_ In days when the Indian held the Dark and Bloody Grounds a pioneer,
felling oak and poplar logs for the home he meant to establish on the
banks of a purling water-course, let his axe slip, and the cutting edge
gashed his ankle. Since to the discoverer belongs the christening, that
water-course became Cripple-shin, and so it is to-day set down on atlas
pages. A few miles away, as the crow flies, but many weary leagues as a
man must travel, a brother settler, racked with rheumatism, gave to his
creek the name of Misery. The two pioneers had come together from
Virginia, as their ancestors had come before them from Scotland.
Together, they had found one of the two gaps through the mountain wall,
which for more than a hundred miles has no other passable rift.
Together, and as comrades, they had made their homes, and founded their
race. What original grievance had sprung up between their descendants
none of the present generation knew--perhaps it was a farm line or
disputed title to a pig. The primary incident was lost in the limbo of
the past; but for fifty years, with occasional intervals of truce,
lives had been snuffed out in the fiercely burning hate of these men
whose ancestors had been comrades.
Old Spicer South and his nephew Samson were the direct lineal
descendants of the namer of Misery. Their kinsmen dwelt about them: the
Souths, the Jaspers, the Spicers, the Wileys, the Millers and McCagers.
Other families, related only by marriage and close association, were,
in feud alignment, none the less "Souths." And over beyond the ridge,
where the springs and brooks flowed the other way to feed Crippleshin,
dwelt the Hollmans, the Purvies, the Asberries, the Hollises and the
Daltons--men equally strong in their vindictive fealty to the code of
the vendetta.
By mountain standards, old Spicer South was rich. His lands had been
claimed when tracts could be had for the taking, and, though he had to
make his cross mark when there was a contract to be signed, his
instinctive mind was shrewd and far seeing. The tinkle of his cow-bells
was heard for a long distance along the creek bottoms. His hillside
fields were the richest and his coves the most fertile in that country.
His house had several rooms, and, except for those who hated him and
whom he hated, he commanded the respect of his fellows. Some day, when
a railroad should burrow through his section, bringing the development
of coal and timber at the head of the rails, a sleeping fortune would
yawn and awake to enrich him. There were black outcrop-pings along the
cliffs, which he knew ran deep in veins of bituminous wealth. But to
that time he looked with foreboding, for he had been raised to the
standards of his forefathers, and saw in the coming of a new regime a
curtailment of personal liberty. For new-fangled ideas he held only the
aversion of deep-rooted prejudice. He hoped that he might live out his
days, and pass before the foreigner held his land, and the Law became a
power stronger than the individual or the clan. The Law was his enemy,
because it said to him, "Thou shalt not," when he sought to take the
yellow corn which bruising labor had coaxed from scattered rock-strewn
fields to his own mash-vat and still. It meant, also, a tyrannous power
usually seized and administered by enemies, which undertook to forbid
the personal settlement of personal quarrels. But his eyes, which could
not read print, could read the signs of the times He foresaw the
inevitable coming of that day. Already, he had given up the worm and
mash-vat, and no longer sought to make or sell illicit liquor. That was
a concession to the Federal power, which could no longer be
successfully fought. State power was still largely a weapon in
factional hands, and in his country the Hollmans were the
officeholders. To the Hollmans, he could make no concessions. In
Samson, born to be the fighting man, reared to be the fighting man,
equipped by nature with deep hatreds and tigerish courage, there had
cropped out from time to time the restless spirit of the philosopher
and a hunger for knowledge. That was a matter in which the old man
found his bitterest and most secret apprehension.
It was at this house that George Lescott, distinguished landscape
painter of New York and the world-at-large, arrived in the twilight.
His first impression was received in shadowy evening mists that gave a
touch of the weird. The sweep of the stone-guarded well rose in a yard
tramped bare of grass. The house itself, a rambling structure of logs,
with additions of undressed lumber, was without lights. The cabin,
which had been the pioneer nucleus, still stood windowless and with mud
-daubed chimney at the center. About it rose a number of tall poles
surmounted by bird-boxes, and at its back loomed the great hump of the
mountain.
Whatever enemy might have to be met to-morrow, old Spicer South
recognized as a more immediate call upon his attention the wounded
guest of to-day. One of the kinsmen proved to have a rude working
knowledge of bone-setting, and before the half-hour had passed,
Lescott's wrist was in a splint, and his injuries as well tended as
possible, which proved to be quite well enough.
By that time, Sally's voice was heard shouting from the stile, and
Sally herself appeared with the announcement that she had found and
brought in the lost mule.
As Lescott looked at her, standing slight and willowy in the
thickening darkness, among the big-boned and slouching figures of the
clansmen, she seemed to shrink from the stature of a woman into that of
a child, and, as she felt his eyes on her, she timidly slipped farther
back into the shadowy door of the cabin, and dropped down on the sill,
where, with her hands clasped about her knees, she gazed curiously at
himself. She did not speak, but sat immovable with her thick hair
falling over her shoulders. The painter recognized that even the
interest in him as a new type could not for long keep her eyes from
being drawn to the face of Samson, where they lingered, and in that
magnetism he read, not the child, but the woman.
Samson was plainly restive from the moment of her arrival, and, when a
monosyllabic comment from the taciturn group threatened to reveal to
the girl the threatened outbreak of the feud, he went over to her, and
inquired:
"Sally, air ye skeered ter go home by yeself?"
As she met the boy's eyes, it was clear that her own held neither
nervousness nor fear, and yet there was something else in them--the
glint of invitation. She rose from her seat.
"I hain't ter say skeered," she told him, "but, ef ye wants ter walk
as fur as the stile, I hain't a-keerin'."
The youth rose, and, taking his hat and rifle, followed her.
Lescott was happily gifted with the power of facile adaptation, and he
unobtrusively bent his efforts toward convincing his new acquaintances
that, although he was alien to their ways, he was sympathetic and to be
trusted. Once that assurance was given, the family talk went on much as
though he had been absent, and, as he sat with open ears, he learned
the rudiments of the conditions that had brought the kinsmen together
in Samson's defense.
At last, Spicer South's sister, a woman who looked older than himself,
though she was really younger, appeared, smoking a clay pipe, which she
waved toward the kitchen.
"You men kin come in an' eat," she announced; and the mountaineers,
knocking the ashes from their pipes, trailed into the kitchen.
The place was lit by the fire in a cavernous hearth where the cooking
was still going forward with skillet and crane. The food, coarse and
greasy, but not unwholesome, was set on a long table covered with
oilcloth. The roughly clad men sat down with a scraping of chair legs,
and attacked their provender in businesslike silence.
The corners of the room fell into obscurity. Shadows wavered against
the sooty rafters, and, before the meal ended, Samson returned and
dropped without comment into his chair. Afterward, the men trooped
taciturnly out again, and resumed their pipes.
A whippoorwill sent his mournful cry across the tree-tops, and was
answered. Frogs added the booming of their tireless throats. A young
moon slipped across an eastern mountain, and livened the creek into a
soft shimmer wherein long shadows quavered. The more distant line of
mountains showed in a mist of silver, and the nearer heights in blue
-gray silhouette. A wizardry of night and softness settled like a
benediction, and from the dark door of the house stole the quaint
folklore cadence of a rudely thrummed banjo. Lescott strolled over to
the stile with every artist instinct stirred. This nocturne of silver
and gray and blue at once soothed and intoxicated his imagination. His
fingers were itching for a brush.
Then, he heard a movement at his shoulder, and, turning, saw the boy
Samson with the moonlight in his eyes, and, besides the moonlight, that
sparkle which is the essence of the dreamer's vision. Once more, their
glances met and flashed a countersign.
"Hit hain't got many colors in hit," said the boy, slowly, indicating
with a sweep of his hand the symphony about them, "but somehow what
there is is jest about the right ones. Hit whispers ter a feller, the
same as a mammy whispers ter her baby." He paused, then eagerly asked:
"Stranger, kin you look at the sky an' the mountings an' hear 'em
singin'--with yore eyes?"
The painter felt a thrill of astonishment. It seemed incredible that
the boy, whose rude descriptives reflected such poetry of feeling,
could be one with the savage young animal who had, two hours before,
raised his hand heavenward, and reiterated his oath to do murder in
payment of murder.
"Yes," was his slow reply, "every painter must do that. Music and
color are two expressions of the same thing--and the thing is Beauty."
The mountain boy made no reply, but his eyes dwelt on the quivering
shadows in the water; and Lescott asked cautiously, fearing to wake him
from the dreamer to the savage:
"So you are interested in skies and hills and their beauties, too, are
you?"
Samson's laugh was half-ashamed, half-defiant.
"Sometimes, stranger," he said, "I 'lows that I hain't much interested
in nothin' else."
That there dwelt in the lad something which leaped in response to the
clarion call of beauty, Lescott had read in that momentary give and
take of their eyes down there in the hollow earlier in the afternoon.
But, since then, the painter had seen the other and sterner side, and
once more he was puzzled and astonished. Now, he stood anxiously hoping
that the boy would permit himself further expression, yet afraid to
prompt, lest direct questions bring a withdrawal again into the shell
of taciturnity. After a few moments of silence, he slowly turned his
head, and glanced at his companion, to find him standing rigidly with
his elbows resting on the top palings of the fence. He had thrown his
rough hat to the ground, and his face in the pale moonlight was raised.
His eyes under the black mane of hair were glowing deeply with a fire
of something like exaltation, as he gazed away. It was the expression
of one who sees things hidden to the generality; such a light as burns
in the eyes of artists and prophets and fanatics, which, to the
uncomprehending, seems almost a fire of madness. Samson must have felt
Lescott's scrutiny, for he turned with a half-passionate gesture and
clenched fists. His face, as he met the glance of the foreigner was
sullen, and then, as though in recognition of a brother-spirit, his
expression softened, and slowly he began to speak.
"These folks 'round hyar sometimes 'lows I hain't much better'n an
idjit because--because I feels that-away. Even Sally"--he caught
himself, then went on doggedly--"even Sally kain't see how a man kin
keer about things like skies and the color of the hills, ner the way
ther sunset splashes the sky clean acrost its aidge, ner how the
sunrise comes outen the dark like a gal a-blushin'. They 'lows thet a
man had ought ter be studyin' 'bout other things."
He paused, and folded his arms, and his strong fingers grasped his
tensed biceps until the knuckles stood out, as he went on:
"I reckon they hain't none of them thet kin hate harder'n me. I reckon
they hain't none of 'em thet is more plumb willin' ter fight them
thet's rightful enemies, an' yit hit 'pears ter me as thet hain't no
reason why a man kain't feel somethin' singin' inside him when Almighty
God builds hills like them"--he swept both hands out in a wide circle--
"an' makes 'em green in summer, an' lets 'em blaze in red an' yaller in
ther fall, an' hangs blue skies over 'em an' makes ther sun shine, an'
at night sprinkles 'em with stars an' a moon like thet!" Again, he
paused, and his eyes seemed to ask the corroboration which they read in
the expression and nod of the stranger from the mysterious outside
world. Then, Samson South spread his hands in a swift gesture of
protest, and his voice hardened in timbre as he went on:
"But these folks hyarabouts kain't understand thet. All they sees in
the laurel on the hillside, an' the big gray rocks an' the green trees,
is breshwood an' timber thet may be hidin' their enemies, or places ter
hide out an' lay-way some other feller. I hain't never seen no other
country. I don't know whether all places is like these hyar mountings
er not, but I knows thet the Lord didn't 'low fer men ter live blind,
not seein' no beauty in nothin'; ner not feelin' nothin' but hate an'
meanness--ner studyin' 'bout nothin' but deviltry. There hain't no
better folks nowhar then my folks, an' thar hain't no meaner folks
nowhar then them damned Hollmans, but thar's times when hit 'pears ter
me thet the Lord Almighty hain't plumb tickled ter death with ther way
things goes hyar along these creeks and coves."
Samson paused, and suddenly the glow died out of his eyes. His
features instantly reshaped themselves into their customary mold of
stoical hardness. It occurred to him that his outburst had been a long
one and strangely out of keeping with his usual taciturnity, and he
wondered what this stranger would think of him.
The stranger was marveling. He was seeing in the crude lad at his side
warring elements that might build into a unique and strangely
interesting edifice of character, and his own speech as he talked there
by the palings of the fence in the moonlight was swiftly establishing
the foundations of a comradeship between the two.
"Thar's something mighty quare about ye, stranger," said the boy at
last, half-shyly. "I been wonderin' why I've talked ter ye like this. I
hain't never talked that-away with no other man. Ye jest seemed ter
kind of compel me ter do hit. When I says things like thet ter Sally,
she gits skeered of me like ef I was plumb crazy, an', ef I talked that-
away to the menfolks 'round hyar they'd be sartain I was an idjit."
"That," said Lescott, gravely, "is because they don't understand. I do."
"I kin lay awake nights," said Samson, "an' see them hills and mists
an' colors the same es ef they was thar in front of my eyes--an' I kin
seem ter hear 'em as well as see 'em."
The painter nodded, and his voice fell into low quotation:
"'The scarlet of the maple can shake me like the cry
"Of bugles going by.'"
The boy's eyes deepened. To Lescott, the thought of bugles conjured up
a dozen pictures of marching soldiery under a dozen flags. To Samson
South, it suggested only one: militia guarding a battered courthouse,
but to both the simile brought a stirring of pulses.
Even in June, the night mists bring a touch of chill to the mountains,
and the clansmen shortly carried their chairs indoors. The old woman
fetched a pan of red coals from the kitchen, and kindled the logs on
the deep hearth. There was no other light, and, until the flames
climbed to roaring volume, spreading their zone of yellow brightness,
only the circle about the fireplace emerged from the sooty shadows. In
the four dark corners of the room were four large beds, vaguely seen,
and from one of them still came the haunting monotony of the banjo.
Suddenly, out of the silence, rose Samson's voice, keyed to a stubborn
note, as though anticipating and challenging contradiction.
"Times is changin' mighty fast. A feller thet grows up plumb ign'rant
ain't a-goin' ter have much show."
Old Spicer South drew a contemplative puff at his pipe.
"Ye went ter school twell ye was ten year old, Samson. Thet's a heap
more schoolin' then I ever had, an' I've done got along all right."
"Ef my pap had lived"--the boy's voice was almost accusing--"I'd hev
lamed more then jest ter read an' write en figger a little."
"I hain't got no use fer these newfangled notions." Spicer spoke with
careful curbing of his impatience. "Yore pap stood out fer eddycation.
He had ideas about law an' all that, an' he talked 'em. He got shot ter
death. Yore Uncle John South went down below, an' got ter be a lawyer.
He come home hyar, an' ondertook ter penitentiary Jesse Purvy, when
Jesse was High Sheriff. I reckon ye knows what happened ter him."
Samson said nothing and the older man went on:
"They aimed ter run him outen the mountings."
"They didn't run him none," blazed the boy. "He didn't never leave the
mountings."
"No." The family head spoke with the force of a logical climax. "He'd
done rented a house down below though, an' was a-fixin' ter move. He
staid one day too late. Jesse Purvy hired him shot."
"What of hit?" demanded Samson.
"Yore cousin, Bud Spicer, was eddicated. He 'lowed in public thet
Micah Hollman an' Jesse Purvy was runnin' a murder partnership.
Somebody called him ter the door of his house in the night-time ter
borry a lantern--an' shot him ter death."
"What of hit?"
"Thar's jist this much of hit. Hit don't seem ter pay the South family
ter go a-runnin' attar newfangled idees. They gets too much notion of
goin' ter law--an' thet's plumb fatal. Ye'd better stay where ye
b'longs, Samson, an' let good enough be."
"Why hain't ye done told about all the rest of the Souths thet didn't
hev no eddication," suggested the youngest South, "thet got killed off
jest as quick as them as had hit?" _