrents washed with a heavy 
 splashing from the eaves. The sound was melancholy, 
 full of intimations of the waning year, of the killing frosts 
 to come. Even the thunder, ceasing to roll, left an un 
 welcome void, having been as an incident to vary the 
 dreary sameness of sounds and suggestions. The lightnings 
 were quenched. The world was given over to the sobbing 
 wind and the sad-voiced rain. Jepson had no cheerful 
 thoughts to beguile the idle hour. His heart was heavy, 
 and the further perspectives of the days gloomed full of 
 
398 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 shadows. He did not upbraid himself ; he was spared that 
 keenest edge of regret, so complete was his proud sense of 
 rectitude, his unswerving faith in himself and his own mo 
 tives. Nor did he resent Marcella s anger. He admitted 
 with a deep sigh its justification. He accepted it as a ret 
 ribution, in some sort, not for his own sins, but for his un 
 intentional contributive share, as he construed it, in the 
 untoward circumstances that had resulted in Eli Strobe s in 
 juries. He rebelled, however, against his fate, this shipwreck 
 of his love, more, indeed, than he was definitely conscious of 
 doing, for he often boasted to himself, in the illusions of his 
 piety that he meekly submitted to the Lord s will, according 
 to the example of the saints ; then he would walk the floor 
 all night in mental anguish, or wander forth in the dark, 
 autumnal woods till dawn, in all the throes of despair. Of 
 late, there had often come into his mind a bitterness with 
 the thought of her which it had seldom before known. The 
 image of the young stranger at the forge was continually 
 associated with hers. His jealous eyes had been quick to 
 note the changing expressions on her face, full of fear for 
 Rathburn s sake, when his strange absence had been men 
 tioned. Oddly enough, Jepson was sensible of the glow of 
 anger that the man she loved, if indeed she loved him, should 
 fail in aught of bondage ; he took no satisfaction in the 
 thought that it was a possibility nay, a probability that 
 Rathburn did not love her. He deprecated the pangs she 
 might feel, and still lie sighed for his own. 
 
 So absorbed was he in these sombre meditations, as he 
 sat, his elbow on the arm of the chair, his chin in his hand, 
 his contemplative eyes upon the fire, that he took no heed 
 of a step on the porch without, although he might have 
 heard it, even through the long-drawn sighing of the wind 
 and the fresh outburst of the tumultuous rain, for no caution 
 restrained its demonstrations. The heavy stamping was 
 obviously designed to free first one boot and then the other 
 from the persistent clinging of the red clay mire. Only 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 399 
 
 when the door was unceremoniously flung open from without 
 did Jepson rouse himself with a start, and lift his head, see 
 ing at first merely the white mist with the lines of rain all 
 aslant across it, and imposed upon it the figure of a man at 
 the threshold, the wind tossing the loose ends of his gar- 
 monts, and the water streaming from his bent old hat. For 
 a moment his face was invisible, for the dull gray light of 
 the beclouded landscape was behind him ; but the draught 
 from the opening door rekindled the coals of the dying fire, 
 and sent the ashes scattering about the hearth, and as the 
 flames flared up they revealed the familiar features of Jake 
 Baintree. Jepson, rising slowly from his chair, experienced 
 the odd doubting sensation that sometimes besets one in a 
 dream, when its vagaries so transcend the probabilities as 
 to rouse a skeptical application of verisimilitude to these 
 airy fantasies. The next moment a definite appreciation of 
 the reality of his visitor asserted itself. Jake Baintree had 
 evicfently been drinking heavily. But for that, what he said 
 in response to Jepson s query might have seemed stranger 
 than it did. 
 
 " What did ye kem hyar fur ? " sternly demanded the 
 master of the house. 
 
 His manner evidently affected Baintree, who did not bear 
 himself with the swaggering freedom with which he had 
 flung open the door. He had looked threatening. He was 
 cowed in an instant, cowed, but very crafty. 
 
 ** A-beggin ," he said, with a sudden light in his eyes. " I 
 want a hunk o bread." 
 
 Jepson stood uncertain, reluctant, a frown knitting his 
 brow, fairly coerced for once in his life. It was the only 
 plea that could have restrained him from taking the intruder 
 by the shoulders and turning him out of the door, the 
 only plea, and Baintree knew it. He could not accord his 
 hospitality as ungraciously, perhaps, as he might have de 
 sired, and thus he was forced into more of a suave insincer 
 ity than had ever before been able to adjust itself to his 
 
400 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 face and manner. He turned toward a pine table, pushed 
 aside in one corner, and indicated certain dishes beneath an 
 inverted wooden bowl. 
 
 " Thar s all in the house. He p yerse f, he p yerse f." 
 For his life he could not have hindered the heartiness of the 
 intonation, or the unreserve of the invitation. The habits of 
 a lifetime, the traditions of kith and kin and all the country 
 side, constrained him. He did not credit for an instant the 
 sincerity of Baintree s demand, but none could ask bread 
 or shelter of him in vain. It was the first time that the 
 unruly and absolute temper had been thus helplessly in the 
 control of circumstances, and he was irked by a sense of 
 feigning, as he turned about and threw a pile of pine knots 
 on the fire, for had he care for his guest s cheer or 
 warmth ? 
 
 Baintree had possessed himself of a corn-dodger, and as 
 he sat down before the fire, the rain still trickling from his 
 garments, Jepson read in his thin, clear-cut face, the elStion 
 because of the success of his clever ruse. He had not come 
 with the intention to ask for bread, his manner at first 
 had betokened a far more formidable errand ; and as he sat 
 there munching, with a mimetic show of hunger, Jepson 
 was moved to marvel anew what had brought him into the 
 house of a man whom he held his enemy, and who certainly 
 was no friend. 
 
 " The fodder gins out wunst in a while up on the moun 
 ting," Bairitree observed presently, the whiskey that he had 
 drunk imparting to him, despite his reticent habit, its char 
 acteristic loquacious glow. He cast a glance of thinly 
 veiled antagonism upon his entertainer. Then he said, with 
 a low chuckle of derision, in which he would hardly have 
 ventured to indulge at a calmer moment, " I s pose things 
 never git ter sech a pass ez that in this house. Yc mus 
 hev a bar l o meal constant ez never gits empty, no matter 
 how high ye feed, an a can o coal-ile ez hain t got no bot 
 tom ez ye kin reach. Surely the Lord faviors a man ez 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 401 
 
 views sech visions o yourn ez much ez he done Lijah." He 
 hesitated for a moment, staring with bloodshot eyes into 
 the fire, then snapped his fingers. " T war n t Lijah ! " he 
 exclaimed, with an air of discovery, " t war n t Lijah ! 
 Twar the widder woman ez hed that mighty desirable 
 brand o meal an ile. Now, Teck," with mock persuasive 
 ness, " ye ain t goin ter tell me that, survigrous ez ye be, 
 plumb captain o all Brumsaidge Cove, ye hev let that thar 
 wiJder woman git ahead o ye ? Whar s yer everlastin 
 meal an yer eternal coal-ile ? " 
 
 He turned about, and affected to anxiously survey the cul 
 inary stores, scanty enough, arrayed on a hanging shelf sus 
 pended from the rafters, and, thus isolated, protected from 
 the rats and the mice. 
 
 He enjoyed the immunity from retort or retaliation which 
 men accord to the drunken, and which is incomprehensible 
 to the more intolerant temperament of womeii. Jepson 
 steadfastly regarded him in silence, and as Baintree turned 
 again to the fire he seemed, in shifting his position, to have 
 forgotten his jeer and the prospective joy with which he had 
 thought to pursue it. A realization of the situation came 
 upon him anew, and he made haste to gnaw at his corn 
 dodger with an affectation of great hunger. 
 
 " I rn mighty glad ter git it," he mumbled. 
 
 Jepson had resumed his seat, and, with the white glow of 
 the blazing pine knots irradiating his serious face, he de 
 manded, " Whar s the man ez war bidin with ye ? That 
 corn-dodger ez ye air eatin ain t goin ter holp him." 
 
 " He 11 make out. He ain t one o the lackin kind," 
 Baintree responded cavalierly. 
 
 The heat of the fire perhaps aided the heady effect of his 
 potations, for he was presently more definitely intoxicated 
 than before. Few people had ever seen him thus affected ; 
 for though he drank deeply at times, the quantity that would 
 set another man reeling hardly disturbed his equilibrium. 
 The fiery courage distilled from the corn was in his veins 
 now, and showed with a sturdy bravado. 
 
402 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 " I m leavin the kentry, Teck," he exclaimed suddenly. 
 " I m leavin this hyar twisted an turmoiled e-end o the 
 world ye call the mountings. I hope never ter see a mound 
 o groun agin higher n this hat. I fund out what pore 
 shakes the mountings air jes through goin ter ter " his 
 voice faltered ; his eyes were fixed intently on the empty 
 space before them, as if he beheld something there invisible 
 to others ; he made a detour around the word " jail," and 
 went on with an air of triumphant inspiration in this obvious 
 device " through visitin a sure-enough town. An I 
 never want ter see a mound o groun more n two inches 
 high agin thout it air yer grave." 
 
 He paused abruptly, turning his bloodshot eyes instantly 
 upon Jepson to observe the effect of his words. 
 
 The acrid tone, the bitter hatred in his face, made a strong 
 impression upon the man who had inspired them, now that 
 he was constrained to be still and observe the demonstra 
 tions, which, for sheer humanity s sake, he could not resent. 
 He looked down meditatively into the fire. It was odd to 
 him to think of his grave, some scant measure of earth 
 surely waiting for him somewhere, on which the weeds had 
 grown apace this summer, and even now the autumn rains 
 beat unrelenting, as the herbage would thrive and the tor 
 rents fall when he should lie unheeding below, strange to 
 think of these things, with the robust pulses a-throb in his 
 blood. 
 
 " When ye see it," he said, with the steady courage and 
 calm strength which seemed to him, half consciously meas 
 uring their power, an expression of piety and spiritual grace 
 and Christian resignation, " ef ever ye do, remember the 
 man it kivers war mighty willin ter lie down thar wherist 
 summoned." 
 
 Baintree winced. Even when intoxicated he had not the 
 faith in himself to vie with this hardihood. He resorted to 
 recrimination, for still the whiskey made him bold. 
 
 " Ye ain t goin ter be so powerful comfortable thar. Ye 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOM-SEDGE COVE. 403 
 
 ain t goin ter rest so easy in yer grave. The devil ain t 
 goin ter let ye alone. Ye 11 hev ter answer in the nex worl 
 fur all ye hev done ter me in this. Ye 11 answer, ye mark 
 my words." 
 
 Tears of maudlin grief stood in his eyes. Despite their 
 source, Jepson melted to them in some sort. 
 
 " I m willin . I hain t shirked none in this woiT. I reckon 
 I ain t goin ter ketch the complaint of shirkin in the nex . 
 I 11 answer. What ye want me ter answer fur ? " 
 
 " Fur my soul," said Baintree solemnly. " I d hev saved 
 my soul alive ef ef ye hed n t kem a-interferin twixt me 
 an pa son, and kep me from washin my sins away." 
 
 Jepson seemed to take meditative account of the charge. 
 
 " I done accordin ter my conscience, ez the voice o the 
 Lord peared ter lead. Ye hed no right in the fold, an arter 
 I fund Sam l Keale s hat an coat I could not hold my peace. 
 Jestice hed overlooked ye, but I spoke the word ; not in 
 malice, ef I know myse f, not in malice. But ef I hev 
 done wrong," he went on, knitting his hrows and gazing into 
 the fire, his arms folded across his breast, " I pray the Lord 
 will visit it on me. I pray he 11 do sech unto me, an mo ." 
 
 Baintree was stricken mute for a moment, vaguely im 
 pressed by his companion s look and manner. Then his at 
 tention was concentrated anew upon his own grievance. 
 
 " That ain t goin ter do me no good " he began. 
 
 "An no harm," said Jepson. " Nuthin kin hurt ye 
 ceptin what ye do yerse f." 
 
 Baintree looked with dark suspicion over his shoulder. 
 
 " What ails ye ter say that ? " he demanded surlily. 
 
 Jepson did not reply directly. 
 
 u Ef a man air persecuted, an air innercent o crime, his 
 persecutors air jes harryin* tharselves ter hell. An that s 
 the long an the short o it. Ef ye hev done no crime, sech 
 steps ez I tuk agin ye hev hurt me, not you-uns, an I 11 hev 
 ter take em back ards in hell." 
 
 There was no arguing with a faith so very complete, so 
 strongly grounded, as this. 
 
404 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 Baintree said nothing for a time. Then he suddenly 
 broke out as if the words were wrenched from him by some 
 physical anguish which he could not resist : 
 
 " I never hed no han in Keale s takin -off, but I mought 
 ez well, oh, my Lord, I mought ez well ! " 
 
 He clasped his hands and wrung them hard, the poor sub 
 terfuge of the corn-dodger falling unheeded on the floor. 
 
 The shrill tones did not rouse the plump Bob, still asleep 
 in the chair at one side of the fire, but he was vaguely con 
 scious of them, and stirred uneasily, and again relapsed into 
 motionless slumber. 
 
 " Look hyar ! " exclaimed Jepson, agitated and excited. 
 " Don t kem hyar an tell me yer crimes over my own h a th- 
 stone an a-eatin of my bread, fur I 11 use em agin ye. I 11 
 turn the sword on ye. I ain t yer frien , man. I never war." 
 
 "Ye war the t other night at the forge." Baintree had 
 hastily recovered himself. He spoke in his natural voice, a 
 trifle more unctuous, perhaps, with its coaxing intonation. 
 He even stooped down and picked up the bit of bread, care 
 fully dusting the ashes from it as he turned it from side to 
 side. " Ye war the t other night, whenst whenst my 
 partner seen ye at the forge. Ye kep them men off n us." 
 
 " An ye low I done sech ez that fur you-uns, or him 
 either, ye fool ? " Jepson had risen. He had thrust his 
 hand into his leather belt and was looking down upon Bain 
 tree with scornful irritation. " I done it fur right an jestice ! 
 I see no harm in yer sarchin fur silver ; an though t war n t 
 right ter work on the sly in the forge, it air a leetle matter, 
 not wuth harmin a man for. T war kase I fund no harm 
 no harm, cordin ter my light in them actions. These 
 Brumsaidge critters " he broke off abruptly, addressing 
 himself instead of Baintree, and speaking of Broomsedge 
 as if he had a wide experience of men and life elsewhere, 
 when he knew scarcely any creature beyond its limits 
 " these Brumsaidge critters can t sense right an jestice, nor 
 nuthin done fur jestice s sake. That s jes what them men 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 405 
 
 at the barn lowed, frien s ter the two, the stranger an 
 Baintree ! But I tell ye," he turned suddenly upon the 
 man sitting by the hearth, " I ain t yer frien , nor," he 
 added, with stronger emphasis, " his frien , nuther." 
 
 Baintree s face had lightened ; his eyes glittered. It was 
 a forlorn thing that a man should have cause to rejoice at 
 his enemy s misfortune in being suspected of becoming his 
 friend. 
 
 Jepson had not resumed his chair. He still stood on the 
 hearth, one hand in his leather belt, which supported his 
 hunting-knife, of which he had not yet divested himself, the 
 other on the high mantelpiece. He looked down with scowl 
 ing impatience at Baintree, evidently eager to be rid of him, 
 and presently he addressed himself to accomplish this end 
 without too flagrant a breach of the hospitality which he 
 held dear. 
 
 He had offered him something else to eat, and when this 
 had been declined he demanded suddenly, " What ailed ye, 
 ter kem hyar this evenin ? Ye know ye war n t in no wise 
 hongry." 
 
 " I war drunk. That air the only reason I know," said 
 Baintree gloomily. He was becoming in some sort sober 
 now, and was strangely quiet, with a deep despondency of 
 manner. 
 
 " Air ye leavin the kentry fur true ? " queried Jepson. 
 
 Baintree looked up craftily. 
 
 " Naw ! " he exclaimed contemptuously, as if the sugges 
 tion had been broached by another than himself. " Whar 
 would I go an who would I go to an what would I do 
 thar ? Naw ! I m goin ter stay hyar ter be treated like 
 a dog, ez I always war. I hed a man ter kem nigh chokin 
 me, not long ago " he bared his throat to show his bruises 
 %< look-a-hyar, an he d hev lowed ez I war crazy ef / 
 lied lifted a hand agin him." 
 
 Jepson was silent, still meditating the feasibility of rid 
 ding himself of his unwelcome guest without violence to 
 the canons of hospitality. 
 
40 G THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 He had hardly noticed when the rain ceased its tumultu 
 ous beat on the roof ; a fresh relay of winds was speeding 
 down and down the valley; he heard, but absently, the 
 snorting and champing of these aerial chargers as they 
 swept by at a tremendous pace ; the clouds were fain to race 
 with them, for presently he saw upon the wet floor of the 
 room, where the rain had splashed in under the door, the 
 reflection of the yellow glare of the unveiled sky throwing 
 its light upon the brown walls, and, albeit faintly, even to 
 the dusky rafters. Jepson strode to the door and flung it 
 open. As he stood with his back toward Baintree, he had 
 one of those sudden premonitions, so conclusive, yet so illog 
 ical, that fall upon us sometimes with the cogent force of 
 truth and an unaccountable extension of merely human 
 mental vision. He turned abruptly and saw its confirma 
 tion in the lowering look of hatred that Baintree had bent 
 upon hint. As if in some sort conscious of self-betrayal, 
 Baintree rose with a casual air and an incidental, empty 
 glance, and followed to the door, where he lounged upon 
 the porch, his hands in his pockets, aimlessly surveying 
 the landscape. Yet Jepson knew now, as well as if Bain 
 tree had confessed it, that he had come there, with the 
 courage of the " corn-juice " inflaming his blood, with some 
 wild drunken scheme of violence and vengeance, which the 
 presence or the words of his intended victim had somehow 
 cowed and crushed. They were silent as they contemplated 
 the great flaring west, all a splendid burnished golden glow, 
 above the darkly purple mountain opposite, its summit im 
 posed with a definite detail, in which every tufted, plumy 
 pine top was distinct, upon the vivid yellow emblazonment. 
 About the slopes white mists were slowly creeping, and down 
 in the chasm the waters of the river, with all the graces of 
 reflection, ran in molten golden currents. Clouds were yet 
 in the sky, but now and again the colors of the iris flashed 
 out, with a swift elasticity as of a bow that is bent, and 
 hovered above the valleys. The drops still fell slowly from 
 
THE DESPOT OF DROOMSEDGE COVE. 407 
 
 the eaves of the house, and the flooring of the porch was 
 sodden and sleek with the rain ; in the hollow of a warped 
 plank the water stood still as in a bowl, reflecting the clap 
 boards above, and an empty nest in a niche between the 
 roof and the post of the porch. All the colors of wood 
 and hill were clarified and heightened ; the sere grasses, 
 beaten down though they were, wore their brown and straw 
 and amber tints more jauntily ; the boles of the tree s were 
 black, and somehow the distances seemed clear and brought 
 near. Jepson had not thought he could have seen so defi 
 nitely, so far away, the figure of a man slowly strolling 
 along the red clay road, of a richer and deeper color it 
 was, sodden with the rain. The presence of the figure in 
 timated that the storm had subsided less recently than he 
 had thought ; the weight of the down-pour had beaten the 
 ground hard, and had added but little to the mud here and 
 there in deep, tough masses in the centre of the road. 
 
 He made no move to turn back into the house, yet Bain- 
 tree lingered, as if his mission were but half accomplished. 
 It is difficult to conceive of a more indelible expression of 
 gloom than had fixed upon his face. It indicated a misery 
 and hopelessness past all human help, past all human en 
 durance. Jepson spoke suddenly upon an impulse which he 
 hardly understood. 
 
 " Enny time ye feel ez ef the devil war arter ye, Jake, ef 
 ye 11 kem hyar ter me, I ? 11 liolp stave him off." he said. He 
 hesitated for a moment, for Baintree s bright, rat-like, furtive 
 eye was glancing up at him, informed by a spirit so alien to 
 that which animated his words that it almost silenced them. 
 " I hev been agin ye," he went on presently ; " ye know I 
 hev. I always b lieved mos faithful ez ye killed Sam l 
 Keale. But the jury say ye did n t, an the kentry hev 
 abided by the verdic . An ef ye order yer walk aright an 
 do no mo harm, I 7 11 stan by ye an won t see ye persecuted, 
 though I ain t yer frien , an I never will be." 
 
 Baintree s expression had shifted more than once during 
 
408 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 this speech : it had softened, had become wistful, pathetic, 
 but it hardened suddenly, as the last words fell on the air. 
 
 " An who air ter be the jedge o what s harm, an what 
 ain t ? " he asked with a sneer. 
 
 " I am," said Jepson, with his unswerving faith in his own 
 methods. " I dunno no way ter jedge o right an wrong 
 cept by the light ez kerns from within." 
 
 " An ye air the only one it s shed on, eh ? " demanded 
 Baintree, still bitterly sneering. 
 
 " Ye hev got good reason ter think so. The light lately 
 shed on other folks, bout n you-uns an yer pardner, would 
 be a mighty scorchin light, sartain," Jepson retorted signifi 
 cantly. 
 
 Baintree understood him to allude to the wrangling differ 
 ences with the vigilantes in the barn. A prudential after 
 thought roused his suavity. 
 
 " Waal," he observed, after a pause, " I never lowed ye 
 war my frien . I 11 say one thing fur ye, thar ain t no 
 room fur mistakes ez ter whar ye stand. But I be toler ble 
 glad ez ye hev a mind ter keep them painters an wild 
 wolves off n my track. Will ye gimme yer ban on it? " 
 
 He held out his own, bent on confirming the promise, as 
 far as he might. 
 
 Once more a pang of pity stirred Jepson s heart, albeit he 
 looked down with a certain repulsion upon the long, trem 
 bling fingers awaiting his own. u Cordin ter the conditions, 
 ef ye do no mo harm in my jedgmint." And his strong, 
 warm clasp closed upon Baintree s cold, nerveless hand for 
 an instant, in sanction of the promise. 
 
 The touch of that cold, nerveless hand remained strangely 
 within Jepson s palm after the two had separated, for Bain- 
 tree s perverse reluctance to be off had evaporated, somehow, 
 in the open air, and he slouched out of the inclosure, tak 
 ing his way, strangely enough, Jepson thought, down to the 
 banks of the river, instead of up the mountain to his lair 
 there, which he could hardly hope to reach, as it was, before 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 409 
 
 the night should enfold him. Jepson stood aimlessly watch 
 ing him, feeling the touch of his hand still cold and clammy 
 within his own. Even after the rock and the laurel of the 
 steep slope had interposed, and he saw him no more, he 
 still motionlessly gazed at the spot where he had disap 
 peared, a sense of discontent with himself to which he was 
 a stranger, an irritated, angry regret for he hardly knew 
 what in the interview, pervading all his consciousness. 
 
 " I lack the sperit," he said suddenly. " I need ter be 
 made strong. I gits sorry fur that wuthless trash, ez be 
 held tergether ter look like a man, a-purpose, I reckon, for 
 the devil ter beguile me. I gits ter feelin sorry an pitiful 
 ter him. An I knowed that man would hev stabbed me 
 ef he could thout harmin hisse f, I knowed it whenst I 
 turned my back, an stidder speakin out what war re 
 vealed ter me, an taxin him with the crime he would hev 
 done, I gin him bread, an promised ter purtec him, an 
 shuk ban s on it, ef he would walk right afore the law hyar- 
 af ter. What ails me ter keer ? I need strengthening 
 strengthenin from above." 
 
 Despite his absorption he was moved to note, presently, 
 with a pervasive sense of pleasure, how fresh, how soft, the 
 air was. As he looked about, he noticed again the man 
 whom he had observed some time ago walking along the red 
 clay road. A slow pedestrian, certainly ; it was almost incon 
 ceivable that he had been walking at all, since his progress 
 had carried him so short a distance. Jepson gazed at him 
 with curiosity. He might have recognized him, the light 
 was so clear, had not the man at that moment drawn his 
 broad hat far down over his brow, and then he turned about 
 and began to retrace his way. 
 
 Before he was out of sight the incident had passed from 
 Jepson s mind. The freshness of the air was alluring, re 
 vivifying. He hesitated as he glanced over his shoulder 
 at the recumbent Bob, asleep in the chair before the smoul 
 dering fire ; then, without his hat, he strolled down the path, 
 leaving the door open behind him. 
 
410 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 He paused in the weed-tangled garden, with its bent and 
 beaten growths forlorn for the desertion of the summer, 
 the sport of the ruder season, and, standing with his elbow 
 on the topmost rail of the fence, looked meditatively at the 
 golden glamours of the rock-bound river. He had not in 
 tended to go farther, and presently he turned ; lie came to 
 a sudden halt, and gazed with keen, narrowing eyes up the 
 slope of the hill. 
 
 The man whom he had seen walking along the red clay 
 road was long ago gone, a tall man and slight, as he re 
 membered the figure, ail unlike the one whom he now saw 
 threading his way slowly among the bowlders on the steep 
 incline above the cabin. As the pedestrian emerged pres 
 ently upon a comparatively open space, Jepson noted a cer 
 tain burly dignity in his carriage, which even at the distance 
 served to identify him. 
 
 Jepson started forward ; then paused. He had not spoken 
 to Eli Strobe since the day of the election, when they had con 
 ferred together in the interests of the constable s candidacy, 
 and his heart had beat with an intense partisan anxiety for 
 Marcella s sake. He began to appreciate definitely how much 
 he had felt since then of love, and hope, and despair ; how 
 hard they had all gone with him. He was ill-suited to re- 
 linquishment. His domineering, intolerant spirit had been 
 scantily acquainted with denial. " I m goin ter die power 
 ful hard," lie said in gloomy forecast. It seemed to him 
 that he had felt already prescient pangs. As his eyes fol 
 lowed Strobe s progress, he protested inwardly against a 
 sort of humiliation to realize that he scarcely cared to ac 
 cost him, and hear from him the reproaches so cruel on his 
 daughter s lips. Jepson had not a keen self-discernment, 
 but he knew his imperious entity too well to believe him 
 self capable of receiving these bitter words from others 
 with a like patience and acquiescence. That the injury to 
 Eli Strobe was an accident, through no fault of his 7 was 
 instantly formulated in his consciousness with the vividness 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 411 
 
 of a retort, as he forecast the constable s upbraidings. 
 Still he hesitated. Suddenly, with a new thought, he started 
 up the slope. He had hardly credited hitherto the report 
 of Eli Strobe s insanity, and he knew nothing of the char 
 acter of his delusion. Could it be that some fantastic va 
 gary was luring him on amidst the bowlders, and the crags, 
 and the mists of the dusk ? Jepson had it in his mind to 
 do a service. He suspected that Strobe had escaped from 
 the careful guards of the fireside circle. As he approached, 
 climbing among the crags, he wondered that he had not yet 
 been observed, yet he forbore to hail his old friend. With 
 the knowledge of the failure of his mental faculties was the 
 vague, unreasoning impression of the impairment of the 
 senses. He felt as if Eli Strobe might not hear his ringing 
 halloo. 
 
 Thus it was that, as the earth grew darker and yet more 
 shadowy, though still the sky flared above, albeit dulling 
 from its burning golden hue to a deep copper tint with hor 
 izontal bars of red, while the river ran blood, Eli Strobe, 
 turning a curve in the road about the base of a cliff, came 
 abruptly upon Jepson standing in an open space, motionless, 
 expectant, silent, bareheaded. The lurid flare of the skies 
 flung its unnatural light upon Jepson s face. He winced as 
 he had never thought to do, for the doughty constable turned 
 suddenly half round, and held up a quivering arm before 
 his eyes, as if to shut out the sight or to ward off a blow. 
 
 Jepson spoke instantly, hurt and angry : 
 
 " Ye hev got no call ter treat me that-a-way, Eli. Ye hev 
 never lied no call ter be afeard o me." 
 
 The constable had forgotten his threat of serving papers 
 on " a harnt." He trembled violently. He could hardly 
 stand. He tottered to a bowlder near by, and sat down. 
 As he hesitatingly looked up at Jepson and cast his eyes 
 down once more, there was visible in his expression a sur 
 prise that his old friend should still be standing there. 
 
 " I hev always wished ye well," Jepson declared, with a 
 swelling heart. 
 
412 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 " Thanky, sir, thanky kindly," said Eli Strobe, with a 
 faltering tongue and uncharacteristic humility. 
 
 Jepson detected something in the tone which he did not 
 understand. He cast a sharp glance at his interlocutor as 
 he demanded, " Don t ye know me ? " fearing that Strobe s 
 mental derangement included a failure of recognition of 
 familiar things and faces. 
 
 " Oh, mighty well, mighty well indeed," the constable 
 hastened to assure him. 
 
 There was a momentary silence. Jepson hardly compre 
 hended the restraint which irked him. Whatever of pain 
 he had anticipated in the interview, he had never expected 
 aught like this. He noticed that Strobe more than once 
 cast his eyes down the long winding curves of the red clay 
 road, stretching so far under the metallic lustre of that 
 darkly yellow sky. The constable was, however, too heavy 
 a man to attempt flight, too far spent by the agitation that 
 rent his breath and heaved in his broad chest. His judg 
 ment was still very excellent, and he adjusted himself anew 
 on the bowlder. 
 
 " Ef I ain t wanted," said Jepson, with a flare of his 
 wonted arrogant spirit, " say the word, an I 11 make my- 
 se f sca ce. I jes lowed, though, ez mebbe ye mought hev 
 a mind fur a few words, bein ez ye an me war always 
 frien ly tergether. But I ain t one ter want ter bide whar 
 I hev no place." 
 
 Eli Strobe s face could hardly have expressed more defi 
 nitely than it did his relief at this intimation that the termi 
 nation of the interview was subject to his wishes. He was, 
 however, bent on insuring this if civility might suffice. In 
 all his political experience he had never shown more suavity 
 than now, when he said, with tremulous haste, 
 
 u I m obligated by yer comp ny, sir." Then he added, in 
 a more natural tone, " I hev been wonderin a heap bout n 
 ye lately, I hev been studyin bout n ye mighty nigh all 
 the time." 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 413 
 
 "Nobody hev tole me that," said Jepson, wondering to 
 find him so friendly, and still struggling with that vague, 
 undiscriminated restraint that hampered the conversation. 
 
 " I reckon nobody else hev viewed ye," Eli Strobe said 
 quickly, not without a certain anxiety. Ambition was an 
 elastic passion in his breast. He was already piquing him 
 self upon his unique opportunity, forgetting Rathburn s ex 
 perience. 
 
 Jepson keenly felt the obvious fact that Marcella never 
 mentioned him at home. But it was only another pang, 
 and he said doggedly to himself that he knew so many 
 pangs, another might hardly matter. He did not answer di 
 rectly. He said presently, 
 
 " What war ye a-woriderin bout ? " 
 
 " Ef ef" said Eli Strobe, a keen curiosity glancing 
 out from under the brim of his hat, contending with a fear 
 of giving offense ef ye ever sociate now with them 
 folks ye useter be so tuk up with, G liath, an David, an 
 Sol mon, an them." 
 
 Jepson hesitated. 
 
 " I would n t call it sociatin " he paused " not ed- 
 zac ly." 
 
 " They be sorter stuck up, eh ?" said Eli Strobe, with a 
 grin of relish. " I never did b lieve ez worldly pride dies 
 out fore ye git ter the nex worl . It s the main part o* 
 some folks. It s all the soul they hev got, thar pride, 
 the rest is body." 
 
 Jepson, dazed somewhat by the queer turn the conversa 
 tion had taken, stood silent, till he was suddenly interro 
 gated anew. 
 
 " Do ye set ez much store on Sol mon ez ye useter? " 
 
 u I hev hed no call ter change my mind," Jepson replied 
 wonderingly, for the eagerness of Strobe s interest in gossip 
 ing of these antique worthies was very fresh and immediate. 
 
 " Smart man ? " Strobe nodded his own head as he 
 asked the question, willing to be convinced. 
 
414 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 " That ain t the word fur it," said Jepson, the fascination 
 of the subject reasserting itself even in this stress of anx 
 iety, " I hev been study in a heap lately bout the house 
 he built " 
 
 " Thar, now, what did I tell ye bout pride ? " Eli Strobe 
 broke in. " I 11 be bound Sol mon kerried the mem ry o 
 that thar house o his n plumb ter the house not built with 
 hands ; an he ain t the fust ez clings ter worldly deeds, an 
 I 11 be bound he won t be the las ." He paused, with a 
 sudden look of consciousness on his face. The parallel was 
 too patent to escape the notice of so clever a man, ignorant 
 though be was. He was realizing that the important pride 
 incident to the office of constable of Broomsedge Cove was 
 hardly meet equipment to bear to the golden shores. Bat he 
 was sturdily hopeful. " I 11 cure myself o that fore I land 
 on the further side o Jordan," he muttered to himself with 
 a chuckle, for the humorous suggestions of the prospect did 
 not altogether escape him. " I ain t goin ter cut no comical 
 figger mongst the saints through pride o bein constable o 
 Brumsaidge. Naw, sir ! Pa son an me hev got ter winnow 
 me o that sure." 
 
 The parson might have esteemed it a more difficult task, 
 but Eli Strobe, with a cheerfulness predicated on the possi 
 bility of securing a spiritual mind in good season for spiritual 
 needs, began to expand into more personal curiosity ; for 
 Goliath and Solomon were, after all, far-away subjects to 
 his contemplation. Politics, perhaps, had rendered him suspi 
 cious, and he had become inured to doubting on principle a 
 man s claims for himself. He cast his old distrustful side 
 long glance at Jepson, freighted with a wish. to say more 
 than he dared, to elicit protestations by insinuating that 
 his friend had not been so placed in the other world as to 
 know whether Solomon was as " smart " as he had been 
 proclaimed to be, or to associate with the best of the Biblical 
 worthies. 
 
 " Do ye like yer new abidin place ez well ez yer old ? " 
 Strobe demanded. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 415 
 
 " A hundred times better," declared Jepson. " I lowed 
 at fust I could n t bide thar " Strobe pricked up his 
 gossip-loving ears " through so many old thoughts o old 
 times. But I be useter em agin now, an they don t hender 
 me none." 
 
 Again there was silence. A star was shining in the yel 
 low west beside a flake of purple cloud. Mists shivered 
 about the crags. High amongst them a screech-owl shrilled. 
 
 " I wisht ye d kem an spen the night " Jepson began ; 
 he paused abruptly, for Eli Strobe had sprung to his feet, 
 with a white face, in which fear and resolution were oddly 
 blended ; he was wrestling with a frightful old superstition 
 of the lures of a ghost to lead to hell ; if he should follow 
 the spectre for a step, he fancied himself lost " or," added 
 Jepson, " bide ter supper." 
 
 " Naw, naw ! " Eli Strobe declined promptly. Then re 
 membering his sedulous civility, he continued : " They 11 be 
 waitin fur me at home, an mam an Marcelly air power 
 ful partic lar. I 11 meet up with ye agin somewhar, I reckon. 
 Good-night." 
 
 Jepson stood in puzzled doubt, as the constable took his 
 way with athletic swiftness down the homeward path. More 
 than once Strobe looked backward, to see the motionless fig 
 ure standing bareheaded amongst the crags and the shifting 
 mists, and turned instantly and walked on more swiftly 
 than before. 
 
 He was out of breath, and pale and chilly, when he 
 reached home. Marcella and Isabel were awaiting him in 
 the passage between the two rooms, and while the younger 
 daughter ran in to announce his return to Mrs. Strobe. Mar 
 cella came down the steps to meet him. 
 
 " Whar hev ye been, dad, so late ? " she asked. 
 
 u Marcelly," he said in a mysterious, low tone, as they 
 stood together on the porch, beneath the skeleton vines that 
 flapped drearily in the wind, " I dunno what got inter me 
 this evenin . I tuk ter misdoubtin ef ef Teck Jepson 
 
416 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 ever war kilt " her heart gave a great joyous bound " ef 
 he ever war dead. An I started out ter go ter that leetle 
 graveyard o his folks whar ye tole me he war buried," 
 she convulsively clutched his arm, " ter see fur myse f 
 ef thar war enny new grave thar." 
 
 " An an what did ye find ? " she cried, elated. 
 
 He stared down at her in the closing dusk, bewildered by 
 her voice and manner. His tones were more huskily mys 
 terious still. " I never got thar fur I met his harnt " 
 She gave a sharp exclamation, and then caught one hand to 
 her lips, as if to restrain the scream that might otherwise es 
 cape. 
 
 " Tell on," she said. 
 
 " Waal, I hed some words with the harnt ; an t war 
 comical how much t war like Teck, a-settin up ter sociate 
 with Sol mon an them, whenst from some words he let drap 
 I know he war in the t other place. I know Teck. He 
 could hev been mighty interestin this evenin , ef he would. 
 He tried ter git me ter foller him, but I war too smart fur 
 him, tellin me how proud Sol mon air o the house he 
 built." 
 
 " Dad," the girl gasped, mindful of the impending inqui 
 sition of lunacy, " I ain t axed ye fur nuthin fur a good 
 while. Promise me one thing." 
 
 "Waal, Marcelly?" he replied expectantly, but cau 
 tious. 
 
 " Promise me ye won t tell nobody bout yer seein the 
 harnt." 
 
 His countenance fell. It was a sensation to retail, to 
 make him the joyful cynosure of all the gossips, when he 
 should be once more able to join his cronies at the forge or 
 the store. But her pleading eyes were on his face ; his 
 paternal heart stirred, and his affection could compass even 
 such self-denial. 
 
 " Waal, Marcelly, I promise though " 
 
 She would not wait for argument. " An , dad, ef enny- 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 417 
 
 body axes ye how ye know Teck Jepson air dead, say yer 
 darter Marcelly tole ye whar he war buried." 
 
 " Yes," he interrupted, with his burly bass chuckle, " an 
 I 11 say I lowed they would n t hev buried him thout he 
 war dead." 
 
 The ^yhite light of the newly kindled tallow dip within 
 the room streamed out amongst the dusky brown shadows, 
 and he went cheerfully in to his supper. 
 
XXIII. 
 
 THE roistering blades who had been wont to congregate at 
 the forge had resumed that cheerful habit, for the more re 
 cent excitements touching the discovery of the identity of the 
 mysterious smith, who busied himself about the anvil in the 
 dead hour of the night, had quite crowded out all recollec 
 tion of the previous sensation of the parson s visions. Few, 
 perhaps none but he himself, thought of the apparition that, 
 accoutred with hoofs and equipped with wings " bat- wise," 
 had sat upon the anvil, while the ghastly simulacrum of one 
 of the jolly group had held the shutter ajar to look in upon 
 his unconscious rollicking mortal self ; although often enougli 
 the sound of the uncouth hilarity, the scraping of the old 
 fiddle, or the wild, barbaric choruses rang out in the solemn 
 silence of the stricken woods, and acquainted the Settle 
 ment with the fact that the " boys were caperin like all 
 possessed down thar at the forge." The parson sighed, for 
 all the ascetic convictions of his nature were wounded by 
 the unthinking jocosity and revelry, the very laughter of 
 which he, in his portentous gravity of creed, esteemed a sin. 
 But even parsons can learn, and the good old man beheld 
 no more visions thenceforward to the day of his death. 
 Allegory and metaphor had departed, with all their attend 
 ant graces of rhetoric, from his discourse, and thereafter 
 he urged upon his congregation the necessity of truth and 
 the insidiousriess of lying, until the subject seemed to grow 
 personal, and each member ransacked the possibilities for 
 the means whereby the pastor could have become acquainted 
 with sundry individual feats of athletically drawing the long 
 bow. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 419 
 
 The fluctuating shafts of red light, now flung across the 
 landscape without, now suddenly withdrawn, as the breath 
 of the bellows rose and fell, imparted a genial element to 
 the gaunt and sere autumnal scene this afternoon, as Bassett 
 approached the little low building under the beetling crags. 
 The dusk had already fallen, the metallic lustre had tar 
 nished in the sky, and only here and there a dimly burnished 
 gleam gave evidences of how the sunset but now had flared. 
 The depressing influences of the rain which its brilliancy 
 had served to obliterate were reasserted in the closing night. 
 Drops were ever and anon fitfully falling in the woods from 
 their lodgment in the sere curled leaves, still clinging to the 
 trees, as the wind stirred them. The mountains, dark and 
 sinister, closed about the Cove, its spaces all narrowing in 
 the hovering obscurity, only indicated, indeed, by the pallid 
 stretches of crab-grass in the place of the harvested crops, 
 and the tawny growth of the broomsedge, the curse of the 
 abandoned land ; for the last glimmers of the day revealed 
 these lighter tones in the dull neutrality of the blending 
 darkness. The dank breath of their sodden fibres came to 
 him as he walked ; the river called aloud in a tumult of ela 
 tion, as it dashed bold and wild over the rocks, reinforced 
 by its tributaries from the ranges ; exhalations were rising 
 from the ground, loitering in low places, and as the light 
 flared out all red from the forge now and again, it cleft 
 them in twain. The echoes waked still, despite the somno 
 lent, night-shrouded aspect of mountain and valley, and 
 were full of mirth, with snatches of lilting song, to repeat 
 and con anew, till languorously, and syllable by syllable, 
 they dropped to silence, or were overpowered by fresh out 
 bursts of boisterous fun. It might have seemed, even to 
 these accurate mim cs, all as it was in the old days before 
 Rathburn had ever come to the Great Smoky to search in 
 chasm and gorge and cave for silver, before they had 
 been roused in the mystic midnight hour to keep a tally 
 with the strokes of his hammer on the anvil, and repeat 
 
420 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 with bated breath his low-toned words, all as it was. It 
 did not seem thus to Bassett, coming nearer still. A pre 
 occupation, a lack of zest in the jocularity, in the rallying 
 sallies, he could detect in the very voices of the familiar 
 group too distant to be articulate ; and yet they were as 
 bluffly loud as ever. Nevertheless, as he came in view of 
 the interior, the figures of the young mountaineers, now dis 
 tinct in the glow of the forge fire, now dull and almost in 
 distinguishable in the shadow of the dusky brown walls, in 
 timated but small thought save of the mirth of the moment. 
 The violin s tones were facetious under the bowing of so 
 jovial a hand as Jube, the parson s son, made shift to wield. 
 The severe ascetic lines of his father s profile were queerly 
 imposed upon the rich red tint of the instrument, convulsed 
 by a grin of a magnitude justified only by the phenomenal 
 capers of the dancer, and distorted presently in sympathy 
 with some very intricate harmonics, the production of which 
 were somewhat beyond the performer s capacity. The 
 dancer was Andy Longwood, and his latent agility was man 
 ifested to an extent which one would hardly have suspected 
 from his habitual slow, slouching gait. He held either hand 
 upon his hips ; his chin was uplifted ; he looked not at his 
 feet, surprising as were their deft gyrations to the circle of 
 men who, with their pipes in their mouths, stood about and 
 gazed at him with an expression of slow and lenient amuse 
 ment, but at the dark and cobwebbed rafters of the high- 
 peaked roof. The white light flared out from the fire for 
 one moment upon his face, with his long fair hair shaken 
 back and tossing with his movements ; and as the dull red 
 glow succeeded it, the surrounding spectators fell back 
 laughing, their applause of an intricate double shuffle, with 
 which he had concluded, audible to Bassett as he approached. 
 When he reached the door and stood leaning against it 
 their comments had not yet shifted from the subject. 
 
 " Andy, ye air spry fur true ! how did ye 1 arn ter 
 take them s prisin steps ? " observed Moses Hull, at whom 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 421 
 
 Bassett glanced in surprise, for it was Hull s ambition to 
 do many things in the nature of feats of agility preemi 
 nently well, and commendation from him, therefore, usu 
 ally was slack and scanty. " Shucks ! " He made one or 
 two teetering movements forward on the tips of his toes, 
 then desisted with a debonair wave of his hand. " / can t, 
 gin it up." 
 
 " Gin Andy sti thin ter drink ; bleeged ter be dry arter 
 all that hoppin an commotion," said Dake, in a tone the 
 essence of suavity. " Hey, Clem ? " He appealed to the 
 hospitalities of the blacksmith, who sat upon the anvil, all 
 unmindful of the devil, and smoked his pipe, as he over 
 looked a game of cards which two young fellows were play 
 ing upon the head of a barrel. 
 
 " Let him gin hisse f suthin ter drink," said Clem, cava 
 lierly, emitting a blue wreath of smoke from his lips. He 
 had not forgiven the youthful rival his unintentionally mis 
 leading statement as to Marcella s preference. " I reckon 
 Andy hev got sense enough ter know the outside o a jug 
 whenst he see it ; ef not, let him go dry." 
 
 He inserted his pipe once more between his lips, and bent 
 his attention upon the game, solemnly and warily played by 
 the light of the forge fire, the bellows accommodatingly 
 worked by a youth who fancied he had a bent toward the 
 smith s vocation, and was happy to be allowed to meddle in 
 any capacity with the paraphernalia of the forge. 
 
 " I won t die o thirst, I reckon, yit awhile," panted Andy, 
 who, still out of breath, was walking himself at)out after 
 the manner in which a horse is exercised after running. He 
 took his way behind the elevated hearth of the forge, for in 
 the dusky retirement of this nook stood a modestly disposed 
 brown jug, with a corn-cob stopper. Its presence here was 
 well-known, and the affectation of secrecy sprang, doubtless, 
 from some mere sentiment of appropriateness, for the liquor 
 was illegally distilled, and came few suspected whence. 
 
 Bassett watched the dumb show, very dim in the corner, 
 
422 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 of the shadow of a man drinking from the shadow of a jug ; 
 he was of an outspoken temperament, of which, however, 
 censoriousness was more an element than candor. 
 
 " What ails ye, Gid, ter be a-coddlin Andy so special ? " 
 He did not desist because of a significant glance from Dake, 
 standing in the rear of the anvil. " An what s Andy 
 a-doin of over hyar, so fur from home, ennyhows? His 
 folks will low he be los , his mam will be out n her head," 
 he sneered. 
 
 The bibulous shadow paused, with the jug at its lips. 
 The pantomime was very expressive of scornful retort, as 
 Longwood wagged his head silently, but with the fiery fluid 
 in his throat he could not speak for a moment. " I 11 knock 
 ye inter Kingdon Come, Joe Bassett, ef ye fool along o me. 
 Talkin ez ef I war about five year old ! / ain t axin 
 you-uns bout sech ez I do, nohow." And once more he ap 
 plied his lips to the jug. 
 
 u Old or young, Andy hev been mighty important ter 
 Brumsaidge," said Hull seductively. " Some things we-uns 
 would never hev knowed ef t war n t fur him." 
 
 Bassett stared in surprise ; then gave a short, scornful 
 laugh. " Waal, I feel powerful sorry fur Brumsaidge ef 
 Andy kin tell em ennything ! " he flouted. 
 
 The young fellow had come from behind the elevated 
 hearth of the forge, wiping his lips on the back of his hand. 
 He had suddenly grown conscious, and looked a trifle crest 
 fallen. " Waal, I dunno ez I oughter hev tole what I done, 
 I hev t>eeii sorry fur it sence. It jes sorter slipped out n 
 my mouth fore I knowed it. I hed drunk cornsider ble 
 apple-jack," he made this admission with a callow pride 
 in being thus overtaken, " an I sca cely knowed what I 
 said. I war sorry arterward." 
 
 " Bout what ? " demanded Bassett, choosing to disregard 
 the telegraphic glances of Hull and Dake. 
 
 "Shucks!" said Hull, answering for Longwood, "jes 
 bout tellin ez Eli Strobe hed gone deranged." 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 423 
 
 Bassett said nothing, and Longwood, standing with his 
 hands in his pockets, his head bare, for he had not re 
 placed his hat after dancing, and it now lay among the 
 spokes of a broken wagon-wheel at one side of the shop, 
 gazed absently down at the game of cards. 
 
 " I dunno why ye air sorry ye tole," said Hull craft 
 ily ; and it occurred suddenly to Bassett that he was a 
 half-brother of the defeated candidate for constable, and 
 that Longwood was in the process of being cleverly manip 
 ulated. " Brumsaidge would hev been obleeged ter find 
 it out, sooner or later. I s pose," he added, after a pause, 
 " ye war feared they would try ter take his office way 
 from him ? " 
 
 " Edzac ly ! " said Longwood, lifting his large eyes, " an 
 I did n t want ter hev no part nor passel in sech." 
 
 " Waal, ye won t ! " exclaimed Hull reassuringly. He 
 was a dark-browed fellow, of a wooden-like countenance ; it 
 seemed specially devoid of expression as he chewed hard 
 upon his quid of tobacco, and he had a casual manner as he 
 continued : " Folks would hev been bound ter hear it n ised 
 abroad fore long, an then, ef he air crazy, Brumsaidge can t 
 keep him constable. This air a mighty big deestric , an 
 arter ye wunst gits out n the Settlemint houses air few fur 
 true, an fur apart, an woods air thick. A crazy constable 
 ain t no constable at all." 
 
 " Yes, sir ! " Dake broke in ; " an folks out thar hev got 
 ter hev some sort n purtection besides a gyard-dog, got ter 
 sorter depend on the law, now days. We-uns ain t got grit 
 enough ter take keer o ourselves, like we useter do." 
 
 But this last sentiment boded a digression. Hull hastily 
 interposed, still incidentally, however : " "T ain t yer fault, 
 Andy, ef he war ter lose his office, ye did n t make him 
 go deranged ; an it stands ter reason ez the law can t be 
 administered by a off cer teched in the head. Naw, sir ! 
 But then he mought not be crazy. What did he say, Andy, 
 ter make ye low he had gone deranged ? " 
 
424 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 The question was asked, and Hull gazed intently at the 
 young fellow, fearing that at this significant moment some 
 word, some movement, of the others might rob him of what 
 he so zealously sought, a clew for the guidance of those 
 who were scheming in the matter of the inquisition of lu 
 nacy ; for so close had been the race for constable that in 
 the event of the office becoming vacant, and a consequent 
 special election, Joshua Nevins could hardly fail to have 
 a walk-over, as against any other candidate than the dis 
 abled incumbent. Nevertheless, although Hull s face had 
 grown conscious, his manner carefully dissembled his in 
 terest, and Longwood s glance discovered naught to inflame 
 his anger or rouse his caution. It was only because of the 
 twinge of his own conscience that he declared irritably, lift 
 ing his voice, " I dunno what he said, leastwise I hev no 
 call ter tell, an I ain t a-goin ter." A sudden doubt, even 
 suspicion, stirred within him. " Somebody else war axin 
 me that question jes ter-day." 
 
 Hull, fresh at politics, lost his self-possession. " T war n t 
 me ! " he protested, as if repudiating an accusation. 
 
 " Did I say t war ? " demanded Longwood, with a snarl 
 ing accent. The whiskey which he had drunk and that 
 goading sense of wrong-doing had blended in angry discom 
 fort, which he was more disposed to wreak on others, if he 
 might with impunity, than to suffer in silence. 
 
 " Don t quar l, boys," eagerly objected Jube. His habit 
 was not that of a peacemaker, but the prospect of a wrangle 
 threatened to despoil the pleasure he experienced in twang 
 ing the old violin, for the loud voices overbore the vibrations 
 of the strings as he experimented with some delicate fleck 
 ing touches of the bow. " Don t quar l, boys." 
 
 " I ain t quar lin ! " Longwood defended himself with still 
 a louder tone. " Axin* me an I won t stan it ez ter 
 what Eli Strobe said an did n t say, ter make me low he 
 bed gone deranged ! " 
 
 His voice, rasping and querulous, caused Clem Sanders 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 425 
 
 to look up with scowling disfavor from the game of which 
 he had been an absorbed spectator. His frown grew blacker 
 as the final words fell upon the air. " Gone deranged ! " 
 he sneered. " Air you-uns a-spreadin that gossip yit, kase 
 the man hed a fever, an war a leetle out n his head ? I do 
 declar , ye make me laff." His face seemed far from laugh 
 ing, so indignant and flushed it was. 
 
 "A man can t stay out n his head jes with fever from 
 August election day air fust Thursday in August plumb 
 till the middle o October, an past. That s when Andy 
 hearn Eli Strobe a-maunderin ," Hull excitedly argued. 
 
 fc< I never said he maundered," Longwood protested vehe 
 mently. " I ain t a-goin ter tell what he said." 
 
 Clem Sanders had worn a startled, troubled face as he 
 hearkened to Hull s exposition of these dates. He seemed 
 overpowered, convinced against his will. Then his anxious 
 hope for Marcella s sake making him ingeniously sanguine, 
 he turned fiercely toward Longwood. 
 
 " An what sort n jedge be you-uns ? Gone deranged ! 
 Nobody hev gone haffen ez fur deranged ez you-uns. Ye 
 ain t got two atoms o brains ter keep one another comp ny 
 in that thar great big lonesome head o yourn." 
 
 Longwood winced palpably before this vigorous scorn. 
 The consideration with which he had been treated earlier in 
 the evening had served to foster his self-esteem. The black 
 smith was a man of mark in the community and enjoyed 
 great popularity, and Longwood deprecated a " backing 
 down " from this source. He was prone to strut and swag 
 ger, and Hull s pretended deference had made him adopt a 
 still more assuming pose. 
 
 He forgot his pangs of conscience, Marcella, the conse 
 quence to Eli Strobe, ah 1 , in the tumult of his self-im- 
 portance and the desire to assert himself. 
 
 44 Jedge o goin deranged ! Even you-uns, I reckon, would 
 hev hed gumption enough ter sense what war the matter ef 
 ye hed hearn him declarin like I done ez he hed 
 
426 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 killed Teck Jepson, bruk his neck, an kep axin whar Teck 
 war buried, an who preached the fun al sermon, an ef his 
 harnt hed not out ter walk ! I reckon ye d hev lowed he 
 war deranged, ef ye hed hearn all that ! " 
 
 He hurled forth these words upon Clem Sanders, who sat 
 as one petrified, a stony dismay on his face, and seeming 
 scarcely to breathe. Hull was excited, laughing a little, 
 half in triumph, half in ridicule of the grotesque folly of 
 thus revealing the secret that had been so carefully with 
 held from the inquiries hardly yet silent upon the air. The 
 inconsequent Longwood, in the flush of his victory over 
 the blacksmith, did not even dimly appreciate what he had 
 done, till, turning, he saw Hull s face, wooden no longer, 
 and the satirically laughing Dake. He wilted a trifle ; then 
 with an effort to regain his manly port, he demanded in an 
 offended tone, " What be ye fellers a-laffin at ? " 
 
 Hull showed some aptitude for the affairs in which he 
 intermeddled merely for reasons of consanguinity. " So 
 funny," he replied evasively, " so darned funny, the idee 
 o Teck Jepson bein dead ! I wish he war ! " 
 
 " That would n t do we-uns no good," said Dake. " We- 
 uns can t find whar Jake Baintree an his pardner air hidin 
 in the mountings enny better ef Teck war dead than livin ." 
 
 Jube Donnard ceased to scrape the old violin ; the other 
 men gathered close about ; the game of cards paused mid 
 way ; the very name of Baintree and his confederate seemed 
 to supersede all other interests. Only Andy Longwood held 
 apart, realizing with a sinking heart that he had given the 
 clew the subject of insanity upon which the investiga 
 tions would be pushed ; otherwise, so sane was Strobe on 
 every other point, he might have escaped, even though the 
 inquiry were prompted and prosecuted by his political en 
 emies. 
 
 He sat down upon the shoeing-stool, leaning his head 
 against the chimney, and tried to reflect on what he had 
 done and what it might precipitate. Perhaps it was the 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 427 
 
 heat of the fire, perhaps the effects of the whiskey he had 
 drunk : his head drooped more and more, and presently he 
 was asleep, all oblivious of the absorbed group and the topic 
 that so engrossed them. 
 
 Even the enthusiast at the bellows had deserted the scene 
 of his ambition, and joined the others. The tone of the 
 conversation intimated that the subject was a recurrent one, 
 and each speaker had the air of producing his remark rather 
 from a long train of previous reflection than upon the im 
 pulse of the moment. 
 
 " I dunno what ter think o Teck Jepson," pursued Dake. 
 " Some o the boys lowed ez Baintree an his pardner ez 
 purtends ter be a-sarchin fur silver hed been warned, else 
 Rathburn never would hev kem down ter the forge so early 
 in the night with sech a plain, harmless tale." 
 
 " Who would go a hidin sech ez tryin ter git holt of a 
 silver mine, ennyhow ? " demanded Jube logically. " 1 11 gin 
 my cornsent ter his findin all the silver mines in the ken- 
 try. So would other folks, an he be bleeged ter know it." 
 
 " Teck never denied they war warned, whenst faced with 
 the fac , said one of the card-players, the superseded pack 
 in his hand. 
 
 " An Teck lowed," said the other, " ez he knowed who 
 warned em. He hed ter low that whenst I taxed him with 
 it. He said he would n t lie." 
 
 " But he would n t tell who done it," interpolated Jube, 
 the violin lying idle and silent on his knee. 
 
 " Naw, sir ! " exclaimed Dake. u I jes argufied with him 
 fur a good hour an better, tryin ter pint out his jewty ter 
 the benighted critter, fairly sodden in the pride o his reli 
 gion. I tole him t war his jewty ter his kentry. An he 
 jes lowed ez he hed seen the face o jewty too often not 
 ter know it, an that all the legions o hell an all the hosts 
 o heaven could not make him reveal that name ter mortal 
 ears." 
 
 The blacksmith, his ponderous arms folded, his head bent 
 
428 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 as he sat on the anvil and listened, rose suddenly, with a 
 deep sigh, and walked once or twice the length of the little 
 shop. He had refrained from speaking, fearing his lawless 
 tongue might betray his intimate knowledge of the mystery 
 that so baffled them. His silence had not been noted, but 
 his movement brought him to the minds of the others, and 
 one of the card-players demanded : 
 
 " Did you-uns onderstan , Clem, this hyar Rathburn ter 
 say ez him an Jake war a-campin on the range ter the west 
 o Brumsaidge ? Whenst we-uns went up on the mounting, 
 the t other day*, I do declar I b lieve we sarched every squar 
 mile fur ten mile, a-bushwhackin fur em." 
 
 " That air what I onderstood him ter say," replied the 
 blacksmith cautiously, coming to a halt in the middle of the 
 floor. " On the mounting ter the west. But I never paid 
 no partic lar tention ter him. I war a-mendin of his tool, 
 an Jepson done the talkin . I lowed ye d be sati fied with 
 whatever Jepson done." 
 
 " But he never done nuthin ! " cried Dake angrily. 
 " Swaller a big tale bout n sarchin fur silver ez easy ez 
 skim milk, an then let the evil-doer slip through his fingers 
 like pickin up water ! " 
 
 " Thout even findin out whar ter git him agin ef we-uns 
 wanted him ! " exclaimed Jube Donnard. 
 
 There was a silence. Each was conscious of a thought 
 that he shared with the others, but as yet none had put it 
 into words. The dim red glow of the coals slowly smoul 
 dering under the sooty hood suffused the dusky place, and 
 but dimly revealed the great slouching figures of the moun 
 taineers, as they lounged about on the few seats that the 
 shop afforded, or stood with their hands in their pockets 
 and deliberated. Outside of the widely opened doors the 
 night gloomed. All was indistinguishable in the deep 
 obscurity save the line of the western horizon, a dull copper 
 hue, and against it were visible the gnarled limbs of the 
 old tree just without the forge, each bough and twig black 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 429 
 
 and distinct as it moved slightly in the wind. Now and 
 again drops fell in quick, convulsive patterings from the 
 growth of evergreen laurel on the slope of the hill, and some 
 times the eaves added a few monotonous drippings to the rivu 
 lets in the gullies below, running fast and loud in the silence. 
 
 " Thar hev been a traitor mongst we-uns," said Dake 
 presently. 
 
 " Ye say that ez ef it war news," sneered Bassett, still 
 standing in the door. 
 
 " I reckon all o the boys hev sorter sensed who t war," 
 observed Dake. 
 
 " Ye member how keen Teck Jepson war fur appealin 
 ter Jedge Lynch, ez he called it, whenst Baintree war fust 
 let off from the court fur a-killin o Sam l Keale, an whenst 
 enny fool mought hev knowed the kentry would do nuthin 
 agin the jury s say-so ?" Bassett remarked discursively. 
 
 The others stared at him through the red dusk of the 
 shadowy place, surprised by this reminiscent turn to the 
 conversation. 
 
 <; Of course," assented Jube, by way of giving him an im 
 petus. 
 
 " That war a blind. He never wanted nuthin done ter 
 Baintree, oh, ye need n t tell me ! " For there was an in 
 credulous laugh here and there in his audience. 
 
 " Shucks, Joe ! " exclaimed Jube, turning aside as if he 
 would once more lift the violin, then pausing and look 
 ing over his shoulder as Bassett resumed. 
 
 " An t other night, up at Clem s barn, he war dead agin 
 hangia or enny thin thout them men war diskivered in mo 
 wrong-doin sence killin Sam l Keale, ez ef they d up an 
 tell bout thar wrong-doin s with all o we-uns in a hunderd 
 yards of em, an they hevin been warned, an Teck Jepson 
 knoxvin who warned em ! " 
 
 "/ d like ter know who warned em. That busybody 
 would be done with warnin s," declared one of the card- 
 players. " I d strangle that tattle-tale with a mighty good 
 will, ef I hed the chance ! " 
 
430 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 " Hesh up ! I 11 lay ye low with that thar sledge o 
 mine ! " cried Clem peremptorily, the image of Marcella in 
 his mind. 
 
 " Laws-a-massy, Clem," protested the card-player pacific 
 ally, surprised at his vehemence. 
 
 " Then," pursued Bassett, all unheeding, a logical end in 
 contemplation, " we-uns hev let Teck Jepson git the upper 
 hand o us, so ez he felt full bold ter let that Rathburn go, 
 an stayed argufyin with we-uns in the barn jes ter pur- 
 vent us from goin arter him an capturin him, so ez him 
 an Baintree would git off scot-free." 
 
 " We-uns knowed all that afore," said Hull placidly. 
 
 " Waal," drawled Bassett slowly, but his eyes gleamed 
 with excitement and his pulse quickened, " mebbe ye don t 
 know ez I viewed Jepson a-standin in his door this very 
 evenin , a-shakin hands with this very Baintree ez he al 
 ways purtended ter despise so, an ez we-uns can t find high 
 or low, shakin hands, sir, shakin hands frien ly an per- 
 lite, ez ef Baintree war the pa son !." 
 
 There were two or three sharp, inarticulate exclamations, 
 and dead silence ensued. 
 
 u We-uns hev been powerful deceived in this man ez hev 
 fairly ruled Brumsaidge Cove ! " said one of the mountain 
 eers at last, smarting with the sense of being overreached. 
 
 " His rule air over ! " cried Bassett, " else he hev stamped 
 out every mite o pluck mongst us in his rule, ez ye call it." 
 
 " Why, now, look-a-hyar, Joe, how air ye a-countin fur 
 his bein frien ly with Baintree ? He ain t a fool like this 
 hyar Rathburn, hankerin arter silver ez Jake kin find," 
 urged Dake, dazed by the revelation, and seeking some ade 
 quate motive that might explain it. 
 
 Bassett had come forward into their midst. He stood 
 with his hands in his pockets, his face grave but with sup 
 pressed excitement in every line of it, and now and then 
 glancing over his shoulder at the broad open door, where 
 a mist lurked shifting and shimmering, vaguely perceived 
 in the dull red glow of the forge fire. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 431 
 
 " Why, what kin it mean, boys," he said, " ceptin we-uns 
 hev been fooled from the beginnin ? Teck wouldn t act" 
 so ef Baintree did n t hev a hank over him somehows, 
 could put him inter a mighty heap o trouble ef he did other 
 wise. Ez long ez Baintree hev been kep under our watch 
 Teck hev b friended him ; afore that he peared ez much 
 agin him ez ennybody, jes ez a blind ter keep folks from 
 s picionin them." 
 
 But what kin Teck hev done ez Baintree be in an knows 
 about ? Thar ain t no crime been c mitted in these parts," 
 ruminated Dake, his mind rummaging the possibilities, 
 " ceptin ceptin " he drawled on uncertainly ; then 
 he suddenly glanced up, his eyes alight " ceptin the mys 
 terious takin -off o Sam l Keale, five year ago an better." 
 
 He had guessed Bassett s suspicion ; he saw this in his 
 crony s eyes, and the strength of his own suggestion was in 
 creased by its duplication. The others stirred uneasily, but 
 the crime was a mystery never solved, and what could be 
 more inexplicable than the fact that Jepson was seen shak 
 ing hands with the man whom he had denounced and threat 
 ened again and again, a contemptible wretch, and the outcast 
 of the mountains ? 
 
 " Ye low," said Dake, " ez Jepson hed some hand in that 
 business what ain t never been brought ter light ? " 
 
 "Elsewise what ails him ter purtect Baintree an his 
 comical doctor-man, an ter swear he won t tell who warned 
 em, an ter be seen, when he thunk he war safe from view, 
 a-shakin hands mighty frien ly with the man he hev pur- 
 tended ter run down ? " 
 
 Bassett suddenly leaned forward, caught Dake s hand, 
 and went through the dumb show of a friendly parting, 
 while the others looked on through the red glow of the fire. 
 Then he flung himself back against the wall, laughing aloud, 
 a fleering falsetto laugh, that jarred the solemn silence 
 beneath the bare trees, and echoed far along the road 
 through the Settlement. 
 
XXIV. 
 
 IT is one of the incongruities of sentiment that the grief 
 of an unworthy subject for a puny cause should have the 
 poignant force and dignity of pain, and demonstrate that 
 universality of human susceptibility to mental suffering with 
 which the species is endowed. Mrs. Bowles might have 
 seemed of altogether too flimsy a moral constitution to ex 
 perience so adequately the surprise, the anger, the anguish, 
 that consecutively possessed her upon the discovery of the 
 little mountaineer s disappearance. Bob s own mother 
 could hardly have shed more tears. As she forecast the 
 gossip of the Cove, it might have appeared that only the re 
 pute heretofore of phenomenal graces of disposition could: 
 warrant the quivering shrinking she felt in coming at a dis 
 advantage before the popular censor. 
 
 " Folks will low ez how I hed treated him mean, 
 though ef he war my own child an hed runned away, they d 
 low he war a mean brat, an would turn out a evil man. 
 But bein I m a stepmother, I 11 git the blame. An ter 
 think how I hev slaved fur him, patched an let out seams, 
 an him a-growin out n every gyarmint ez ef he d grow 
 out n the roof ; an kep him clean ez soap an water knowed 
 how ! I 11 be bound he s tore his petticoats haffen off n 
 him in tatters, an got muddy an scratched with briers, 
 afore he shows hisse f a mis able mean shoat ! in the 
 Cove, a object o pity, an everybody a-tattlin how M ria 
 White, ez married a Bowles, like a fool, treats her step-chil n, 
 till they runs away from her, an dares the wild beast an 
 the mountings ter be shet of her." 
 
 And once more she burst into tears. She had her good 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 433 
 
 qualities, which were chiefly housewifely, and she had not 
 pretermitted her labors in washing the dishes and scouring 
 the cooking utensils in order to indulge her grief. Perhaps 
 it was the more effective as she held the plate aside to lean 
 sobbing against the chimney jamb ; then she wiped her eyes 
 perfunctorily upon her apron, and went on with her work, 
 while the tears streamed anew. 
 
 Her husband stood helplessly looking on, a pale, ashen 
 hue upon his lank, indefinite countenance, a startled anxiety 
 in his mild blue eyes, that seemed distended with abnormal 
 faculties, as if they beheld a frightful possibility not within 
 the actual field of vision. He had searched the immediate 
 vicinity as thoroughly as might be for the infantile fugitive, 
 and his heart sank within him as he reflected upon the meas 
 ureless mountain wilds encompassing the little home on 
 every hand, the hideous chasms and steeps, the lurking 
 beasts of prey. He could not look upon the trundle-bed, 
 the covering thrown off, and a deep indentation on the fur 
 ther side, where the fat little body had been cosily intrenched 
 all night, with nobody knows what dreams in his head, or 
 wakefully devising his callow schemes. 
 
 With the alert paternal despair, Bowles felt that he would 
 never again see there the rotund little fellow. He had not 
 his wife s capacity for self-centred sorrow, and it was impos 
 sible for him to regard the incident personally except with 
 keen and subtle spasms of remorse, his ingenuity fertile in 
 devising more reasons for repentance than the bountiful 
 reality afforded. 
 
 " M ria M ria," he said tremulously, " I feel obligated 
 ter go down an roust up all the men in the Cove ter sarch. 
 A b ar or a painter mought mought " He could not 
 go on. 
 
 " Shucks ! " retorted his wife contemptuously. " Ef he s 
 eat, he s eat, an the men in the Cove can t hender." 
 
 She slapped the dishes down upon the table as she succes 
 sively wiped each piece, and there was temper very promi 
 nently apparent even in her tears. 
 
434 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 " They monght hev dragged him ter thar den, I hev 
 hearn o sech doin s," the luckless Bowles urged desperately. 
 
 " I know what den he s in : he s in the den o that pain 
 ter or wolf ye call Teck Jepson, that s who hev ticed 
 him off." 
 
 She was sorry she had spoken when she noted how 
 Bowles s face cleared, how he clutched at this hope ; for it 
 was one of the prime essentials of her grief that it should 
 be shared, and if sympathy did not prompt her companions 
 to make it their own, she presently gave them ample occa 
 sion to sorrow for their own sake. This bloodless elucida 
 tion of Bob s disappearance had early occurred to her. He 
 was trying to make his way to his uncle, and by reason of 
 the dense undergrowth it would be difficult for him to do 
 aught but follow the path which would certainly lead him to 
 the Cove, where he would probably meet and electrify every 
 important personage of Mrs. Bowles s world before encoun 
 tering the object of his search. 
 
 " That s a fac ! " cried Bowles joyfully. " I 11 go 
 straight down yander ter Teck s an see." A cloud over 
 cast his face. " It s a long way, he 11 never git thar. 
 He 11 set down an go ter sleep on the side o the road 
 an su thin wild mought ketch him thar. I 11 go I 11 go, 
 straight." 
 
 " Naw, I 11 go myse f," said Mrs. Bowles, with another 
 gush of tears. " I ain t goin ter hev ye, an Teck Jepson, 
 an Bob yer great fine Bob ! a-showin off yer mis ries 
 down in the Cove, an a-makin out ez I be tur ble enough 
 ter harry ye all out n house an home. Naw, sir, I m goin 
 myse f, an ye 11 bide hyar an take keer o them t other two 
 chil n, an pur vent them from runnin away." 
 
 Sim and A minty had already been given reason to mourn 
 on their own behalf, Mrs. Bowles fancying that she detected 
 in their sullen little faces a relish of her lachrymose out 
 bursts and protests against this untoward fate that had some 
 how got the upper hand of her. But despite the channels 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 435 
 
 of tears drying on their cheeks, that spark of triumph still 
 shone in their eyes, and she could not quench it. She saw 
 it anew as they looked up on being mentioned, and she was 
 once more moved to accuse them of complicity in Bob s 
 flight, which had been the pretext of the previous trouncings. 
 
 " Ye A minty, ye better tell me which way Bob went, an 
 what he lowed he war goin ter do," she said, stopping in 
 her domestic duties, and standing with arms akimbo, gazing 
 down at the tousled red head and tallowy freckled face of 
 the little girl. 
 
 A minty looked old and very cautious as she spoke ; she 
 held the yellow cat, with the green eyes, close up under her 
 chin and against her neck, what a comfort the soft, furry, 
 purring thing was ! 
 
 " I dunno ! " she declared. u Bob don t talk none sca cely, 
 ceptin bout n vittles." 
 
 44 1 11 be bound he talks r bout vittles, vittles what I cook 
 fur him ! " cried Mrs. Bowles, with a new cadence of de 
 spair. " Ter think I lef my good home an ? a plenty o 
 marryin chances down in the Cove, ter kem up hyar an 
 weave an sew an spin an cook an slave from mornin till 
 night, an fetch up another oman s chil n, an yit git 
 n ised about all round the Cove ez bein mean, an no- count, 
 an neglec ful. I jes know how dirty Bob will be afore he 
 gits ter the Cove, dirty an tore up, an got on the wust dress 
 he hev got ter save his life. an folks will be lowin ez I 
 hev repented o my bargain a-marryin , an hev made a 
 mighty pore match. The Lord knows I did, but I don t 
 want Peter Bryce a-swaggerin round, tickled ter death, an 
 lowin I bed better hev tuk him whenst I could git him." 
 
 " Laws-a-massy, M ria, Peter Bryce knows ye would n t 
 gin him two thoughts ter save his life," said Bowles. " Heaps 
 o folks s chil n air fractious an gin em trouble, whether they 
 air step-chil n or no." The temporizer s art had become 
 singularly facile and effective in the continuous exercise which 
 had been given it. Mrs. Bowles s countenance cleared fora 
 
436 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 moment ; then perhaps it was a definite perception of the 
 truth, which was so palpable that she could not permit her 
 self to believe that it would be less apparent to others than 
 to herself it was clouded anew, and she broke forth an 
 grily : 
 
 " Naw ! I jes know what a name will be gin me by 
 Peter Bryce, an Teck Jepson, an them sanctified women 
 folks in the Cove, lowin ez I be cruel, an cut an slash the 
 chil n, I reckon. They 11 take no notice o how fat Bob be! 
 Teck Jepson sot the chil n all agin me whenst he fust kem 
 hyar ter live. Hain t ye hearn Bob talk a heap bout his 
 uncle Teck ? tell me now, Sim." 
 
 Sim twisted one bare foot over the other. He had grown 
 slow in being so doubtful of what might please, or rather 
 least displease. He continued silent, with his look of stupid 
 cogitation, until she observed threateningly, " Now sulk, ef 
 ye air so minded," when he broke forth precipitately : 
 
 " Bob say uncle Teck air big an high, an hev kilt a heap 
 o painters an b ars an an ," he faltered, " ef enny- 
 body tuk arter him, uncle Teck war a-goin ter settle em ; 
 all he hed ter do war ter let uncle Teck know." 
 
 Mrs. Bowles whirled round in triumph. 
 
 " Thar, now ! " she exclaimed to her husband. " What 
 did I tell ye ? I hearn Teck say them very words ter that 
 thar chile the las night he war hyar. He s gone ter Teck 
 Jepson ! Teck Jepson hev enticed him away ! Teck Jep 
 son air yer painter an yer wolf ! " 
 
 Once more she burst into stormy tears. It is a hard thing 
 to say of her, but the catastrophe that threatened the child 
 lost in the savage wilderness seemed less terrible to her than 
 the mental picture of Bob at large in the Cove, revealing to 
 the gossips the secrets of the domestic administration at the 
 cabin in the notch of the mountain. 
 
 She made her preparations somewhat swiftly after that, 
 although she did not neglect to prepare and set aside a goodly 
 amount of wholesome food for the consumption of the family 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 437 
 
 during her absence, animated by the intention of allow 
 ing Bob as little time as possible to ventilate, consciously or 
 unconsciously, the domestic discords. She wished very 
 heartily, as she mounted the horse which Jepson had lent 
 them, that she was leaving the door never to enter it again ; 
 but as she looked about the little cabin, with the solemn 
 purple mountains clustering in the background, and took 
 note of the silence and solitude that possessed the world, 
 save within those paltry inclosures where the pigs and the 
 poultry fed, and within the house with the sullen, brow 
 beaten children in the porch, she reflected that she was 
 likely to grow gray here, and she sighed deeply as she took 
 up the reins. There is no sorrow nor sympathy so sincere 
 as that which we feel for ourselves. She could not even be 
 sure of Ben Bowles s grief for her mortification, indefinite 
 and docile as he was. He stood, to be sure, with a long 
 face and a hand shielding his much-grooved brow and his 
 eyes from the glare rather than the sun, for it lurked be 
 hind the clouds, and only from tenuous areas of vapor it 
 sent forth this occasional tempered white suffusion, and 
 dutifully watched her out of sight ; but one might well 
 fancy that it was a day of more quiet and peace within 
 doors than the cabin had known since the bride came home ; 
 and even she, with all her personal arrogations, was aware 
 that he relished it. 
 
 The day was gray. The heights wore a deep purple with 
 a vague blue and blurring effect, as if some invisible, impal 
 pable veil of mist had interposed a short distance from 
 the wooded slopes. There was rain in the clouds, but they 
 loitered ; no downfall was threatened for some hours yet : 
 nevertheless, mindful of the freshness of a crisp pink calico 
 dress and bonnet, Mrs. Bowles doubted the reliability of 
 her own resources as a weather-prophet. She drew up the 
 horse where the road forked, and hesitated. It was not 
 such weather as she would have chosen for a jaunt into the 
 Cove, and she winced from the idea cf presenting herself, 
 
438 THE DESPOT OF DROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 forlorn and bedraggled by the rain, among her old ac 
 quaintances. She needed all her fortitude and all the pres 
 tige of fresh and immaculate attire. She wished that she 
 had let Bowles undertake the expedition in her stead, as he 
 had proposed. She was on the point of turning back, when 
 another of those white suffusions through the translucent 
 clouds gave cheer to the landscape, lifted suddenly into defi 
 nite color and hopeful augury for the rest of the day. " An 
 I 11 take the short cut," she muttered, as she turned the 
 horse aside into the less traveled and weed-grown way. But 
 for the thinning of the leaves on the bushes that grew close 
 on either hand, and the sere, dried, wisp-like estate of the 
 grasses and weeds in its midst, it might have appeared more 
 like a groove amongst the foliage than a path ; but here 
 and there it emerged into rocky spaces, where it wound with 
 definite curves, and she wondered that it should present this 
 trodden and well-worn aspect. " Cows take along it, I 
 reckon," she hazarded. 
 
 There was no moisture on the leaves nor on the withered 
 grasses, and there seemed an incongruity in this, with the 
 lowering lead-tinted sky full of rain, and the dank smell of 
 moisture in the air, for there had been " falling weather " 
 somewhere in the vicinity. She heard a rain-crow raucously 
 call out in the silence, and then all was still, so still ! The 
 summer songs of weed and twig were hushed ; the air was 
 void, no whirl of birds, no whisking gossamer cicada; 
 the stir of the crisp dry grass under her horse s hoofs and 
 the creak of the saddle as it swayed slightly were lond and 
 assertive in default of other sound. Now and again she 
 observed how the mountains changed their aspect, viewed 
 from a different point ; but however the contour varied, that 
 sombre purple tint filled the landscape, save when the dis 
 tance dulled it to gray. A drear day, shut in by clouds and 
 strangely without moral perspectives as well ; all the outlook 
 seemed limited by that gray, silent presence, that had an 
 aspect of perpetuity like a doom, as if it would lift no more. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 439 
 
 She had heen nearly an hour in the saddle, and the valley 
 appeared but little nearer than at the outset. She began to 
 doubt if the little mountaineer could have reached the Cove. 
 "It s a good piece, a good piece," she said meditatively. 
 " But then Bob mus walk a hunderd mile a day, I reckon, 
 playin round like he do, an he be plumb survigrous." 
 
 She had neared a depression in the range, through which 
 was visible a section of the Carolina mountains. She turned 
 her eyes mechanically toward them, hardly noting a little 
 cabin that she had known to be deserted for many a year, 
 and that stood on the slope of a great dome which towered 
 far above. The distant ranges were gray as those nearer 
 at hand ; nowhere in the world was a brighter spot visible 
 than the dull encompassing monotony. No movement, not 
 even the slow shifting of the mountain mist, till suddenly a 
 handsome gray mare trotted out from the rear of the cabin, 
 where Mrs. Bowles now perceived was a flimsy shanty of a 
 barn. A heap of ashes lay at one side of the yard. Her 
 approach frightened away a weasel that had been feeding 
 on some broken bits of food by the doorstep. The cabin 
 was evidently tenanted. 
 
 " Waal, sir ! " she soliloquized. " I never knowed ez 
 ennybody bed moved up ter this old houee, ez be fairly 
 fallin ter pieces," she added, her critical eye taking note of 
 the dilapidated doorsteps, the rotten rail fence, broken down 
 to the ground in many places, the strange lack of garden or 
 field. So lonely was her life on the mountain, so uncon 
 genial the companionship to which she had doomed herself, 
 that she had at first experienced a glow of gratulation to 
 discover neighbors, even so distant as this ; now it was tem 
 pered by the fear that inmates so shiftless and uncaring as 
 the external evidences would intimate could hardly prove a 
 valuable acquisition. She had drawn rein, and sat motion 
 less in the saddle, silently contemplating the scene, each new 
 item of neglect or decay that presented itself to her obser 
 vation adding to the reprobation expressed in the primly 
 
440 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 disapproving compression of the flexible lips and the quick 
 glances of her bead-like eyes from under the brim of her 
 pink sun-bonnet. Her code of manners and morals, and her 
 stringent requisites for the government of other people, 
 were very complete, and her record as a diligent and exact 
 ing censor had few instances of relaxation or clemency. 
 She was on the point of turning away, taking a certain sat 
 isfaction in the thought that she would make no overtures 
 to people with a doorstep like that, when it suddenly oc 
 curred to her that the vagrant Bob might have earlier dis 
 covered the dwellers in this secluded nook, and have 
 established himself upon the footing of an occasional visitor. 
 Her face changed. "He mought be in that house this 
 minit," she reflected hopefully. " Likely ez not he hain t 
 gone down to the Cove at all." 
 
 There was no sign of the usual guard-dogs about the 
 house, and as she slipped down from the saddle upon the 
 ground her curiosity was all newly aquiver, since it could 
 be gratified at no cost of personal dignity ; for she came 
 not to offer her acquaintance, but upon her own important 
 errand, the search for her step-child. There are few peo 
 ple who can feel so exclusive a joy in trimness and freshness 
 as did Mrs. Bowles, for it was her belief that there had 
 never been so crisp a pink calico since the Great Smoky 
 Mountains were built ; and indeed, a stranger who had no 
 previous acquaintance with Mrs. Bowles and her methods 
 could not have failed to consider the color of her attire sin 
 gularly clear and dainty in the dark, gray day, and the 
 glimpse of the smooth olive complexion and glancing dark 
 eyes and shadowy dark hair eminently prepossessing. As 
 she stood on the contemned doorstep and tapped lightly 
 upon the door, she smoothed down a fold with a calm pleas 
 ure in anticipating the effect of her appearance on the mem 
 bers of the household, and the depths of envy into which 
 it would plunge them. Some moments were beguiled with 
 these reflections before she became impatient because of no 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 441 
 
 response. When she knocked again, the ensuing silence was 
 so marked that her attention was diverted from the personal 
 considerations that had absorbed her, and she began to look 
 about with a keener curiosity, hampered, nevertheless, by a 
 thrill of vague fear. She sent a glance that had all the in 
 centive of prying toward the batten shutter, in which she had 
 noted, with disparaging eyes, a long rift ; it was not so high 
 from the ground ; she might have peered through had she 
 dared. She did not dare ; she only knocked again, and began 
 to doubt whether any one were within. But for the ashes 
 and the broken bits of food and once more she heard the 
 hoof-beats of the mare trotting back to her stall, satisfied 
 by her sally for investigation the place would have 
 seemed as lonely, as deserted, as she had always known it 
 hitherto. Perhaps it was the sense of solitude that em 
 boldened her ; perhaps the phenomenal opportunity of ob 
 serving the domestic methods and rummaging the belongings 
 of the absent dwellers. The door, not well closed, had 
 moved under her hand, as she knocked upon it ; it was 
 evidently unlatched. She pressed it a trifle further ajar. 
 Then she was still for a moment, the dark red color suffus 
 ing her cheek, responsive to an imaginary rebuke to so 
 unmannerly an intruder. But no word broke the silence. 
 The door shifted a trifle, so ill-hung it was, and Mrs. Bowles 
 advanced her foot on the threshold. The next moment she 
 drew back with a sharp cry. A man was stretched at full 
 length on the floor, with a pallid, pinched face, a face 
 like death. 
 
XXV. 
 
 EUGENE RATHBURN could hardly be said to have awak 
 ened from his deep sleep, that stormy night in the Great 
 Smoky Mountains, when Jake Baintree kept his strange vigil 
 by the side of the dying fire. The alien scenes of his dream 
 were suddenly possessed by a wild, unrealized tumult. His 
 dormant consciousness became in some sort aware of a pierc 
 ing sound, a fibrous, funnel-shaped glare, fierce but fleeting, 
 and then he saw no more, knew no more, not even thus 
 vaguely. How long he lay there on the floor of the moun 
 tain hut, in a pool of his own blood, he never sought to com 
 pute. One morning, while the rain yet beat on the roof, 
 and the gullies ran full beneath the eaves ; while the mists 
 still further secluded the solitary spot, practically as inacces 
 sible as if it had been lifted amidst the clouds that closed 
 about it, his memory came back to him, his identity renewed 
 with his body its coexistence, and he realized who it was 
 lying wounded, fevered, exhausted from the loss of blood, 
 on the fireless hearth, where he had fallen asleep when it 
 was all a-sparkle and aglow, his own pistol, smoke-black 
 ened, albeit but freshly cleaned and oiled, on the floor beside 
 him. 
 
 " When the corpse is found," he said impersonally, " if 
 it ever is found, it might suggest a suicide." 
 
 He experienced a feeble surprise to gauge the interest 
 with which he noted the relative position of his weapon and 
 his helpless body, and vaguely presaged the deductions of 
 the coroner s jury. 
 
 The fallibility of the supposititious verdict recurring to his 
 mind after the sense of a long and vacant interval made him 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 443 
 
 aware that he had again been unconscious, and had but now 
 revived anew. Somehow, he wondered that he had ever 
 dwelt upon it. He no longer thought of himself as the life 
 less shell that might lie here impassive till some chance 
 nay, the predestined urgency of retribution should lead 
 hitherward a stranger s step to discover Jake Baintree s 
 crime. He felt the throb of a turbulent resentment. He 
 thirsted for revenge. A frail tenement, to be sure, his shat 
 tered body afforded for these robust and full-pulsed passions. 
 Professionally speaking, he presently recognized the symptom 
 with a new hope, he was stronger, far stronger than he 
 had thought. He had slept, he was sure, slept despite 
 his burning thirst, his gnawing pain. He had a dual series 
 of impressions, the keenness of the one hardly mitigated by 
 the poignancy of the other. He took note of his own sensa 
 tions, both as physician and patient, and when he had lifted 
 himself upon his elbow to examine the wounds, there were 
 two, the pistol-shots fired at such close range as to scorch 
 his garments, his face blanched to a yet more pallid tint 
 as he looked ; but with a sort of mechanical professional 
 reticence he said not a word that might have roused the 
 alarm of a patient in like case. As he lay back upon the 
 blood-soaked rug, he closed his eyes to wait, to hope that 
 it might not be long. His wounds were serious enough in 
 any case, but here, without food, parched with thirst, with 
 out skilled care or the merest ignorant help, it was only a 
 question of time. His mind canvassed the alternatives, to 
 die of his wounds and the exposure, or to starve. As he 
 thought of the relative anguish of the two fates that im 
 pended, he felt that his wounds were not so hopeless ; he 
 had doubtless exaggerated their menace ; he would starve 
 to death, here in these lofty altitudes, very slowly, very pain 
 fully ; for although he was of no great stature or muscular 
 strength, his constitution was tough and promised resistance. 
 " 1 11 have an awful time before I get off," he said to him 
 self in a panic. He writhed slightly as he spoke, although 
 
444 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 he had sedulously sought to lie still, that the gaping wounds 
 might not bleed afresh, and as he stirred his hand touched 
 something cold, from which he recoiled. It was only the bar 
 rel of his pistol, sleek and shining, and with a ready suggestion 
 lurking in its muzzle. The time might be no longer than 
 he willed it, the pain no greater than he chose to bear. He 
 had a definite technical knowledge wherewith to plant the 
 ball in lieu of Baintree s clumsy haphazard ignorance. He 
 drew back his hand from the cold touch of the insensate 
 metal that beguiled him with this reasoning from out its 
 hollow jaws ; he shrank from the idea as if he definitely 
 appreciated the crime to which he was tempted. " No," he 
 said aloud in a strong voice, " no, my good friend Jake, 
 this is your job, and you shall swing for it. I 11 do nothing 
 to hinder, if I lie here a year and a day in the pangs of 
 hunger." 
 
 Once more he recognized, with a start, the lapse of a va 
 cant interval. His professional consciousness, first of all his 
 mental faculties, took note of it. " Sleep is the best thing, 
 quiet and sleep, itself a curative agent," he muttered 
 feebly, drowsing off again. He waked now, however, at 
 frequent intervals. Once he noted that the rain had ceased 
 its melancholy drone on the roof, and once he heard the 
 wind. The mists fell away from the window, where he 
 had dully marked their presence close to the rift in the 
 batten shutter, and feeble shafts of sunlight flickered across 
 the melancholy, fireless hearth, and anon faded out. Sud 
 denly a galvanic thrill jarred every pulse, as he lay motion 
 less, his eyelids half closed. Delirium, surely. How hard 
 it was, he thought, that he would have differentiated the 
 symptoms so certainly were the hurt another man s, but that 
 even his own professional skill could avail him naught, could 
 not serve as the one friend in the world he had earned, as 
 he lay here dying and alone in this innermost seclusion of 
 solitude ! Deny it however his reason might, call it fever, 
 or fantasy, or fear, his eyes were fastened on Baintree s face 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 445 
 
 peering in at the rifts of the shutter, peering in, a pallid, 
 drawn, distorted likeness of himself, such as might haunt the 
 dying dreams of the man he had murdered. Fact or fic 
 tion, the sight petrified Rathburn. He did not stir a fibre ; 
 his half-closed eyes were fixed ; while his mind took eager 
 cognizance of the probability that this should be the figure 
 to loom in his fevered fancy, he wondered that the delir 
 ium should so furnish forth the detail and circumstance of 
 its delusion ; that the face in the rift of the shutter should 
 blanch, and shrink away, and come again, with a look of 
 fascinated horror, to peer within ; that the figment of fever 
 should put up a hand, so long, so thin, so well remembered, 
 to hold the flapping shutter still; that the mere idea of 
 crafty, furtive, terrified eyes should scan the lines of his 
 motionless figure with an expression he could never have 
 imagined, as if hoping to detect a movement, yet fearing, 
 and then despairing. Suddenly, with a spasm of remorse 
 that naught but the actuality of anguish could depict upon a 
 human countenance, the face disappeared. Was it fancy, 
 too, or did he hear the dead leaves rustle beneath a sham 
 bling step? Other ears, hardly so keen, so expectant, as 
 his own, took heed. There was the tramp of hoofs outside, 
 trotting from the shanty of a stable and around the house, 
 and his mare s shrill whinny of recognition rang out cheer 
 fully, as if the creature welcomed the sight of any familiar 
 being, so long left lonely as she had been. Rathburn 
 doubted no more. He heard his feeble breath flutter, his 
 faint heart beat, the sound seeming loud and obstructive in 
 the silence, so did his ear yearn to follow the footsteps, 
 hoping that they were bearing Jake Baintree away, satisfied 
 that his work had been done thoroughly, and fearing lest he 
 enter to reassure himself anew. It seemed long, long after 
 he could detect no further intimation of Baintree s progress 
 that the mare, whom he fancied standing still without, gaz 
 ing after the slouching, retreating figure, turned, and slowly 
 ambled back to her stall. Even in the tumult of his agita- 
 
446 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 tion Rathburn reflected with satisfaction that she was at 
 liberty, with food and running water at hand. ** Else I d 
 have to get out of this somehow," he said, for he would 
 have sacrificed much in the sacred cause of physical suffer 
 ing ; even a brute s pain might not appeal to him in vain. 
 A new hope came to him. Could he but foster the strength 
 to lift himself, to creep to the door, to make shift to mount 
 the animal, he might still escape; he might reach some 
 friendly hut, and, with food and nursing, save his life. 
 With hope a torturing fear arose because the mare was at 
 liberty. She would grow tired and lonely, and would wan 
 der away. He heard again the quick beat of her hoofs, as 
 she came snorting forth once more, expectant of Baintree s 
 return. He forgot her the next moment, in the realization 
 of what this possibility boded for him. Remorse, was it, on 
 Baintree s face, as he peered in at the rigid form, so still on 
 the fireless hearth ? How long would it have lasted, Rath- 
 burn asked himself, with a sneer, had the rigid form moved, 
 had the eyelids stirred, had Baintree possessed more expert 
 knowledge of the signs of death ? A chance might bring 
 him back, as a chance had brought him first to gaze, with a 
 fascinated horror, on the deed he had done, and then he 
 would do it, in self-defense, more surely. No sound, no stir 
 without, listen as he might, but the wind and the scudding 
 leaf, till presently, with a long-drawn breath, the mare trotted 
 back once more to munch her corn. 
 
 Rathburn was all on the alert, although he strove to lie 
 still and calm his nerves. " All this excitement is bad," he 
 rebuked himself, as if he were an unruly patient. And then 
 relapsing into his other role, he strove to adjust his mind in 
 obedience to the professional dictum. He could sleep no 
 more, with the expectation, the fear, of Baintree s return vigi 
 lant in every nerve. He watched the sunlight strike across 
 the floor, reddening now, with vague motes bespangling 
 the broad bars, so still, so silent, that when a rat, swift and 
 lean and whiskered, sped through it, he gave a start of re- 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 447 
 
 pulsion that sent a pain as of dislocation throughout his 
 frame, and roused a new terror in his helplessness. But 
 the rat fled as he lifted his hand, and his attention was 
 called to the lure that had brought it from its hole the 
 broken bits of bread fallen from the table when overturned 
 last night last night ? he knew not how many nights 
 ago, and never was the wiser. Some of the food was within 
 his reach, it had lain on the unswept floor, and the rats had 
 perhaps fought over it ; he had a strong loathing for it, but 
 he felt better after eating a morsel of bread, and reflected 
 that he was hardly likely to relish daintier food if he had had 
 it. So much of vigor did it impart that he dragged himself, 
 after ar time, by slow and agonized degrees, across the floor 
 to the shelf whereon was the little medicine-chest the gratu 
 itous services of which he had proffered to Baintree. He 
 lay still for some time, exhausted by his exertions, when he 
 had crawled back to his pallet. At last, mindful of the 
 dulling light, he opened the lid of the chest, and his hand 
 poised hovering above the rows of bottles. 
 
 " This opportunity," he remarked satirically, " of trying 
 one s remedies in propria persona is one which few young 
 surgeons have the privilege of enjoying." 
 
 And then he was reminded to glance up warily at the 
 window, trembling anew at the thought of Baintree and the 
 conclusive significance of his attitude should the crafty 
 mountaineer once more peer through the window, lured 
 again by some morbid fascination to the scene of his crime. 
 
 He was glad to watch the red light fade on the brown 
 walls, to note the purpling spaces of the twilight through 
 the rift in the batten shutter ; for as the shadows mustered 
 about him he felt indistinguishable in their midst, indis 
 tinguishable even to eyes so keen, so furtive, as those he 
 fancied forever at the window. 
 
 He thought of the caution, the vigilance, the skill, that, 
 were he the poorest charity patient in the wards of a hos 
 pital, his wounds would command ; r.ud the contrast of liis 
 
448 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 plight here, to die so far from help, and the prospect of the 
 suffering of the dreary interval before his release, forced a 
 groan from his lips. He distrusted the treatment he had 
 administered ; he had used perforce what he had, not what 
 he would have chosen. His mind ran continually upon the 
 remedies that he would have applied had the means been 
 at hand. He kept thinking of himself as some impersonal 
 patient. A gnawing trouble beset his mind because of the 
 deficiency of his resources. 
 
 " I ought to get somebody to look after that chap. He s 
 a goner, I reckon, but somebody ought to go through the 
 motions of trying to save him." 
 
 His fever was rising ; more than once he caught himself 
 lifted upon his elbow, and searching with dilated eyes 
 amongst the rows of bottles in the chest, in the dim glimmer 
 of the twilight, for he knew not what. " I ought n t to be 
 trusted with these things ! " he cried in a sudden lucid panic, 
 as the realization of the rift between his discriminating mind 
 and his groping, foolish hands, free to follow their own vague 
 impulses amongst the powerful drugs, forced itself into his 
 thoughts. He closed the lid with a snap, and gathering his 
 strength and setting his teeth hard, he flung the chest from 
 him, he knew not where in the darkness. He heard it 
 crash against the wall and drop to the floor, with a fine, high, 
 crystalline shiver, as of the breaking of the vials within ; 
 then, as he lay still, with perverse ingenuity his uncontrol- 
 able thought began to canvass where it had fallen, dedu 
 cing the locality from the sound. " Oh, I could get it again, 
 get it mighty easy, if I am delirious, and could take enough 
 poison to establish a suicide and set Jake Baintree free." 
 
 He dwelt upon the idea with irritable suspense, now and 
 again starting violently, as if he truly harbored the fancied 
 impulse that he sought to restrain. A stir without, the 
 approach of a real danger nullified this terror of the nerves. 
 The dead leaves rustled. A step the wind ? He lay mo 
 tionless, hardly daring to breathe. It came again, and 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 449 
 
 presently a crunching sound and a snarl. He experienced 
 momentary relief : some wild thing was gnawing the bones 
 and bits of meat flung out into the yard, for the prospectors 
 had not been careful housekeepers. He had often heard 
 this as he chanced to wake at night, but now he reflected 
 that the door must be ajar, a touch would open it ; and 
 with his wounds and fever and helplessness he was at the 
 mercy of the wild beasts. He reached out his hand to 
 make sure that the revolver was beside him. In touching 
 it his confidence was restored in some sort, yet in this en 
 vironment he could not sleep, despite the drowsy influences 
 of weakness and fever. The repulsion of it even in a meas 
 ure dominated delirium. Sometimes he would hear his voice 
 break forth incoherently upon the air ; then subdue himself 
 to silence to listen to the jaws of the startled beast, once 
 more at work upon the bones. 
 
 Toward midnight the moon rose. Through the rift in 
 the batten shutter the melancholy golden bars struck across 
 the floor. The scene within, so hateful to his eyes, revived 
 from the encompassing gloom, the few chairs, the over 
 turned table, the great, wide, vacant hearth, his long figure 
 stretched at length amongst the rigid, blood-stiffened folds 
 of the rug, and the untouched pallet of the fugitive. And 
 later, down the broad shaft of the stick-and-clay chimney 
 the clear lustre burned amid the fireless gray ashes, all 
 gleaming white. No sound from without now, and the 
 wind was laid. Here all solitary, save for the moon. As 
 the reminiscent, meditative mood that comes in her train 
 drowsed down with quiescent influence upon his senses, he 
 wondered vaguely that he should think of the great golden 
 disk, waning and yellow, as it looked when it hung above 
 the pines without, and silvered the frosted grasses of the 
 great bare dome of the mountain, and made the vast spaces 
 of the sky blue with that fine deep tint of the lunar nights ; 
 not as it had looked elsewhere, in foreign lands, or shim 
 mering in deep sea waters, or in the grotesque incongruity 
 
450 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 of its melancholy and its poetry over the sordid streets of 
 cities, only here, where it seemed native. And the faces 
 that came to him were not those that he had known in 
 that wider life of his, conventional, comfortable, eventless, 
 he seemed discarded by the past, an alien to the future. He 
 could only think of the days just at hand, and of those who 
 had walked through them, and his heart was bitter against 
 them all, all except Marcella. And somehow, with her 
 face in his mind, and her name forming itself on his lips, 
 he fell asleep in the silence of the dull gray dawn and the 
 fading glamours of the yellow moon. 
 
 Her name was on his lips when he woke. " Marcella ! " 
 he cried aloud, with a vague idea that she was standing in 
 the door. He lifted himself on his elbow, his heart throb 
 bing with the thought that she had brought deliverance to 
 him, and a fear that the image was but the distraught fan^ 
 tasy of his fevered brain. She seemed to change her iden 
 tity before his very eyes. He had a vague sense that the 
 walls were still resounding with a shrill cry ; was it he who 
 had uttered it, or she ? 
 
 It was not repeated. Of all the possibilities to steady 
 Mrs. Bowles s nerves in this unlooked-for emergency, naught 
 could have been as efficacious as the error of mistaking her 
 for another woman. 
 
 " T ain t Marcelly ! " she observed stiffly, while he still 
 lay motionless, half lifted on his elbow, staring at her as if 
 every faculty were merged in that of sight. 
 
 She made a motion as if to withdraw, despite her cu 
 riosity ; then she bethought herself of her inexplicable in 
 trusion, the breach of good manners on which she piqued 
 herself, and thus of her errand. 
 
 " I knocked, but nobody answered," she observed primly 
 and politely, although her bead-like eyes, glancing to and 
 fro, were distended to a degree which had no precedent of 
 elasticity in their experience, as she noted the paucity of the 
 furniture, the dust, the fireless hearth. " The door was on 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 451 
 
 the jar, an I lowed I d push it open, an mebbe would see 
 one o the wimmen-folks o the fambly." She said tliis with 
 a manner which implied that she did not preferably confer 
 with the men-folks. She assumed a matronly air as she 
 proceeded : " I be a-sarchin fur my leetle boy ez strayed off 
 from home. Mebbe some o the wimmen-folks hev seen 
 him ef they air up an doin ." Thus she conveyed a re 
 proof upon his seeming sloth and late hours. Once more 
 her bead-like eyes quickly took an inventory of the belong 
 ings. " Whar be the wimmen-folks ? A-washin of clothes 
 at the spring of a Wednesday ? 
 
 Perhaps it was a pity, for the sake of discipline in the 
 abstract and the promulgation of correct housekeeping prin 
 ciples, that these were merely mythical women to whose 
 methods Mrs. Bowles thus definitely made known her objec 
 tions. A somewhat lively life she might have led them on 
 the Great Smoky, despite the wide, unpopulous stretches of 
 wilderness. She turned her head as she stood on the van 
 tage-ground of the doorstep which commanded the descent 
 to the left of the cabin, where the path in sinuous vagaries 
 led down among the bowlders to the spring. The growth 
 about it was leafless now, and she could see the steely gleam 
 of the water under the dull gray sky. It did not seem to 
 move ; its margin was solitary ; no whisking, spiral twirls 
 of smoke climbed that unwilling gray sky ; no flash of red 
 and yellow flames made cheerful the dull, dun wintry day, 
 merrily wreathing about the great wash-kettle, and singing 
 a roundelay with the bubble of the boiling water, and the 
 sharp crackling of the briery fuel, and the strokes of the 
 paddles beating the clothes white as behooved them ; no 
 agents of all this domestic industry were visible, with skirts 
 pinned back and sleeves rolled up. Some such picture Mrs. 
 Bowles s expectation had projected upon the gray back 
 ground of wood and mountain ; she turned with a bewil 
 dered stare from the blank nullity of the prospect. Her 
 flexible lips were more firmly compressed, the bead-like 
 
452 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 gleam of her eyes more definitely antagonistic, as she looked 
 again at the recumbent figure. The tears had sprung to 
 Rathburn s eyes, he was so weak, so full of pain, the 
 deliverance she had brought near so sorely needed, so be 
 yond all license of hope ! He could hardly speak in answer 
 to her query, and when he did a sob was in his throat. 
 
 " Don t you see what s the matter ? " Once more her 
 unfriendly eyes dilated. 
 
 " Laziness," she declared unequivocally. " Though I 
 reckon ye d low ye air ailin somehows." She turned to 
 go. " Waal, I hev got no time ter waste. I 11 jes leave " 
 She was about to leave her respects for the " wimmen- 
 folks," then concluded to deprive of the honor any house 
 keepers who maintained a hearth like that. 
 
 A low cry escaped Rathburn s lips ; he held out his hand. 
 " Don t you see I am dying I am dying ? " he exclaimed. 
 " I have been murdered ! I have been shot and left for 
 dead! " Mrs. Bowles stared speechless at him. " Do you 
 live near here ? Can you get me away from this accursed 
 place ? " he continued, " anywhere anywhere to die 
 but on this floor ! " 
 
 "I live a good piece off," she replied. " Yander at the 
 Notch. I be Mis Bowles." Then with a sudden recollec 
 tion of his ecstatic cry " Marcella ! " she added, " Ef ye air 
 quainted in the Cove, ye mus hev hearn tell bout me. I 
 war M ria White." The name woke no responsive recog 
 nition in his face ; he seemed agitated, exhausted, almost 
 spent. " I be kin ter Marcelly Strobe ye hev hearn her 
 talk bout n me ? " 
 
 His tact was not prolonged beyond his other waning fac 
 ulties. He forlornly shook his head, and Mrs. Bowles s face 
 suddenly hardened. He had had something better, per 
 chance, to talk of with Marcella Strobe ; and he evidently 
 had never even heard her name. They had already forgot 
 ten her in those precincts of the Cove, forgotten her as if 
 she had been carried away to her lifeless grave in the little 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 453 
 
 burying-ground instead of her living grave up on the moun 
 tain. A cynical sob rose into the throat of the exile. A 
 forlorn yearning she experienced, very poignant, for all it 
 was so pitiful a paradise from whose meagre joys she was 
 excluded. 
 
 " I reckon yer folks will be back presently. I urns be 
 % a-goin ," she said stiffly. 
 
 " I have no folks ! " he exclaimed, his- eyes once more 
 wide with the terror of being deserted. " I have been shot 
 Baintree, Jake Baintree. shot me, and has gone. Nobody 
 lives here. nobody ! He left me here to die." 
 
 He could not account for the terror in Mrs. Bowles s face. 
 She turned very pale ; she had backed toward the door. " I 
 lowed ye talked sorter funny, sorter like they say the 
 valley folks do. I mought hev knowed ye war n t from this 
 kentry. I m sorry fur ye, but I be feard o the moonshin 
 ers myself, an* " 
 
 " I m not a revenue officer ! " Rathburn almost screamed, 
 divining her thoughts, so well had he come to know the 
 country people and their state of mind toward the officials 
 of the Revenue Department. " I m just a plain fool." 
 
 She hesitated. Somewhere in her limited spiritual capa 
 city there was conscience enough to rebel against passing 
 by on the other side. She looked at him more wistfully 
 than might have seemed possible to those bright, soulless 
 eyes. 
 
 " We have been trying to find silver," he gasped. " Bain 
 tree killed Samuel Keale in this same business, and now he 
 has tried to kill me." The significant name, the mysterious 
 tragedy, the bootless search for the precious metal, were all 
 long familiar to her, and coerced belief in any subsequent 
 development that might be predicated upon them. He 
 noted the change in her face. " I wonder you have heard 
 nothing about my being here ; everybody in the Cove knows 
 it now." 
 
 Mrs. Bowles winced to be found ignorant of what every- 
 
454 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 body knew. Nevertheless she was equal to the occasion. 
 " I be sech a stay-at-home," she said, her red lips parting 
 over her fine teeth in a pleasant smile. " The inos o the 
 news I know is what my chil n air a-doin of, an how the 
 pig-pen an the poultry air a-thrivin ." 
 
 She is not the first woman of frustrated worldly ambitions 
 who makes a boast of simple domesticity. But it was a 
 sentiment eminently beguiling to the masculine mind. 
 
 She saw approval in his eyes ; she saw, too, how hand 
 some they were, albeit so hollow, how intelligent. She 
 relished an admiration calculated to be so discriminating. 
 There was, however, nothing of the married coquette in 
 Mrs. Bowles, and her manner was all that a discreet ma 
 tron s might be. The utterly dead and cold aspect of the 
 fireplace struck her anew as she came forward into the 
 room. She was not a logical reasoner, but the dislocation 
 of the domestic situation was sufficiently marked to smite 
 even her ill-developed appreciation of cause and effect. 
 " Who gin ye yer breakfus ? " she demanded, pausing to 
 look down from under the roseate brim of her pink sun- 
 bonnet. 
 
 He pointed at the broken fragments on the floor, beside 
 the overturned table. " The rats," he said scornfully, but 
 with tears in his eyes. " They have had a high old time 
 dragging these scraps about the floor, and they were good 
 enough to leave some in my reach." 
 
 Mrs. Bowles s shallow, round, shiny eyes looked from him 
 to the bits he indicated, as if with difficulty she grasped the 
 idea that a day could be begun, the light dawn, the sun go 
 through the ceremony of rising, without the equally natural 
 and essential phenomena of the getting of breakfast and the 
 subsequent washing of dishes. " Waal, sir ! " she exclaimed 
 beneath her breath, coping at last with this revulsion of na 
 ture. " I 11 make some coffee fust thing," she added aloud. 
 " Leastwise," she continued, her eyes dwelling with disfavor 
 on the array of cooking utensils, " ef thar s enny sech thing 
 ez gittin some o the grime off n that thar coffee-pot." 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 455 
 
 A starving man lay on the floor, but the coffee-pot in ques 
 tion was scoured outside with ashes, as well as inside, before 
 the coffee was ground and set to boil ; even the coffee-mill 
 came in for energetic discipline of this sort, Mrs. Bowles 
 merely replying to Rathburn s insistence that he did not 
 care, and that she need not be so particular, by the tart in 
 quiry, * Don t ye know dirt is pizen ? " which choice axiom 
 of toxicology he was at liberty to add to his store of scien 
 tific lore at his leisure. The reclaimed coffee-pot shone very 
 cheerful as it sat, somewhat battered as to shape, upright 
 on a trivet over the live coals ; and it began almost straight 
 way to gurgle and to sing, and to give out a most refreshing 
 fragrance. The fire seemed lean, somehow, after all its 
 beds of ashes had been removed, for Mrs. Bowles sharply 
 announced that she u war n t used to no such slack-twisted 
 ways of keepin a h a thstone," and wondered that he was 
 not worse off than he was, being evidently of the opinion 
 that the surplus of ashes was as pernicious to the health as 
 Jake Bain tree s bullet. The spare brightness of the flames 
 illumined all the room ; the radiance cheered him ; the 
 warmth was a luxury ; and as he drank the coffee she 
 brought him in a cup, also chastened with severe applica 
 tions of soap and water, he looked at her with great grat 
 itude, and declared that he could never thank her. 
 
 " Waal, now, don t ye do it ! " she said, flashing her bright 
 dark eyes at him, and showing all her fine teeth. She sat in 
 one of the rickety chairs beside the hearth, resting from her 
 culinary exertions ; the tint of her crisp pink dress here and 
 there deepened and paled as the glow of the fire rose and 
 fell ; her face, still shaded by the pink sun-bonnet, was a 
 trifle flushed, and its plump curves were illumined by the 
 glancing light. A placid content rested upon her features. 
 A cultured criticism could never have deemed her beautiful, 
 but she seemed a well-favored creature, pleasing to look 
 upon, and of the kindliest expression. She had not at first 
 impressed Rathburn thus, and he wondered at it as he lay 
 
456 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 comforted and tended, and enjoying the fire, and the 
 cleanly aspect of things, and the good coffee, and the cheer 
 ful sight of her. In truth a change had been wrought in 
 Mrs. Bowles s outlook at life within the last hour. It is a 
 truism that all is for the best, but we accept it in exactly 
 the proportion in which the dispensation adjusts itself to the 
 requirements of our scheme of things. Mrs. Bowles found 
 it easier to recognize the utility in Rathburn s misfortunes 
 than the sufferer himself might have readily been brought 
 to do. The fact that her benign ministrations to the wounded 
 man, at the brink of starvation, would be noised abroad 
 throughout Broomsedge Cove, the excitement and sensation 
 that so unusual an incident as her discovery of Baintree s 
 victim in the nick of time would necessarily rouse, must 
 serve to mitigate any harsh criticism of her conduct to the 
 fugitive Bob, if not altogether to nullify it. Po. e slbly her 
 absence from home in the guise of good Samaritan would 
 suffice to explain any commotion in the deserted domestic 
 sphere, even Bob s flight itself. No one need know which 
 had first left the roof. Her eyes, full of forecast, were 
 on the floor. Her lips were adjusted primly as the words 
 were dumbly fashioned upon them. " I reckon Bob mus 
 hev strayed off through sarchin fur me," she fancied her 
 self thus accounting for the incident. What more natural 
 to say and to credit ? Rathburn s self-esteem had been 
 grievously cut down of late, but even in its reduced estate 
 he could never have dreamed that the chief significance of 
 Baintree s crime and his own deep wounds could be to any 
 one merely the means of innocuously accounting for the 
 small Bob Bowles s flight from his home. He had not yet 
 finished his coffee. He was too feeble to take more than 
 a few swallows at long intervals. Mrs. Bowles fixed her 
 eyes upon him from time to time, evidently expecting that 
 he would hand back the cup, and waiting to wash it. In 
 the mean while she renewed her canvass of the place. ** I 
 low ez Jake Baintree mought hev been sati fied thout turn- 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 457 
 
 in the furniture topsy-turvy," she commented upon the over 
 turned table. She rose as she spoke and righted the article 
 in question, gathering up the fragments of bread and the 
 broken crockery, and going to the door to throw them out. 
 " I M like ter sweep this hyar floor. I reckon the dust 
 would n t choke ye much." She spoke in a tone that cu 
 riously partook of a demand as of a right, and yet of a re 
 quest as for a favor. She gazed searehingly into the cor 
 ners. " Laws-a-massy ! " she cried, her voice striking the 
 high key of mingled surprise and ridicule. " I don t believe 
 the man hev so much ez got a broom ! " 
 
 Albeit this praiseworthy intention was thus frustrated, she 
 still dwelt upon the incidents of the floor. " Air that Bain- 
 tree s shootin -iron ? " she asked, with knitted brows, as she 
 noted the revolver. 
 
 " No, mine," said Rathburn. 
 
 " Did you-uns shoot back ? " demanded Mrs. Bowles judi 
 cially, evidently not to be prejudiced against the absent Bain- 
 tree. 
 
 " I ? " exclaimed Rathburn. " I was asleep." 
 
 Mrs. Bowles turned suddenly pale. " Ye war n t a-fight- 
 in ? " she asked, amazed. 
 
 " I tell you I was asleep," said Rathburn angrily, the 
 blood rising to his face. " We had had a quarrel " 
 
 " What about ? " interrupted Mrs. Bowles, eagerly relish 
 ing gossip so highly flavored, so fraught with danger, as this. 
 
 Rathburn was nothing loath. His attack upon Baintree 
 seemed so small a matter in comparison with the dastardly 
 crime which his enemy had committed that he had lost all 
 the sense of humiliation, of repentance, that had so oppressed 
 him. " Why, I made him tell me where that man Samuel 
 Keale lost his life. That s where I believe silver is to be 
 found." 
 
 Mrs. Bowles glanced over her shoulder with a gleam of 
 scornful laughter. All unmindful, Rathburn went on : 
 
 " I choked him till he told me. He would n t tell me till 
 I had half choked the life out of him." 
 
458 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDC.K COVE. 
 
 " They say they can t try him no mo fur that nohow," 
 she said. " I dunno what ails him ter be so tongue-tied 
 bout n it now. Whar war the place ? " she queried, in 
 sheer curiosity. She evidently attached little importance to 
 his answer. She cared naught for justice in the abstract, 
 and she had no special enmity toward Baintree. She leaned 
 forward after she had spoken, and mended the fire, which 
 was beginning to show a tendency to smoke. 
 
 " That s the queerest turn of all," said Rathburn. A 
 gleam of excitement shone in his eyes. " He tracked this 
 man Keale to a cave ; he never saw him again. There 
 were the prints of feet about the place, and the cave was 
 on Teck Jepson s land." 
 
 The half-burned fagot fell from Mrs. Bowles s hand with 
 a sharp crash upon the hearth ; the smoke curled out into 
 the room unheeded. Still bending over the fire, she turned 
 her head and fixed upon him excited eyes, in which suspi 
 cion smouldered. " Teck Jepson ! " she cried. " His bones 
 hid in a cave on Jepson s land I No wonder the jury floun 
 dered an the law failed ! Jepson ! ah h ! " Her eyes nar 
 rowed and her lip curled. " I 11 be bound Teck Jepson hed 
 a hand in Keale s takin -off ; ennybody mought hev suspi- 
 cioned it ah h ! " 
 
 " I never said that," stipulated Rathburn warily, animated 
 by that reluctance felt by all civilized men to unnecessarily 
 assume responsibility. u I only know that I forced Baintree 
 to tell where the place was, fairly choked the words out 
 of him ; and because I declared that I would search that 
 cave of Jepson s he shot me while I was asleep, and left me 
 for dead with my own revolver. Why, this old thing," 
 he said, clasping its handle, " I could n t tell when it has 
 been discharged. He had to clean it rusty old " 
 
 " Put it down, put it down ! " cried Mrs. Bowles, with 
 an unwonted show of timidity, and shrinking back against 
 the jamb of the chimney. " I can t abide them bob-tailed 
 shoo tin -irons, I can t place no dependence in em like 
 
TI1K DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 459 
 
 rifles ; they look ter me ez ef they d ez soon go off ez not, 
 an a leetle ruther." 
 
 Rathburn had ceased to meddle with the " bob-tailed 
 shootin -iron," and went on : " He not only shot me twice, 
 so determined was he to have me silenced and dead and out 
 of the way, but long afterward the next day, or the next 
 he came there to that slit in the window, to look in and 
 make sure that he had done his work thoroughly." 
 
 Mrs. Bowles turned half-way round in her chair, and 
 fixed her dilated, startled eyes upon the crevice, as if she 
 expected to see the long, keen, narrow face, with its furtive, 
 crafty glance, peering through. " I lay as stiff and as rigid 
 as a corpse could," Rathburn went on. " I 11 bet you there 
 was a glaze on my eyes, half shut I held em What s 
 the matter ? Where are you going ? " he broke off suddenly. 
 
 For Mrs. Bowles had risen so precipitately, with so wild 
 an aspect, that despite the stiff neatness of her starched 
 pink skirts and sun-bonnet she seemed suddenly disheveled. 
 Her face was blanched, her eyes moved restlessly about. 
 u Oh, my Lord !" she exclaimed, "I mus be a-goin I 
 mus be a-gittin away from hyar I I I m feard o 
 Jake Baintree." 
 
 * One minute, wait one minute ! " cried Rathburn, lift 
 ing himself upon his elbow, dismayed by the result of his 
 graphic description of Baintree s visit. He only came 
 once. that is, so far as I know ; he is n t likely to come 
 again ; he has probably left the country." 
 
 " Shucks ! " Mrs. Bowles summarily and contemptuously 
 disposed of his logic, her suave graces and benign minis 
 tering disposition dispersing in thin air before the approach 
 of personal danger. " Ef what he hev told bout that thar 
 cave on Teck Jepson s land be wuth killin you-uns bout, it 
 air wuth killin me too, an his comin back shows he air 
 powerful partic lar bout n his job. Leastwise I ain t goiii 
 ter resk his comin back agin an murderin me hyar." As 
 her roving eye fell upon him, seeing his pain, his terrible 
 
460 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 straits, all expressed in his face, she recoiled a trifle before 
 their dumb, unconscious, pallid reproach. " I have got a 
 fainbly dependin on me," she said justifying her care for 
 personal safety. She spoke with flabby white lips, and her 
 eyes still maintained their hasty, restless movements. 
 
 " Oh, you re all right," Rathburn made haste to stipu 
 late ; the touch of satire in his voice was so light as to be 
 almost unappreciable. " Altogether a matter of choice. 
 Each for one s self, and devil take the hindmost." 
 
 " I 11 put this bread an water whar ye kin git it, an pile 
 up some wood hyar so ez ye kin make a fire." 
 
 When I am able," he seemed to assent. 
 
 " An " she turned upon him her disingenuous eyes 
 " I 11 tell the folks in the Cove whar ye be, an send some 
 of em after ye." 
 
 He could not have explained how he knew it so definitely, 
 lie pretended to no gift of forecast, but he was sure that her 
 lips would be sealed so far as the tragedy in the deserted 
 mountain hut was concerned ; that she would not dare to 
 overtly frustrate Baintree s vengeance, since he was at large 
 and bent upon it, or to aid to fix his crime upon him. She 
 would send no help. She would ostensibly hope that he 
 might recover, but feel that it was the solution of a danger 
 ous perplexity if he should die, realize how much she had 
 done for his comfort, and reflect that in no event was it any 
 affair of hers. 
 
 " If it would take no more time, I d thank you instead 
 to buckle the girth of the saddle about that gray mare of 
 mine, and hitch her bridle to the ring at the door. I may 
 take a little ride to-day. Oh, I m a great deal stronger 
 than you think." He smiled affably to meet her dismayed 
 glance. 
 
 She stood motionless, doubting and deliberating. He 
 looked like death ; but he was a physician, he had told 
 her this, and he was a better judge of his strength than 
 she. She could not retrieve the fact that she had been here 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 461 
 
 and become cognizant of Baintree s crime, thereby incurring 
 danger from him, and this Rathburn might detail whenever 
 liberated. If perchance he should ride boldly down into 
 the Cove, it seemed impossible, the story of her deser 
 tion of him in such a time of need would furnish a terrible 
 supplement as well as convincing proof of any deductions 
 of cruelty to the fugitive Bob. Without this incident, in 
 deed, Bob s flight could hardly be innocuously passed over. 
 
 He could not understand the change in her face ; it bright 
 ened with sudden resolution. 
 
 " Why, to be sure I kin," she said cordially. " An mebbe 
 ye kin kern right along down the mounting arter me inter 
 the Cove. I d wait fur ye, ceptin I be bleeged ter look 
 arter that leetle boy o mine ; it pesters me mightily ter hev 
 ter leave ye, an ef t war n t ez I be bound ter go down inter 
 the Cove I d ax ye ter kem an bide at my house." 
 
 It assuaged her discontent in some sort to be able to go 
 through this form of hospitality, meaningless as it was, for 
 nothing could have induced her to harbor a man with a 
 dangerous secret like this, and whose death Jake Baintree, 
 already red-handed, sought. 
 
 "Thank you very much," Rathburn said civilly, but glad 
 to show his independence. " I reckon I had better go to 
 the Cove, to some friends I have there, the Strobe family. 
 I know they will take me in." 
 
 She once more remembered his ecstatic cry of " Mar- 
 cella!" when she first stood in the door. She grudged a 
 guest of this quality to the Strobes, albeit she had no wish 
 to open her own house. She supposed it possible that they 
 had made his acquaintance through Eli s machinations with 
 the strings of government. She had always believed that 
 there was much social advantage in politics. Being so de 
 barred, she w T as keener of perception in this regard, and 
 quicker to appraise such opportunities than most of the 
 mountaineers. 
 
 She carried these thoughts with her while she buckled 
 
462 TEE DESPOT OF BROOMS EDGE COVE. 
 
 the saddle-girth about the mare, glancing fearfully ever and 
 anon over her shoulder at the gray solitudes glooming round. 
 If he were strong enough to reach the Cove, he would com 
 pass this without her aid, and would have much of her dere 
 liction to report. If he were not strong enough, he would 
 die by the way, and thus would tell no secrets, either of the 
 crime that Jake Baintree had committed, or of the knowl 
 edge of it that she reluctantly possessed. The mare was a 
 tall beast, frisky and fat, and unused to being handled by 
 women. She lowered her head and flung up her heels as 
 the pink skirts swayed about her hoofs, but bridled and sad 
 dled she was at last, and the hitching rein was slipped through 
 the ring on the door. 
 
 Mrs. Bowles was a little hasty in her leave-taking. " I 11 
 tell the Strobes they mought ez well look out ter see ye, eh ? " 
 she called through the half-open door. 
 
 " If you will oblige me," he responded in turn. 
 
 There was naught of offense in the tone and the words, 
 but her face was lowering beneath her jaunty pink-head-gear 
 as she once more slipped her foot in the stirrup, glad enough 
 to feel it there again, and mounted into her worn old side 
 saddle. " Perliteness is on his lips, but not in his heart," she 
 said bitterly, for there are none who so resent insincerity as 
 the insincere. 
 
 As she jogged off down the bridle-path, she noted the 
 threatening aspect of the day. All above the circling sombre 
 purple mountains, on every side, darkening clouds hung in 
 sinister abeyance. Below in the Cove, the stretches of the 
 broomsedge flared, in its tawny ruddy tint the only suggestion 
 of sunshine in the landscape ; where the forests intervened, 
 the thickly massed myriads of bare boughs, even the heavily 
 draped branches of the pines, were null as to color, and 
 lurked darkling in the valleys, intensifying the great gloom 
 of the scene. Only far away could she see lighter tints, 
 albeit of a gray diffusiveness, and this was along the sum 
 mit of a distant range, where the nebulosity of the cloud 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOUSEDGE COVE. 463 
 
 had been resolved into vague slanting lines intimating rain 
 fall. The weather could hardly be more unpropitious for 
 her journey to the Cove, but with the recent events in the 
 forlorn little shanty in mind, with the terror of the possible 
 propinquity of the murderous Baintree lurking in the wintry 
 woods somewhere, she did not hesitate, she had no wish to 
 linger. Only once she looked back : when she had pro 
 gressed so far down the descent, at a thumping, lunging 
 walk, for her horse had a gait unique in its way, espe 
 cially adapted to these precipitous descents and slippery 
 verges of the Great Smoky, that another turn amongst 
 the leafless wands of the undergrowth would conceal the 
 house from view, she halted for a moment, and glanced over 
 her shoulder. The ragged, bare slope of the mountain 
 stretched high above ; amongst the leafless boughs of the 
 gnarled old trees, imposed in definite lines against the slate- 
 tinted sky, she saw the wreathing blue smoke of the fire she 
 had made, and beneath the branches at the end of the vista, 
 the little hut, the oblique line of the gray roof cut sharply 
 against the sombre purple masses of a neighboring mountain 
 visible across the valley. The door was shut, and there 
 rode down the path, mounted upon the gray mare, an 
 emaciated figure, with a face all pallid and ghostly in the 
 dim light of the day ; and Mrs. Bowles, although unimag 
 inative, received a terrible suggestion of the Biblical Death 
 upon the pale horse, as the rider came swaying in the saddle 
 between the slate-colored clouds and the purple-black moun 
 tains in those forlorn altitudes, where solitude possessed the 
 wilderness and the storm impended. 
 
 " He can t keep the saddle fur haffen the way," she said 
 to herself. 
 
 Then she turned, and urged her horse down and down the 
 descent, losing as she went, being considerably in advance, 
 the sound of the hoofs that followed. 
 
XXVI. 
 
 THE gilded squares of light that the windows of EH 
 Strobe s cabin showed in the outer darkness were hardly 
 obstructed by the growth about them, so leafless had it all 
 become. To be sure, here was the outline of a rosebud, 
 sketched in a clear bronze in many-branched grace upon the 
 yellow space, and at the other window a series of straight 
 wands rose up above the sill, and betokened the withered 
 estate of the " sweet Betty " bushes. Nevertheless, from 
 afar off Mrs. Bowles could see the squares illuminated on 
 the purplish blackness of the night, and they served beacon- 
 wise to guide her along the dark reaches of the road, still 
 reeking with the heavy rainfall, not long overpast, and inti 
 mated very definitely where she must turn aside to take the 
 marshy turn-row in lieu of the red clay highway. She 
 shrank from the open doors of the forge, seeing in the red 
 flare from within the figures of the blacksmith s cronies and 
 hearing their loud hilarious voices, for the consciousness that 
 Rathburn followed hard upon her steps induced an unwonted 
 caution. If he had quarreled with Baintree, it was possible 
 that he had other enemies as well ; and remembering how 
 wild of aim are the bullets in a free fight, and that a stray 
 shot might be endowed with pernicious possibilities, she for 
 bore, as far as she might, attracting the attention of those 
 within. She passed as silently as a shadow in the multitudi 
 nous shadows of the night, the hoof-beats of her horse hardly 
 audible in the deep mire on one side of the road. She 
 was sure that a horseman whom she suddenly encountered, 
 galloping, was altogether unaware of her proximity, as he 
 shot by in the gloom. He had come from the turn-row that 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 465 
 
 led through the fields to Eli Strobe s house, and she won 
 dered a little wistfully at this. " Some o thar everlastin 
 visitors, through cousin Eli hem sech a busybody in poli 
 tics," she thought, remembering the social advantages of 
 candidacy. 
 
 But they were not the cheerful faces which behoove an 
 open house that came trooping out to the door when her in 
 congruous feminine " Halloo ! " weakly quavering from its 
 soprano shrillness to an abashed silence, roused all the sur 
 prised inmates. 
 
 Laws-a-massy, M ria Bowles ! " exclaimed Mrs. Strobe, 
 with her hand over her eyes, peering intently into the long 
 shafts of light fluctuating out into the darkness from the 
 lantern that Eli Strobe carried in his hand. " Mighty glad 
 ter see ye, M ria, enny time ye kem, though ye mighty nigh 
 skeered me out n seven years growth, an I never hed much 
 growth ter be skeered out n," remarked the little dame at 
 long range, as Mrs. Bowles dismounted upon the horse-block 
 and started up the path to the house, leaving the hitching- 
 rein in the hands of her host. Even in the dim radiance of 
 the shifting lantern and the gleam from the open door, her 
 pink skirts rustled with much of their pristine stiffness, de 
 spite the dank atmosphere, the legacy of the storm. 
 
 " Ef she war dead, she d pear at the gates o heaven all 
 fraish from the ironin -board," Mrs. Strobe commented in a 
 low tone to Marcella. " Her affection fur the sad-iron an 
 the washboard air all that M ria Bowles ever showed ter 
 prove she hed a heart. Some wimmen, though, ain t got so 
 much ez that." 
 
 " Did ye kem down hyar ter git shet o the storm, M ria ? " 
 she called aloud, for she could not allay her curiosity con 
 cerning so untimely a visit. " I see ye hain t been in the 
 rain." 
 
 "Naw, cousin J rushy," Mrs. Bowles replied, with an 
 exceeding gravity, coming, out of breath, up the steps, her 
 plump olive cheeks, her bead-like eyes, her flexible lips, all 
 
466 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 adjusted to an appreciation of importance. " I wav n t out 
 in the storm," she continued, mingling her account of her 
 self with her greetings, which gave them a cavalier air, 
 implying a preoccupied mind, which Marcella and Isabel 
 visibly resented, their added pride of bearing perceptible 
 even in their silence. " I rid my beastis inter a sorter 
 niche in the rocks whilst the rain war fallin , kase I did n t 
 want ter git wet myself, an I hed a man along o me ez war 
 powerful ailin through bein shot." 
 
 Eli Strobe paused, hearing the last statement as he came 
 up the steps, and flashed the light of the lantern into her 
 face. It revealed the pompous dignity of his own. He 
 frowned down this affront to the law, caring far less for the 
 victim than for its majesty. He cast his lowering side- 
 glance upon her. " Who done it ? " he demanded gruffly. 
 
 " Jake Baintree," she said. 
 
 She did not note how Eli Strobe winced. He had sought 
 to lend his personal strength and influence to the feeble law 
 which he was commissioned to administer, had upheld the 
 justice of the verdict that had liberated Baintree, and had 
 subsequently given him countenance. It seemed ill enough 
 deserved, and for a man who piqued himself upon discrim 
 ination and consistency this was a blow. 
 
 " Yes, sir ; shot him an lef him for dead in the old Pin- 
 nett cabin. An bein ez I passed by, I fund him starved 
 an "thout no fire, an the floor lookin like it hed never been 
 swep ." Mrs. Bowles set her lips primly. " So I jes holped 
 him on his mare an fetched him down the mounting with 
 me." The sound of a hoof smote her ear, and she turned 
 suddenly. " Thar he be now at the gate." 
 
 Rathburn, his every faculty jaded, his bones sore from 
 the jolting of the journey, his wound poignantly aching, as 
 he drew rein at last, had only an indistinct impression of 
 glowing stationary lights a-bloom in the utter blackness, 
 seeming to shed presently, as a petal, a fluctuating golden 
 flake, dandering down the currents of the wind blowing 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 467 
 
 toward him. His dazed senses took heed of it at last as Eli 
 Strobe s prosaic lantern. He felt the mountaineer s strong 
 arms encircle him as he lay, bending forward on the mare s 
 neck, for he could no longer sit upright, and draw 
 him out of the saddle, and carry him to the house almost 
 as helpless as a child. He smelled, as he went, the dank 
 mould of the autumnal borders, where all the flowers had 
 gone to seed. He heard a detached pattering, a mere ap- 
 poggiatura of musical drops falling from one of the stiff, 
 sere, brown things, not recognizable in its wizened, wisp- 
 like guise. The skeleton vines flapped about the porch ; 
 he saw the lights through them as they swayed, and then 
 his consciousness failed for a time. 
 
 When he knew himself again he was stretched upon a 
 lounge, drawn up at one side of a hearth upon which even 
 Mrs. Bowles s broom could find no field of action. He 
 tasted the strong flavor of the unadulterated mountain 
 whiskey ; it brought the tears to his eyes, and feeling the 
 glow kindling in every chilled member, he was moved to 
 marvel how much of the potent liquid Mrs. Strobe had as 
 sumed the responsibility of administering. For they were 
 all sitting in a circle about the hearth, except Marcella, who 
 knelt, holding one hand before her face to shield her flushed 
 cheek from the flames, while she turned, with a long fork, 
 the broiling venison upon the coals, from which an appetiz 
 ing odor rose. She did not look up, although a general ex 
 clamation of satisfaction greeted his opening eyes. 
 
 " I thunk the reverend stuff would fetch ye," observed 
 Mrs. Strobe triumphantly, as if she had invented the rem 
 edy. ki I m goin ter gin ye some yerb-tea," she added be 
 nignly. 
 
 And then it dawned upon Rathburn that he had fallen 
 into the practice of this ambitious amateur. 
 
 " Oh, I don t want any herb-tea," he declared with deci 
 sion. 
 
 u Jes like Dr. Boyce, pore old man, ez bald-headed ez 
 
468 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 a aig." This ridicule seemed irrelevant, but the tone was 
 a great power of depreciation. " He don t want no yerb- 
 tea, nuther." 
 
 Rathburn had lifted himself on his arm. " Does he 
 this physician live near here ? Could we send him word 
 to-morrow to come and see me ? " 
 
 " Listen at him ! " cried Mrs. Strobe, with an ebullition 
 of laughter. " That jes shows how much ye know, how 
 much of a doctor-man ye be, sure enough. Mighty willin 
 ter try yer ignorance a-dosin other folks, an chuck-a- 
 luck ! git well or die. But ef ye air a-ailin yerse f , nare 
 doctor-man mongst ye air willin ter take his own med cine, 
 rank pizen, what he administers so free ter other 
 folks." She cocked her head on one side and surveyed him 
 speciilatively. " I s pose now, ef Dr. Boyce war ailin , he d 
 want some other doctor ter physic him ez knowed more n 
 hisself. That man oughter be powerful easy fund ! I 11 
 bet ye a cow an calf he could n t be got ter swaller the ill- 
 smellin lotiums he gins other folks thout ye war ter hold 
 his nose an tie his hands ahint his back." 
 
 At this graphic account of the fraternal interdependence 
 of the profession Rathburn could but smile. 
 
 "Now," exclaimed Mrs. Strobe cheerily, "ye look sorter 
 like yerse f, some sorter like ye did that las night ye 
 war down hyar. I reckon ye hev hed yer fill o sarchin fur 
 silver with sech ez Jake Baintree." 
 
 " I have indeed.". 
 
 " Ef I hed n t happened ter kem along he d hev been 
 dead," said Mrs. Bowles plaintively, as she sat and sipped 
 a cup of coffee ; for the regular supper being some time 
 ago concluded, the refreshments were served to the travelers 
 thus informally about the hearth. 
 
 " I have no doubt of it. I have a great deal to thank 
 Mrs. Bowles for." 
 
 Mrs. Strobe s little cynical squawk interrupted these 
 amenities. " Laws-a-massy ! Air Mis Bowles the n angel 
 
TIIK DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 469 
 
 ez ye said delivered ye afore, whenst ye got inter a pickle 
 with the mounting folks ? A n angel ! I would never hev 
 tuk ye fur sech, M ria ! I low ye weigh more n a n angel 
 ginerally do, though mebbe ye air a n angel ez hev been fat 
 tened up by high livin ." 
 
 A certain smirking bewilderment was on Mrs. Bowles s 
 round face. She was at first not disposed to repudiate the 
 compliment, losing sight, in her confusion, of the fact that 
 Rathburn surely knew to whom he had paid it. Then her 
 cheek mantled with a glow of resentment because of Mrs. 
 Strobe s allusion to her avoirdupois, which was no more 
 than might conveniently grace a plump angel ; and it was 
 Mrs. Bowles s firm conviction that heaven was not full of 
 slim divinities, " scraggy," she called them, like Mar- 
 cella Strobe, who looked as if she might break in two. 
 
 " I lowed, too," said Mrs. Strobe, settling her feet on the 
 rung of her chair, where she perched with an air as if she 
 would flit away presently, and delighting in the confusion 
 wrought by her sarcasm, "I lowed, Eugene Rathburn, 
 ez ye dbe too perlite ter call a married lady a n angel, even 
 ef she did warn ye from the lynchers an save ycr life." 
 
 Mrs. Bowles changed color quickly. The word " lynch 
 ers " smote terror to her heart. Not for any consideration 
 would she incur the suspicion of having interfered between 
 the wild, lawless mountain vigilantes and their intended vic 
 tim ; no suave delights of hyperbolical praises could avail 
 for an instant. 
 
 " T war n t me, cousin J rushy. Naw m ! " with em 
 phasis. u I never seen that thar man till this very mornin , 
 never set eyes on him. I war glad ter holp him ter kem 
 away from whar he war bound ter starve, but I don t want 
 ter be called no n angel." she added primly. 
 
 " How would cherubim do. then, or seraphim ? " demanded 
 Mrs. Strobe seriously, despite the whimsical corrugations 
 about the small drawn mouth. The quality of her wit was 
 disconcerting, and as Mrs. Bowles turned her reddening face 
 
470 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 aside her eye fell on Marcella. The girl had risen, and was 
 standing partly in the shadow of the mantel-piece ; the breath 
 of the fire still fanned the soft masses of her curling hair 
 tossed backward on her shoulders ; her oval face was deli 
 cately flushed ; her eyes, from under their long poetic lashes, 
 shone like stars. The effect of this luminous head from out 
 the soft nullity of the brown shadows about it, that canceled 
 its more prosaic environment, might have impressed far less 
 alert perceptions than Mrs. Bowles possessed. It never 
 would have occurred to her to characterize it as ethereal or 
 unearthly, but the jealousy of her temperament was vigilant 
 enough to recognize a possible applicability of the phrase 
 and to grudge it. For Mrs. Bowles was jealous on princi 
 ple ; not that she coveted Rathburn s devotion for herself, 
 but it irked her that Marcella should receive this homage, 
 or that indeed anything generally esteemed of worth, whether 
 she herself truly acccounted it of value or not, should be at 
 her option. She had looked upon herself so long as a sacri 
 fice in some inexplicable sort to duty that she was prone to 
 account each grace of person, each opportunity of position, 
 as an advantage wrested from her and her inalienable right. 
 To be sure, Mrs. Bowles could not have logically defended 
 this claim of holding a patent upon beauty and charm. It 
 was enough that she chose to maintain it. Her bead-like 
 eyes suddenly glowed, as she looked askance at the girl, 
 who grew hardly less attractively human in leaving the an 
 gelic effects of the shadows, and coming out into the light 
 bearing the little blue bowl full of broth. 
 
 Rathburn looked up at her with his face irradiated, as he 
 lifted himself to a half-sitting posture. His glance met with 
 slight response ; the expression seemed suddenly expunged 
 from her eyes as they encountered his. They were bright 
 as ever, it is true, but blankly indifferent, and presently 
 averted. 
 
 He gazed questioningly, pleadingly, at her, but she did 
 not look at him again, and after he had drunk the broth he 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 471 
 
 sank back amongst the pillows, more definitely aware than 
 before of his pain, the jeopardy of his wound, and his re 
 duced estate. 
 
 " An how do you-uns kem on, cousin Eli ? " asked Mrs. 
 Bowles, shifting her chair slightly, and turning to her host, 
 who sat, with his hat on his head, his hands on either knee, 
 his eyes on the glowing coals. 
 
 Mrs. Strobe looked keenly watchful. Marcella paused 
 as she was going out of the door with the emptied bowl in 
 her hand, and turned back. Quick as they were, they could 
 not forestall a deep groan that suddenly burst from his lips 
 as from a surcharged heart. 
 
 " Oh, powerful bad off, cousin M ria. I be mightily trou 
 bled, mightily troubled." 
 
 Mrs. Strobe broke into a laugh, seemingly the essence of 
 light-hearted gayety, albeit her small, keen eyes burned like 
 coals of fire. Marcella came back to the hearth, showing 
 her face in the radiance with a gallant smile upon her trem 
 bling lips. 
 
 " Law, dad," she exclaimed in a tone of rallying mirth, 
 "ye wouldn t think nuthin o tricks an the wiles c/ yer 
 p litical enemies ef ye hed yer health right good. They 
 know they can t beat ye at the polls, ye jes stan solid 
 with the people, so they hev ter try ter yank ye out n yer 
 office some other way." 
 
 " Laws-a-massy, what air they a-tryin ter do ? " demanded 
 Mrs. Bowles, with a lively curiosity. Trouble was evidently 
 a-stalk in -the Cove, and gave its denizens many a twinge of 
 anguish, although she had latterly felt as if the wellmgh 
 inaccessible slopes of the mountain were exclusively its baili 
 wick. She experienced a certain reconciliation with her own 
 lot in the knowledge that others were unhappy too. 
 
 " That s jes like Eli, he always war slow, sence t he 
 war knee-high ter a duck," said his small mother, with an 
 affectation of contempt. " Time he hev hed a day or so ter 
 study bout it, an turn it this-a-way an that-a-way, he 11 git 
 
472 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 ter the p int o* view whar Marcelly an* me jumped in one 
 second. Men air pitiful critters, so slow-minded ! " 
 
 Eli Strobe looked wistfully from one to the other of his 
 feminine supporters, eager to adopt their sanguine views, 
 and yet unable to repudiate his own conviction and to shake 
 off the palsy of his fears. 
 
 " Now, M ria,ye mark my words, an ye too, Eugene," 
 the little dame proceeded with great jocularity, as if the 
 whole matter were a subject for mirth, " ef by ter-morrer 
 Eli won t be a-struttin bout hyar, a-laffiin an a-chucklin 
 at Joshua Nevins s friends ez could n t keep Eli from bein 
 elected constable o Brumsaidge Cove, but think they kin 
 make out ez he ain t fit ter hold office, bein insane ! Ha ! 
 ha! ha!" 
 
 Even Mrs. Bowles, after a moment of stupefied surprise, 
 burst into a laugh of derision. Strobe turned and eagerly 
 gazed at her, as if to assure himself of her opinion of his san 
 ity, taking testimony, as it were, in his own trial of himself. 
 
 " Yes, sir ! " said Mrs. Strobe, wiping from her eyes the 
 tears of this laughter on the corner of her apron. " The 
 off cer o the law hev jes been hyar, a-gallopin ter sarve a 
 notice ez in five days they hev a inquisition o lunacy, the 
 fool called it. He looked like a maniac, so foolish, an cast 
 down, an bashful; hedn t the face ter take a drink with 
 Eli, though I fetched out the jimmyjohn expressly." 
 
 " Air it Nevins hisself a-suin , or what air he a-aimin ter 
 do, a brazen-faced buzzard ? " demanded Mrs. Bowles in 
 eager accents. 
 
 " Naw, naw ! " The old woman shook her head warily 
 to intimate Nevins s crafty mode of procedure. " The man 
 ez applied for the inquisition air some sorter kin ter Eli. 
 Ye member hearin o Pete Minton, ez old Squair Denly 
 lef \ some county bonds ter ? Waal, cordin ter the will, 
 Eli, bein named arter him, war ter hev the interns through 
 life ; then arterward the bonds war ter go ter Pete, the 
 Squair s nevy, an Eli war Pete s guardeen. Now Minton, 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 473 
 
 ez air twenty year old, purtends ter be mighty oneasy bout 
 them bonds, an* wants the court ter quire inter Eli s bein 
 able ter manage this prawperty. Course he hev been put up 
 ter sech by Nevins, kase ef the inquisition war ter low ez 
 Eli be insane they m ought git up a new lection, an ef Eli 
 war out n the way Nevins would hev a walk-over an strut 
 around, an be constable of Brumsaidge ! " 
 
 " That he never shell ! " cried the incumbent, springing 
 to his feet. " I hev been man enough ter git the office. 
 I reckon I be man enough ter hold it. M ria," his voice 
 suddenly dropped from its rotund resonance to an appeal 
 ing quaver, " did you-uns ever hear ez Teck Jepson war 
 dead, ez I bed killed him ? " 
 
 " Laws-a-massy, naw ! " cried Mrs. Bowles, her face 
 flabby and white. " When ? " 
 
 Rathburn s heart ached as he looked at Marcella. He 
 saw the pain in her eyes ; the suffusing flush mounted to 
 her white brow, but she tossed back her bright hair, and her 
 red lips parted in a cheery half smile over her white teeth 
 as she explained : 
 
 " Dad say somebody tole him he disremembers now 
 who t war ez Teck Jepson war killed in that scuffle at 
 the horse-race, ez dad killed Teck. An I fooled dad some, 
 too." Her eyes danced, her laughter rang out. " / tole 
 him whar Teck war buried. An ef ye 11 b lieve me, dad 
 VUeved it, an I hearn him quirin roun one day ez ter who 
 hed preached the fun el sermon. Granny said that s what 
 the folks purtend he air crazy bout." 
 
 Once more her laughter rang out clear and metallic. It 
 had a natural enough sound to Mrs. Bowles, who joined in, 
 while Mrs. Strobe, with her birdlike head askew, remarked, 
 " Eli air so sobersided he 11 b lieve mos ennything enny- 
 body tells him with a straight face. He mus* be a leetle 
 teched in the head fur that, kase long ez T hev been livin I 
 hain t hearn the truth tole in Brumsaidge Cove but wunst 
 or twict, an then t war bout the weather." 
 
474 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 Strobe listened with an eagerness to be convinced pathetic 
 in its intensity. Rathburn watched the symptoms of his 
 mania vacillating with his ambition, and his sense of the 
 jeopardy of his precious office, with an appreciation of the 
 pathological significance of the scene which even sympathy 
 with the actors could not altogether dull. Perhaps some 
 thing of this showed in his face, turned fixedly upon Kli 
 Strobe, as the burly constable, moody and meditative, evi 
 dently puzzling out the distraught contradictions of his con 
 victions, relapsed into silently gazing into the fire. 
 
 Marcella was sitting in a low chair beside the lounge, 
 stringing red peppers, her evening task, when Mrs. Bowles 
 began to explain to Mrs. Strobe how Bob had chanced to 
 disappear from his home, the exposition somewhat com 
 plicated and lengthened by the perception that her craft 
 availed little, and that behind Mrs. Strobe s specious polite 
 ness lurked an accurate divination of the true state of the 
 case. Twice while it was in progress Rathburn fell under 
 the impression that Marcella was about to speak to him ; 
 but when he turned his head suddenly toward her. her eyes 
 were downcast upon the work in her hands, the firelight dan 
 cing over the masses of her waving hair, and giving an added 
 gloss and an intenser glow to the vivid scarlet of the string 
 of red pepper pods trailing over her dark, brownish-green 
 dress. And again his attention reverted to his host, sit 
 ting ponderously thoughtful before the fire. When he next 
 started with the idea that -she was about to speak, he en 
 countered her lustrous brown eyes fixed upon him ; the del 
 icate red lips were a-quiver ; her straight brows were knitted 
 sternly. " Ain t ye sati fied yit," she demanded in a low 
 voice, that, albeit tense with satire, was inaudible to the 
 gabbling Mrs. Bowles, still explaining Bob s flight, " but ye 
 mus stare-gaze him ter find out suthin else ter tell ? " 
 
 He was feeble, and had had much to endure. His courage 
 failed on the instant before the idea of her antagonism. 
 
 " Why, Marcella ! " he cried, amazed. 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COTE. 475 
 
 She reached down for another pepper-pod, not lowering 
 her gleaming eyes. " Would n t ye like ter feel his pulse ? 
 Mebbe ye could gin the inquisition folks another p int or 
 two ! " 
 
 " What do you mean ? " he demanded, forced to assume 
 the defensive. " I never gave any points for the inquisition." 
 
 " Who tole on him, then ? Who but ye hed larnin enough 
 ter sense how his mind air catawampus jes on that idee, an 
 no other ? " 
 
 " I ? Never never ! " he exclaimed, so visibly shocked 
 that his face constrained credence as well as his words. 
 
 She sat looking at him, holding the vivid coils of the 
 peppers in her idle hands. 
 
 " Then," she said, darkly frowning, " twar Andy Long- 
 wood. I always knowed he war silly ez a sheep, but I 
 thunk ez harmless ez a sheep." 
 
 After a little she raised her eyes and smiled brilliantly at 
 him, as if to make amends. She said no more, but as she 
 strung the peppers silently listened to Mrs. Bowles, who 
 now and then called on Rathburn to confirm her statements 
 as to the plight in which she had found him. She met with 
 a spirited response. Comfort and security did not annul in 
 any degree his appreciation of his injuries or his suffering. 
 The detail of all that he had recounted to Mrs. Bowles elic 
 ited from time to time exclamations of surprise and horror, 
 often but half articulate, from Mrs. Strobe and Eli. Mar- 
 cella once or twice commented more at length. " Did ye 
 choke Baintree hard, sure enough jes kase he wouldn t 
 tell ye whar the silver war ? " she asked, her brilliant, dilated 
 eyes dreamily fastened on space, evidently witnessing the 
 scene reenacted before her in imagination. Her hands had 
 fallen idly in her lap ; the scarlet coil of the red peppers 
 hung from her listless grasp, and trailed upon the floor. 
 
 " Indeed I did," asseverated Rathburn. ** He had no 
 right to fool me as he did all the summer." 
 
 " Twar his secret," Marcella suggested in a vague, pre- 
 
476 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 occupied tone, still doubtfully staring into scenes that her 
 own fancy painted. " He hed a right ter keep it." 
 
 " And such a secret ! " cried Rathburn, with a curling lip. 
 " He never found the float. Samuel Keale found the float. * 
 
 " An ," said Mrs. Bowles, lowering her voice mysteri 
 ously, " whar d ye reckon he fund it, an whar d ye reckon 
 his bones be hid now ? In a cave on Teck Jepson s land, 
 an ye mark my words Teck Jepson hed some hand in 
 puttin him thar." 
 
 A galvanic shock seemed to pervade the circle. Then 
 Marcella s laughter rang upon the air. " Never in this 
 worl ," she cried gayly, composedly gathering up the long 
 red cables of the peppers. " Teck Jepson never hid nuthin 
 he done. He d hev been struttin roun hyar, callin on 
 folks ter admire how much his actions war like David, or 
 SoFmon, or G liath, or somebody ez the law ain t quaintecl 
 with, an he d hev been powerful s prised when the sher ff 
 did n t gree with him." Once more the incongruity of the 
 idea elicited a peal of laughter. " Naw, Teck Jepson air 
 too sodden in pride ter hide what he do." 
 
 As Mrs. Bowles began to eagerly set forth further rea 
 sons, reminding Mrs. Strobe of Jepson s antagonism to 
 Keale, Rathburn spoke aside in a low tone to Marcella. 
 
 " You were quick enough to believe something mean of 
 me," he said reproachfully, " but you scout the idea of Jep 
 son s doing anything underhand." 
 
 He expected her to protest. She only stared at him for 
 a moment, startled, with wide, questioning eyes and a con 
 victed mien. Then she fell to dreamily studying the ver 
 milion coals and the gathering gray ash, and said little 
 more, while the group of gossips drew nearer and nearer the 
 dying fire. 
 
 She was meditative and absent during the days that fol 
 lowed, save in the intervals when she intently marked her 
 father s manner and took heedful note of his words. For 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 477 
 
 Mrs. Strobe s prophecy was in some sort verified. "With 
 greater familiarity with the idea that his cherished office 
 was threatened came the resolution of resistance. Strobe 
 had rallied his courage. He bore himself once more with 
 his former burly dignity. 
 
 " T ain t nuthin ter me whether Teck Jepson air dead 
 or no. I ain t grave-digger, nor doctor, nor chief mourner. 
 I m constable o Brumsaidge. I hearn fur news ez he war 
 dead. Ef t ain t true, I ain t keerin ." 
 
 Thus, imagining that he spoke of his independent convic 
 tions, he conned again and again the lesson his mother and 
 daughter had set him to learn. Rathburn, still on the lounge 
 drawn up to the side of the fire, in the midst of the domestic 
 life, and thus suffering none of the dreary isolation of an 
 invalid, felt his heart go out to the two women in troubled 
 forebodings concerning the inquisition. They said little, 
 but he noted an urgent anxiety as to the weather, and when 
 the day broke chill and lowering their spirits visibly rose ; 
 in the afternoon, as the first snow of the season began to sift 
 down on the wintry mountain wildernesses, they became ab 
 solutely cheerful. 
 
 " Thar, now ! fallin weather ! " exclaimed Mrs. Strobe, 
 with the accents of vexation and a triumphant eye. " Eli, I 
 ain t goin ter let ye go over yander ter the store whar the 
 sher ff s app inted ter hold the inquisition ; a man ailin in 
 health hev ter be housed in fallin weather. Let him bring 
 his able-bodied jury over hyar an examinate ye, an hear 
 mine an Marcelly s testimony, cordin ter the subpeeny. 
 I m going ter send him that identical word, an see ef he 
 won t." 
 
 And thus it chanced that it was under no new conditions, 
 surrounded by no scenes to which he was long unaccus 
 tomed, that Eli Strobe made his fight anew for the office 
 he had already won, and the ambition dearer to him than 
 his life. 
 
XXVII. 
 
 THE snow was deep upon the ground, drifts filled many 
 a red clay gully, the dark boughs of the trees all bore a thick 
 white line, the mountains were ghastly under a gray sky, 
 and still the myriad flakes were falling, when the noiseless 
 horsemen rode up to the door, and the jury of the inquisi 
 tion came filing in. They met upon the threshold the sub 
 ject of their deliberations, bluff, burly, with that genial 
 political jocularity that discounts all other bids for popu 
 larity, his heavy bass laughter mingling with his gay greet 
 ings. 
 
 " Howdy, boys ! Kem in, kem in ! That s right, 
 stomp the snow off ! Ye know mam s mighty partic lar 
 bout that thar new rag kyarpet o hern. Kem ter see ef I 
 hev got a bee in my bonnet, hev ye ? Waal, waal ; we 11 
 listen ter hear that same bee buzz ! " 
 
 The heavy mountaineers looked in blank surprise at each 
 other. This discourse seemed to them lucid as reason itself. 
 They had expected mere incoherent babbling, from the re 
 ports set a-flying about Broomsedge Cove. Marcella s face, 
 smiling yet with a certain proud defiance, and Mrs. Strobe s 
 jaunty, debonair salutation betokened scant anxiety, and did 
 much to annul the effect of what they had heard. There 
 were others besides the jury, witnesses, one or two lawyers, 
 and a number of mountaineers who were merely spectators 
 of the proceeding ; some of them wore a sheepish, hang-dog 
 air, notably Andy Longwood and Pete Minton, at whose in 
 stance the investigation was had. Clem Sanders was one 
 of the jury, as reluctant a freeholder as could be found in 
 Broomsedge Cove, or, for the matter of that, in the Great 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 479 
 
 Smoky Mountains. He carried his shoulders slouched for 
 ward in the heavy, aged manner which he sometimes af 
 fected, and he shambled along as if shackled by chains of 
 his own forging ; he looked with humble, beseeching eyes 
 at Marcella, as if conjuring her to observe that he was not 
 there in any sense of his own motion. 
 
 " Kem up close by the fire, gentlemen," said Eli. " Airish 
 out n doors, ain t it ? " 
 
 As they ranged themselves about the broad hearth, they 
 were all staring hard at Rathburn, who lay quite silent, since 
 his host did not explain Ids presence, wondering a trifle 
 within himself to feel so agitated, so partisan, so eager as to 
 the result of the investigations. 
 
 Sundry questions were put to Strobe, to which he listened 
 with his head a trifle askew, his legs crossed, one hand on 
 his knee, the other arm akimbo, his eyes quizzically glan 
 cing from under his hatbrim. His whole air was that of gay 
 good-humor, falling in naturally with the current of events, 
 and in no wise resentful of the course they had taken. The 
 queries, chiefly relating to matters of business usage and of 
 certain processes of the law, the functions of his office, were 
 promptly and decisively answered. Once, Marcella, feign 
 ing to misunderstand their drift, handed him an open book, 
 and the company enjoyed an exhibition of u dad s " rare ac 
 complishment of reading, which he did in a full, rotund 
 drone and with much vigor of emphasis. The girl s smile 
 of triumph as she closed the volume and laid it on the high 
 mantel-shelf roused a certain antagonism in the breasts of 
 several of the diligent inquirers. There was a momentary 
 pause ; the batten shutter was open, the great glowing fire 
 sufficiently warming the room although thus generously 
 ventilated, and from where Marcella stood, her hand still 
 on the high mantel-piece, she could see the silent flakes, fall 
 ing, falling, limiting the world, for hardly the nearest 
 mountain was visible, a mere dull, dun suggestion of wood 
 and range and river, like the first faint washings of a scene 
 
480 THE DESPOT OF BROOM SEDGE COVE. 
 
 in sepia. No sound came from without, although nearly a 
 score of horses stamped the snow in the shed behind the 
 house. The dog of the " frequent visitor," a hospitable 
 animal, stood in the doorway suavely wagging his tail, pleased 
 to see so many guests at once. They were all looking with 
 expectant interest at Marcella s face as the next question 
 was asked ; so fixedly that perhaps it was not unnatural 
 that Eli Strobe should turn and follow the general glance. 
 A sinile dawned in her eyes as they met his, so replete with 
 an exquisite light, and hope, and love, that had a sudden 
 sun-burst illumined that white, dead day it could hardly 
 have seemed brighter. It was a fine display of nerve, of 
 will-power, Rathburn thought, knowing her as he did. 
 
 " How did ye git hurt, Mr. Strobe ? " was the significant 
 demand. 
 
 "Teck Jepson rid me down," said the constable, his eyes 
 fixed on his daughter. 
 
 The circle of mountaineers slowly shifted their chairs, and 
 one or two spit profusely into the fire, aiming carefully at 
 long range. 
 
 " Did you-uns hurt him ? " 
 
 Strobe fixed his gaze on the talismanic brightness of his 
 daughter s eyes. 
 
 " Bern ez I war knocked senseless, sir, I could n t onder- 
 take ter say." 
 
 Another pause, so silent that naught could be heard save 
 the roar of the flames in the wide chimney, and the foot 
 falls of the dog turning away and trotting along to the end 
 of the porch, where he presently found entertainment, pecul 
 iarly pleasing to his kind, in barking in a frenzy of affec 
 tation at the horses of the visitors. 
 
 " Did n t ye tell Andy Longwood one day ezye hed killed 
 Teck Jepson in that scuffle ? " 
 
 " Sartainly I said so ! Somebody tole me that fur news 
 an bein ez I war knocked senseless, I disremembered what 
 happened. An this hyar mischievious gal o mine, fur a 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 481 
 
 joke on her ole dad, tole me whar they hed buried him. I 
 lowed they would n t hev buried him thout he war dead. 
 Ha ! ha ! ha ! " his burly bass laugh rang out. 
 
 Clem Sanders had plucked up his spirits. He looked 
 about amongst his confreres with a curling lip of scorn. 
 Andy Longwood hung his abashed head. The political an 
 tagonists of Eli Strobe were visibly disconcerted. 
 
 " Only one more question now : Hev ye seen Teck 
 lately?" 
 
 Eli Strobe nodded. 
 
 " How did he look, an what did he talk bout ? " 
 
 "Toler ble nat ral, cornsiderin ." The long strain was 
 beginning to tell on the constable s nerves. His glance had 
 wandered from Marcella s face, out of which the light died 
 suddenly, leaving it livid, with wild, dilated eyes. " Ye 
 never would hev tuk him fur a harnt ! He talked same ez 
 ever, bout G liath an Sol mon an them, ez he used ter set 
 sech store by." 
 
 There was a moment of terrible suspense to his mother 
 and his daughter. Then the querist, evidently accepting 
 the reply as partly jocose, and taken in connection with his 
 previous denials and declarations as satisfactory, said, " That 
 will do for you ! " 
 
 Mrs. Strobe s admirable elasticity was amply demon 
 strated by her rebound from this ordeal. She furnished the 
 jury with a test for sanity which they all declined to apply. 
 When asked if she considered her son sane, she declared 
 he was as sane as any man could be, but in her opinion no 
 men were sane. 
 
 " I never seen one ez could thread a needle," she declared, 
 with her specious gravity. " An yit enny woman kin do 
 that, an* kin do men s work too, plow, an drive, an* 
 ride, an shoot a gun. Nare one o ye kin thread a needle. 
 I 11 try ye, sher ff ; I 11 favor ye with a big-eyed needle an* 
 a small, thin thread. I 11 wax it," she conceded alluringly, 
 reaching out for the big brown gourd that served aa work- 
 basket. 
 
482 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 But the officer precipitately declined, and the examina 
 tion broke up in a general laugh. After the jury had con 
 sulted apart and agreed upon their verdict, there was a more 
 genial closing up of the circle about the fire. Mrs. Strobe 
 and Marcella sat among the guests, indifferent to the con 
 versation for a time and mentally exhausted. They per 
 ceived how signal a victory they had won against the facts 
 and in defiance of the law, hardly so potent a force as 
 the crafty affection of a mother and a daughter, and 
 they experienced a glow of deep gratulation. But it was 
 necessary to keep a guard upon Eli Strobe s words, and 
 Marcella roused herself to listen as he made known to the 
 coterie how Rathburn had fared at the hands of Jake Bain- 
 tree, and the fact that the criminal had fled the country. 
 
 " Yestiddy I rid up ter his folkses house, countin on ar- 
 restin him, bein constable o Brumsaidge," he rolled the 
 fine phrase under his tongue, "an his folks declared out 
 they hed n t seen nor hearn o him fur weeks. He done this 
 crime jes count o Eugene Rathburn s makin him tell whar 
 Sam l Keale los his life, kase Eugene air mighty sharp set 
 fur riches, an he b lieves the silver air thar in that cave on 
 Jepson s land. * 
 
 " I 11 tell ye who hain t lef the kentry," said Bassett, 
 with a grim nod and a fiery eye, " Teck Jepson. Air 
 one o you off eers o the law hev got my cornsent ter arrest 
 Teck Jepson ! " 
 
 Eli Strobe s eyebrows were lifted in surprise ; his lips had 
 parted, but the quick little mother struck in first : 
 
 "Arrest Teek Jepson for what?" 
 
 " Let the sher ff say." Bassett evaded a direct reply. " I 
 seen him bout five days ago a-standin in his porch, t war 
 arter a heavy rain, a-shakin hands with this same man 
 Baintree what he purtended wunst ter b lieve so guilty, an 
 then purtected agin the lynchers, they say so" he inter 
 polated, becoming suddenly mindful of the significance of 
 the presence of the sheriff, " this man ez war tried fur 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 483 
 
 killin Sam l Keale ez be dead, an his body hid all these 
 years in a cave on Jepson s land. Shakin hands with 
 him, sir, ez ef they war partners, an I say they war 
 partners ! " 
 
 The officer turned a serious face. " This must be inves 
 tigated. I 11 go thar ter-night." 
 
 " Jepson oughter be rested, or he 11 foller Baintree, an* 
 git away too. An he mought be warned. Ye know " 
 Bassett turned to Rathb urn s couch u ye war warned 
 yerse f." 
 
 Rathb urn shifted his position a trifle. He was flushed 
 and conscious. He hardly dared to glance at Marcella ; 
 and when the firelight leaped u presently he saw that she 
 had silently left the room. He was glad of that. In her 
 presence he felt that he was not sure of keeping the secret 
 of who had warned him under the lynx-eyed vigilance of 
 these savage men, more than one of whom he suspected of 
 belonging to the band of lynchers. 
 
 The night had come, hardly to be called darkness, for 
 the white earth seemed possessed of a pallid persistence 
 that asserted itself against the gloom of the sky. And the 
 sky was not all gloom. Behind the clouds a moon lurked ; 
 now and then in thin folds of vapor showing a spectral, 
 half-veiled face, and anon shifting along the highways of 
 the skies, its presence barely suggested behind the denser 
 mediums. A dreary night it seemed to Marcella. Never 
 had she so revolted from the world. The great chestnut- 
 tree at the gate was laden with snow ; every gnarled, 
 twisted bough, how gaunt against the gray sky ! The zigzag 
 rail fence was all made definite, too, by its alternations of 
 white and black lines. "Why should her hands be cold so 
 cold ? Had she not just come from the fire ? She felt its 
 warmth still in the folds of her dress. And why should she 
 shiver so ? She was choking, a cord was stretched across 
 her throat ; her heart was beating fast and loud. She pres 
 ently recognized her intention in astonishment, as if it were 
 
484 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 projected by another entity than herself. She was out 
 among the horses. A score, at least, stood in her father s 
 shed. One, a clean-built black mare, turned a shapely head, 
 and gazed at her in surprise with luminous, moonlit eyes, 
 for the moon was suddenly shining, and many a shadow was 
 on the snow. She slipped under the neck of a raw-boned 
 bay, who snorted and tossed up his head in fright. The 
 fleetest, the fleetest she must have, and her eyes dilated 
 as she stood next a powerful iron-gray, full of spirit, that 
 shied away as she caught his mane with one hand and pulled 
 herself upon his unsaddled back. His bridle had not been 
 removed ; she slipped the hitching-rein, and the next mo 
 ment the creature was speeding away upon the hardening 
 snow with a snort of delight in the keen frosty air. The 
 sound roused the men brooding over the fire within. 
 
 " Who s that gone ? " said the sheriff, suddenly lifting 
 his head. 
 
 Not a man had left the room. In vague agitation the 
 group rose uncertainly. 
 
 " Somebody *s after them horses," suggested one. 
 
 There was a pell-mell rush to the door. A wild excite 
 ment of horses kicking and pawing at close quarters ensued 
 in the shed. Then a sharp cry, " My horse ! My horse is 
 gone ! " exclaimed the sheriff. " Some man has got my good 
 gray horse ! " 
 
 The moon was out again, a chill glitter, and the earth 
 very white ; and on the brow of the hill, speeding toward 
 Jepson s cabin, was visible a swift equestrian figure. A 
 score of men, save one, were in the saddle. A wild halloo 
 rang through the air, and then, with all the fervor of the 
 chase kindling in their blood, they were in pursuit. When 
 the moon was out it showed rank after rank of the wild 
 mountain men of the region ; when the moon was in, a mys 
 tic company of mounted shadows slipped noiselessly over 
 the snow. Swift as they were, their speed would not avail. 
 They did not gain on the fugitive. The long lengths of 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 485 
 
 glittering, moonlit snow or shadowy whiteness still remained 
 the same between them and the sheriff s horse. It behooves 
 an officer of the law in that country to be well mounted, and 
 the iron-gray had no equal for speed or spirit. Only a bullet 
 could be swifter, and presently one whizzed past. The gray 
 horse had heard the like before, and plunged and snorted in 
 fright. Another, so close that it seemed to Marcella that 
 it must have grazed her flying hair, all streaming backward 
 in the wind of her flight, for she was bareheaded as she 
 clung to the reins with one hand, with the other beating the 
 horse with her sun-bonnet. The bullets served to accelerate 
 his pace. The distance from the pursuers was widening. 
 She came over the hill at a tremendous rush, and saw, to 
 her joy, a light in Jepson s cabin. 
 
 It seemed to him at the time as if he were dreaming. 
 He heard the thud of hoofs ; he saw, as he opened the door, 
 the equestrian figure reining up on the snow ; he heard Mar- 
 cella s voice beseeching him to fly, fly at once, for his ene 
 mies were upon his track ; and then, straggling over the 
 hill, came, one by one, the distanced pursuers. They had 
 lost the fugitive long ago, but they noted, as she had done, 
 the light in the cabin. As they approached, they saw Jep- 
 son advancing to meet them, advancing boldly. His 
 figure was very distinct in the light of the moon, which had 
 shaken off its besetting clouds, and was crystal-clear in the 
 sky, while the snowy earth responded with an opaque white 
 lustre. His pose suggested all his arrogance. His arms 
 were folded on his breast ; his head was held very erect. 
 
 It was a frenzied impulse which animated them, for they 
 did not connect him in any sense with the fugitive on the 
 sheriff s horse. Perhaps it arose from the lack of a recog 
 nized head of the expedition, for the dismounted officer was 
 still far behind at Strobe s house. They were wild, fevered, 
 riotous, their minds still full of the suspicions bruited about 
 the hearth this evening. Most of all, it may be, they felt 
 that fierce, chafing wish to break away from control which 
 
486 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. ~ 
 
 they had shared with every mob turning against its erst 
 while leader. Jepson did not realize that he was reenact- 
 ing the history of many a despot, when a sharp, whizzing 
 sound split the night air, and he felt, in amazement, a keen 
 tingle in his folded right arm, another, striking above 
 the elbow. Their aim was good for men who rode at full 
 gallop. 
 
 He did not flee. He walked on, silent, proud, erect, to 
 ward them. They were upon him now, the smoking horses 
 snorting and curveting as they closed about him, the earth 
 seeming to shake beneath their hoofs ; and suddenly this 
 Caesar of the Great Smoky Mountains sank down in the 
 reddening snow. 
 
 No one knew afterward quite accurately who fired the 
 shots. There were many mutual criminations and recrimi 
 nations amongst the little mob, but the pistols were not avail 
 able in evidence because of the frequent discharges at the 
 fugitive on the sheriff s horse. These were considered justi 
 fiable, and thus the responsibility was never placed. Mar- 
 cella was much reproved for her unwomanly interference in 
 matters with which she had no concern. The sheriff, how 
 ever, declared gallantly, " Ef I hed known t war you-uns, 
 Marcelly, I d hev loant ye my horse an welcome." And 
 more than one of the pursuers averred that it was frightful 
 to think of having had to fire off pistols at " leetle Marcelly 
 Strobe by mistake, whilst she war a-skitterin along on that 
 wild-goose chase through the snow on the sher ff s horse." 
 
 Jepson felt that it was a forlorn and maimed existence 
 that stretched out before him after Dr. Boyce came and 
 took off his arm. Physical prowess was a sort of religion 
 with him, and he could not call to mind any Biblical worthy 
 thus afflicted. It was well that he had so much pride and 
 so much courage, or he might have been more white-faced 
 and cast down than he was, one afternoon, when Mrs. Strobe 
 and Marcella went to his cabin to inquire concerning his 
 well-being. The girl persisted in sitting on the doorstep, 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 487 
 
 for the door stood open, the snow having melted and the air 
 being fine and dry, and from his chair within, by the fire 
 side, he could not see her face, only the lustrous waves of 
 her long curling hair tossing on her shoulders. 
 
 When Mrs. Strobe, interested in a matter of horticulture, 
 stepped out on the back porch to cull sundry seed-pods from 
 a vine sheltered by the eaves, he boldly offered his advice 
 on a point on which he considered it sorely needed. 
 
 " Ye mus quit these hyar dangerous ways, Marcelly," he 
 said, in his domineering tone. " Leave the men s affairs 
 alone. Ye 11 git kilt some time. Ye mought hev been kilt 
 kemin ter warn me, an* t war powerful dangerous warnin* 
 Rathburn." 
 
 " I reckon t war n t none too much ter do fur a man I m 
 goin ter marry," she retorted tartly, her back toward him, 
 her elbow on her knee, her chin in her hand. 
 
 He had grown used to the idea that she would marry 
 Rathburn. ** I wish he war a better man ! " he said bit 
 terly. 
 
 " He ain t got no religion, sca cely, I know," she resumed 
 presently, " but he don t feel no lack." 
 
 " He ain t a hypercrite, then, like ye called me wunst ? " 
 he said desolately. 
 
 " Oh, yes," she declared lightly, " jes about yer size of a 
 hypercrite." 
 
 " Waal I hope he 11 be good ter ye," he sighed. 
 
 "Dunno bout that, he gits mad mighty easy," she re 
 sponded cavalierly. " Tole me wunst ez he would never 
 furgive me ez long ez he lived." 
 
 " Fur what ? " Jepson demanded angrily. 
 
 She had risen from the doorstep. She was looking casu 
 ally around, as if she were about to go. Her voice had sunk 
 unaccountably. " Jes kase I lowed it mought hev been him 
 ez treated leetle Bob Bowles mean." 
 
 There was a pause. " Marcelly," he cried at last, * who 
 be ye a-talkin bout ? " 
 
488 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 " You-uns ! " She turned away her scarlet cheek, then 
 flashed a bright glance over her shoulder. " But I m mos 
 wore out tryin ter git it inter yer head, ye pear so sodden 
 in folly." 
 
 And then she was off. 
 
 Rathburn had bitter reproaches for her. " I thought you 
 would marry me not Jepson. I thought you cared for 
 me." 
 
 " I never knowed my mind," she admitted, " till that 
 night whenst I hearn em plottin agin him, an seen he war 
 in danger. Then I fund out mighty quick who I keered 
 fur." 
 
 " I believe it will kill me," he declared. 
 
 " Oh, no, t won t ! " she reassured him. " I hev hearn 
 fower or five young men say that very thing, an they air 
 walkin round in Brumsaidge now, well an hearty, an likely 
 ter last a good while yit" 
 
 Mrs. Strobe was not surprised. " Whenst young gals 
 gits ter talkin bout l despisin handsome sinners with eyes 
 blue an deep ez a well, thar s apt ter be a heap o foolish 
 ness in the wind." She earnestly counseled her grand 
 daughter to wait until after an investigation of the cave was 
 had, lest Jepson should be in some sort inculpated by the 
 testimony which the dark and gruesome caverns might yield 
 at last. " Ye could turn him off then," she argued, " ef ye 
 ain t married ter him." 
 
 Her remonstrances had the unexpected effect of hasten 
 ing the wedding. " I don t believe he hev done nuthin un 
 derhand an mean. An I m willin ter share ennythin 
 they kin prove agin him," Marcella declared. 
 
 The first superficial investigation of those unexplored un 
 derground recesses resulted in naught. There was then 
 some delay while the sheriff secured and had brought from 
 Colbury the requisite means for an extensive, safe, and effi 
 cient search, lamps, ropes, etc. ; and by the time they were 
 in readiness Rathburn was sufficiently recovered to be with 
 
THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 489 
 
 the party. He was in high hopes of realizing his dreams 
 of rich deposits of ore, and eagerly examined the rock 
 about the opening of the cave and within its passages. The 
 only " find " was a ghastly spectacle. Not so far down the 
 gloomy aisles of the cave, half hidden by a great fragment 
 of rock, and by it supported in an upright posture, was the 
 skeleton of a young man, clad in tatters and shreds of 
 brown jeans, his grasp still upon the handle of a hunting- 
 knife held out straight before him, kept in position since its 
 strong blade had pierced the heart of a great panther, now 
 but a skeleton too, rampant, its claws and fangs fixed in the 
 ribs where its savagery had dealt death. It was the sim 
 plest explanation of the mystery: the antagonists in this 
 primitive duel the hunter and the beast had each per 
 ished because of the other. Keale had doubtless tracked 
 the creature to the cave, rashly ventured within her den, 
 and she had fought with the courage of desperation. There 
 were the skeletons of the panther kittens, having died of 
 starvation, perhaps, scattered about on the floor, but no in 
 dications of precious metal, no sign that this gaunt thing 
 that once was the adventurous mountaineer had ever sought 
 it, save that in his pocket was a bit of float identical with 
 the specimen which had so long proved a lure to Rathburn. 
 The secret where he had found it perished with him. 
 
 Its influences were hardly so fleeting. Many a long and 
 thoughtful hour Rathburn pondered on Baintree s fate : in 
 nocent of the crime of which he was accused ; tempted by 
 his cowardly terror of it to commit its counterpart, which 
 thDugh failing had left him its legacy of remorse, its brand 
 of Cain to bear as long as he should live. Never again 
 came news of him to Broomsedge Cove, although Rathburn, 
 with a condoning compassion, a certain sense of responsibil 
 ity, remembering his own sordid schemes and their pitiless 
 pursuit, which provoked Baintree s crime, and a wish to lift 
 the weight which must oppress him, sought him far and 
 wide. 
 
4:90 THE DESPOT OF BROOMSEDGE COVE. 
 
 Rathburn lost his desire for wealth ; somehow that bit of 
 float, with all its unfulfilled promises, with all its inchoate 
 curses, was a talisman to reconcile him to poverty. No one 
 might know in alter years, when he was notably one of the 
 " poor collectors " of his profession, how strong a proclivity 
 for gains at all hazards he had conquered. He never became 
 altogether unworldly, however, and when he had returned 
 to his appropriate place in the heart of a city he was easily 
 consoled for Marcella s choice, and esteemed it in the nature 
 of an escape ; for none could realize so well as he how the 
 charming mountain flower would have lost grace and beauty, 
 all its fascinations wilting, in the transplantation to an in 
 congruous sphere. Nevertheless he suffers a pang occasion 
 ally the finer aesthetic function of the heart when he 
 hears from Broomsedge Cove. Latterly it has been reported 
 that Eli Strobe, whose mental malady has quite disappeared, 
 has been elected justice of the peace, and that the ** dad " 
 formerly so frequent a word on Marcella s lips has become 
 a stranger to her vocabulary ; for ever since she has sol 
 emnly spoken of him by the ambitious title of his office, as 
 " the squair." Even while Rathburn laughed at this, he 
 saw, with the vividness of reality, and a yearning pain like 
 homesickness, the stretches of the tawny broomsedge wav 
 ing over all the abandoned land ; the high encircling purple 
 mountains touching the lofty sky ; the trees bowing in hom 
 age to the passing of the royal wind; the river s silver 
 gleam ; the smoke curling up from the stick-and-clay chim 
 neys of the little hamlet, so still, so still, while above the 
 white clouds set sail. 
 
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