C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
The Dancin’ Party at Harrison’s Cove
By Mary Noailles Murfree (Charles Egbert Craddock) (1850–1922)
“F
The drawling tones fell unheeded on old Mr. Kenyon’s ear, as he sat on the broad hotel piazza of the New Helvetia Springs, and gazed with meditative eyes at the fair August sky. An early moon was riding, clear and full, over this wild spur of the Alleghanies; the stars were few and very faint; even the great Scorpio lurked vaguely outlined above the wooded ranges; and the white mist that filled the long, deep, narrow valley between the parallel lines of mountains, shimmered with opalescent gleams.
All the world of the watering-place had converged to that focus the ball-room; and the cool, moonlit piazzas were nearly deserted. The fell determination of the “Harrison folks” to give a dancing party made no impression on the preoccupied old gentleman. Another voice broke his revery,—a soft, clear, well-modulated voice; and he started and turned his head as his own name was called, and his niece, Mrs. Darley, came to the window.
“Uncle Ambrose, are you there?—So glad! I was afraid you were down at the summer-house, where I hear the children singing. Do come here a moment, please. This is Mrs. Johns, who brings the Indian peaches to sell—you know the Indian peaches?”
Mr. Kenyon knew the Indian peaches; the dark-crimson fruit streaked with still darker lines, and full of blood-red juice, which he had meditatively munched that very afternoon. Mr. Kenyon knew the Indian peaches right well. He wondered, however, what had brought Mrs. Johns back in so short a time; for although the principal industry of the mountain people about the New Helvetia Springs is selling fruit to the summer sojourners, it is not customary to come twice on the same day, nor to appear at all after nightfall.
Mrs. Darley proceeded to explain.
“Mrs. Johns’s husband is ill, and wants us to send him some medicine.”
Mr. Kenyon rose, threw away the stump of his cigar, and entered the room. “How long has he been ill, Mrs. Johns?” he asked dismally.
Mr. Kenyon always spoke lugubriously, and he was a dismal-looking old man. Not more cheerful was Mrs. Johns: she was tall and lank, and with such a face as one never sees except in these mountains,—elongated, sallow, thin, with pathetic, deeply sunken eyes, and high cheek-bones, and so settled an expression of hopeless melancholy that it must be that naught but care and suffering had been her lot; holding out wasted hands to the years as they pass,—holding them out always, and always empty. She wore a shabby, faded calico, and spoke with the peculiar expressionless drawl of the mountaineer. She was a wonderful contrast to Mrs. Darley, all furbelows and flounces, with her fresh, smooth face and soft hair, and plump, round arms half revealed by the flowing sleeves of her thin black dress. Mrs. Darley was in mourning, and therefore did not affect the ball-room. At this moment, on benevolent thoughts intent, she was engaged in uncorking sundry small phials, gazing inquiringly at their labels, and shaking their contents.
In reply to Mr. Kenyon’s question, Mrs. Johns, sitting on the extreme edge of a chair, and fanning herself with a pink calico sun-bonnet, talked about her husband, and a misery in his side and in his back, and how he felt it “a-comin’ on nigh on ter a week ago.” Mr. Kenyon expressed sympathy, and was surprised by the announcement that Mrs. Johns considered her husband’s illness “a blessin’, ’kase ef he war able ter git out’n his bed, he ’lowed ter go down ter Harrison’s Cove ter the dancin’ party, ’kase Rick Pearson war a-goin’ ter be thar, an’ hed said ez how none o’ the Johnses should come.”
“What, Rick Pearson, that terrible outlaw!” exclaimed Mrs. Darley, with wide-open blue eyes. She had read in the newspapers sundry thrilling accounts of a noted horse-thief and outlaw, who with a gang of kindred spirits defied justice and roamed certain sparsely populated mountainous counties at his own wild will; and she was not altogether without a feeling of fear as she heard of his proximity to the New Helvetia Springs,—not fear for life or limb, because she was practical-minded enough to reflect that the sojourners and employés of the watering-place would far outnumber the outlaw’s troop, but fear that a pair of shiny bay ponies, Castor and Pollux, would fall victims to the crafty wiles of the expert horse thief.
“I think I have heard something of a difficulty between your people and Rick Pearson,” said old Mr. Kenyon. “Has a peace never been patched up between them?”
“N-o,” drawled Mrs. Johns, “same as it always war. My old man’ll never believe but what Rick Pearson stole that thar bay filly we lost ’bout five year ago. But I don’t believe he done it: plenty other folks around is ez mean ez Rick, leastways mos’ ez mean; plenty mean enough ter steal a horse, anyhow. Rick say he never tuk the filly; say he war a-goin’ ter shoot off the nex’ man’s head ez say so. Rick say he’d ruther give two bay fillies than hev a man say he tuk a horse ez he never tuk. Rick say ez how he kin stand up ter what he does do, but it’s these hyar lies on him what kills him out. But ye know, Mis’ Darley, ye know yerself, he never give nobody two bay fillies in this world, an’ what’s more he’s never goin’ ter. My old man an’ my boy Kossute talks on ’bout that thar bay filly like she war stole yestiddy, an’ ’twar five year ago an’ better; an’ when they hearn ez how Rick Pearson hed showed that red head o’ his’n on this hyar mounting las’ week, they war fightin’ mad, an’ would hev lit out fur the gang sure, ’ceptin’ they hed been gone down the mounting fur two days. An’ my son Kossute, he sent Rick word that he had better keep out’n gunshot o’ these hyar woods; that he didn’t want no better mark than that red head o’ his’n, an’ he could hit it two mile off. An’ Rick Pearson, he sent Kossute word that he would kill him fur his sass the very nex’ time he see him, an’ ef he don’t want a bullet in that pumpkin head o’ his’n he hed better keep away from that dancin’ party what the Harrisons hev laid off ter give, ’kase Rick say he’s a-goin’ ter it hisself, an’ is a-goin’ ter dance too; he ain’t been invited, Mis’ Darley, but Rick don’t keer fur that. He is a-goin’ anyhow; an’ he say ez how he ain’t a-goin’ ter let Kossute come, ’count o’ Kossute’s sass, an’ the fuss they’ve all made ’bout that bay filly that war stole five year ago—’twar five year an’ better. But Rick say ez how he is goin’, fur all he ain’t got no invite, an’ is a-goin’ ter dance too: ’kase you know, Mis’ Darley, it’s a-goin’ ter be a dancin’ party; the Harrisons hev determinated on that. Them gals of theirn air mos’ crazed ’bout a dancin’ party. They ain’t been a bit of account sence they went ter Cheatham’s Cross-Roads ter see thar gran’mother, an’ picked up all them queer new notions. So the Harrisons hev determinated on a dancin’ party; an’ Rick say ez how he is goin’ ter dance too: but Jule, she say ez how she know thar ain’t a gal on the mounting ez would dance with him; but I ain’t so sure ’bout that, Mis’ Darley: gals air cur’ous critters, ye know yerself; thar’s no sort o’ countin’ on ’em; they’ll do one thing one time, an’ another thing nex’ time; ye can’t put no dependence in ’em. But Jule say ef he kin git Mandy Tyler ter dance with him, it’s the mos’ he kin do, an’ the gang’ll be nowhar. Mebbe he kin git Mandy ter dance with him, ’kase the other boys say ez how none o’ them is a-goin’ ter ax her ter dance, ’count of the trick she played on ’em down ter the Wilkins settlemint—las’ month, war it? no, ’twar two month ago, an’ better; but the boys ain’t forgot how scandalous she done ’em, an’ none of ’em is a-goin’ ter ax her ter dance.”
“Why, what did she do?” exclaimed Mrs. Darley, surprised. “She came here to sell peaches one day, and I thought her such a nice, pretty, well-behaved girl.”
“Waal, she hev got mighty quiet say-nuthin’ sort’n ways, Mis’ Darley, but that thar gal do behave rediculous. Down thar ter the Wilkins settlemint,—ye know it’s ’bout two mile or two mile’n a half from hyar,—waal, all the gals walked down thar ter the party an hour by sun; but when the boys went down they tuk thar horses, ter give the gals a ride home behind ’em. Waal, every boy axed his gal ter ride while the party war goin’ on, an’ when ’twar all over they all set out fur ter come home. Waal, this hyar Mandy Tyler is a mighty favorite ’mongst the boys,—they ain’t got no sense, ye know, Mis’ Darley,—an’ stiddier one of ’em axin’ her ter ride home, thar war five of ’em axed her ter ride, ef ye’ll believe me; an’ what do ye think she done, Mis’ Darley? She tole all five of ’em yes; an’ when the party war over, she war the last ter go, an’ when she started out’n the door, thar war all five of them boys a-standin’ thar waitin’ fur her, an’ every one a-holdin’ his horse by the bridle, an’ none of ’em knowed who the others war a-waitin’ fur. An’ this hyar Mandy Tyler, when she got ter the door an’ seen ’em all a-standin’ thar, never said one word, jest walked right through ’mongst ’em, an’ set out fur the mounting on foot, with all them five boys a-followin’ an’ a-leadin’ thar horses, an’ a-quarrelin’ enough ter take off each other’s heads ’bout which one war a-goin’ ter ride with her; which none of ’em did, Mis’ Darley, fur I hearn ez how the whole layout footed it all the way ter New Helveshy. An’ thar would hev been a fight ’mongst ’em, ’ceptin’ her brother, Jacob Tyler, went along with ’em, an’ tried ter keep the peace atwixt ’em. An’ Mis’ Darley, all them married folks down thar at the party—them folks in the Wilkins settlemint is the biggest fools, sure—when all them married folks come out ter the door, an’ see the way Mandy Tyler hed treated them boys, they jest hollered and laffed an’ thought it war mighty smart an’ funny in Mandy; but she never say a word till she kem up the mounting, an’ I never hearn ez how she say anything then. An’ now the boys all say none of ’em is a-goin’ ter ax her ter dance, ter pay her back fur them fool airs of hern. But Kossute say he’ll dance with her ef none the rest will. Kossute, he thought ’twar all mighty funny too,—he’s sech a fool ’bout gals, Kossute is,—but Jule, she thought ez how ’twar scandalous.”
Mrs. Darley listened in amused surprise: that these mountain wilds could sustain a first-class coquette was an idea that had not hitherto entered her mind; however, “that thar Mandy” seemed, in Mrs. Johns’s opinion at least, to merit the unenviable distinction, and the party at the Wilkins settlement and the prospective gayety of Harrison’s Cove awakened the same sentiments in her heart and mind as do the more ambitious germans and kettle-drums of the lowland cities in the heart and mind of Mrs. Grundy. Human nature is the same everywhere, and the Wilkins settlement is a microcosm. The metropolitan centres, stripped of the civilization of wealth, fashion, and culture, would present only the bare skeleton of humanity outlined in Mrs. Johns’s talk of Harrison’s Cove, the Wilkins settlement, the enmities and scandals and sorrows and misfortunes of the mountain ridge. As the absurd resemblance developed, Mrs. Darley could not forbear a smile. Mrs. Johns looked up with a momentary expression of surprise; the story presented no humorous phase to her perceptions, but she too smiled a little as she repeated, “Scandalous, ain’t it?” and proceeded in the same lack-lustre tone as before.
“Yes,—Kossute say ez how he’ll dance with her ef none the rest will, fur Kossute say ez how he hev laid off ter dance, Mis’ Darley; an’ when I ax him what he thinks will become of his soul ef he dances, he say the Devil may crack away at it, an’ ef he kin hit it he’s welcome; fur soul or no soul he’s a-goin’ ter dance. Kossute is a-fixin’ of hisself this very minute ter go; but I am verily afeard the boy’ll be slaughtered, Mis’ Darley, ’kase thar is goin’ ter be a fight, an’ ye never in all yer life hearn sech sass ez Kossute and Rick Pearson done sent word ter each other.”
Mr. Kenyon expressed some surprise that she should fear for so young a fellow as Kossuth. “Surely,” he said, “the man is not brute enough to injure a mere boy: your son is a mere boy.”
“That’s so,” Mrs. Johns drawled. “Kossute ain’t more’n twenty year old, an’ Rick Pearson is double that ef he is a day; but ye see it’s the firearms ez makes Kossute more’n a match fur him, ’kase Kossute is the best shot on the mounting, an’ Rick knows that in a shootin’ fight Kossute’s better able ter take keer of hisself an’ hurt somebody else nor anybody. Kossute’s more likely ter hurt Rick nor Rick is ter hurt him in a shootin’ fight; but ef Rick didn’t hurt him, an’ he war ter shoot Rick, the gang would tear him ter pieces in a minute; and ’mongst ’em I’m actially afeard they’ll slaughter the boy.”
Mr. Kenyon looked even graver than was his wont upon receiving this information, but said no more; and after giving Mrs. Johns the febrifuge she wished for her husband, he returned to his seat on the piazza.
Mrs. Darley watched him with some little indignation as he proceeded to light a fresh cigar. “How cold and unsympathetic Uncle Ambrose is,” she said to herself. And after condoling effusively with Mrs. Johns on her apprehensions for her son’s safety, she returned to the gossips in the hotel parlor; and Mrs. Johns, with her pink calico sun-bonnet on her head, went her way in the brilliant summer moonlight.
The clear lustre shone white upon all the dark woods and chasms and flashing waters that lay between the New Helvetia Springs and the wide, deep ravine called Harrison’s Cove; where from a rude log hut the vibrations of a violin, and the quick throb of dancing feet, already mingled with the impetuous rush of a mountain stream close by, and the weird night sounds of the hills,—the cry of birds among the tall trees, the stir of the wind, the monotonous chanting of frogs at the water-side, the long, drowsy drone of the nocturnal insects, the sudden faint blast of a distant hunter’s horn, and the far baying of hounds.
Mr. Harrison had four marriageable daughters, and had arrived at the conclusion that something must be done for the girls; for strange as it may seem, the prudent father exists even among the “mounting folks.” Men there realize the importance of providing suitable homes for their daughters as men do elsewhere, and the eligible youth is as highly esteemed in those wilds as is the much scarcer animal at a fashionable watering-place. Thus it was that Mr. Harrison had “determinated on a dancin’ party.” True, he stood in bodily fear of the Judgment Day and the circuit-rider: but the dancing party was a rarity eminently calculated to please the young hunters of the settlements round about; so he swallowed his qualms, to be indulged at a more convenient season, and threw himself into the vortex of preparation with an ardor very gratifying to the four young ladies, who had become imbued with sophistication at Cheatham’s Cross-Roads.
Not so Mrs. Harrison: she almost expected the house to fall and crush them, as a judgment on the wickedness of a dancing party; for so heinous a sin, in the estimation of the greater part of the mountain people, had not been committed among them for many a day. Such trifles as killing a man in a quarrel, or on suspicion of stealing a horse or wash-tub or anything that came handy, of course do not count; but a dancing party! Mrs. Harrison could only fold her idle hands, and dread the heavy penalty that must surely follow so terrible a crime.
It certainly had not the gay and lightsome aspect supposed to be characteristic of such a scene of sin: the awkward young mountaineers clogged heavily about in their uncouth clothes and rough shoes, with the stolid-looking, lack-lustre maids of the hill, to the violin’s monotonous iteration of ‘The Chicken in the Bread-Trough,’ or ‘The Rabbit in the Pea-Patch,’—all their grave faces as grave as ever. The music now and then changed suddenly to one of those wild, melancholy strains sometimes heard in old-fashioned dancing tunes, and the strange pathetic cadences seemed more attuned to the rhythmical dash of the waters rushing over their stone barricades out in the moonlight yonder, or to the plaintive sighs of the winds among the great dark arches of the primeval forests, than to the movement of the heavy, coarse feet dancing a solemn measure in the little log cabin in Harrison’s Cove. The elders, sitting in rush-bottomed chairs close to the walls, and looking on at the merriment, well pleased despite their religious doubts, were somewhat more lively; every now and then a guffaw mingled with the violin’s resonant strains and the dancers’ well-marked pace; the women talked to each other with somewhat more animation than was their wont, under the stress of the unusual excitement of a dancing party; and from out the shed-room adjoining came an anticipative odor of more substantial sin than the fiddle or the grave jiggling up and down the rough floor. A little more cider too, and a very bad article of illegally distilled whisky, were ever and anon circulated among the pious abstainers from the dance; but the sinful votaries of Terpsichore could brook no pause nor delay, and jogged up and down quite intoxicated with the mirthfulness of the plaintive old airs, and the pleasure of other motion than following the plow or hoeing the corn.
And the moon smiled right royally on her dominion: on the long dark ranges of mountains, and mist-filled valleys between; on the woods and streams, and on all the half-dormant creatures either amongst the shadow-flecked foliage or under the crystal waters; on the long white sandy road winding in and out through the forest; on the frowning crags of the wild ravine; on the little bridge at the entrance of the gorge, across which a party of eight men, heavily armed and gallantly mounted, rode swiftly and disappeared amid the gloom of the shadows.
The sound of the galloping of horses broke suddenly on the music and the noise of the dancing; a moment’s interval, and the door gently opened, and the gigantic form of Rick Pearson appeared in the aperture. He was dressed, like the other mountaineers, in a coarse suit of brown jeans somewhat the worse for wear, the trousers stuffed in the legs, of his heavy boots; he wore an old soft felt hat, which he did not remove immediately on entering, and a pair of formidable pistols at his belt conspicuously challenged attention. He had auburn hair, and a long full beard of a lighter tint reaching almost to his waist; his complexion was much tanned by the sun, and roughened by exposure to the inclement mountain weather; his eyes were brown, deep-set, and from under his heavy brows they looked out with quick, sharp glances, and occasionally with a roguish twinkle; the expression of his countenance was rather good-humored: a sort of imperious good-humor, however,—the expression of a man accustomed to have his own way and not to be trifled with, but able to afford some amiability since his power is undisputed.
He stepped slowly into the apartment, placed his gun against the wall, turned, and solemnly gazed at the dancing, while his followers trooped in and obeyed his example. As the eight guns, one by one, rattled against the wall, there was a startled silence among the pious elders of the assemblage, and a sudden disappearance of the animation that had characterized their intercourse during the evening. Mrs. Harrison, who by reason of flurry, and a housewifely pride in the still unrevealed treasures of the shed-room, had well-nigh forgotten her fears, felt that the anticipated judgment had even now descended; and in what terrible and unexpected guise! The men turned the quids of tobacco in their cheeks, and looked at each other in uncertainty: but the dancers bestowed not a glance upon the new-comers; and the musician in the corner, with his eyes half closed, his head bent low upon the instrument, his hard, horny hand moving the bow back and forth over the strings of the crazy old fiddle, was utterly rapt by his own melody. At the supreme moment when the great red beard had appeared portentously in the doorway, and fear had frozen the heart of Mrs. Harrison within her at the ill-omened apparition, the host was in the shed-room, filling a broken-nosed pitcher from the cider barrel. When he re-entered, and caught sight of the grave sunburned face with its long red beard and sharp brown eyes, he too was dismayed for an instant, and stood silent at the opposite door with the pitcher in his hand. The pleasure and the possible profit of the dancing party, for which he had expended so much of his scanty store of this world’s goods and risked the eternal treasures laid up in heaven, were a mere phantasm; for with Rick Pearson among them, in an ill frame of mind and at odds with half the men in the room, there would certainly be a fight, and in all probability one would be killed, and the dancing party at Harrison’s Cove would be a text for the bloody-minded sermons of the circuit-rider for all time to come. However, the father of four marriageable daughters is apt to become crafty and worldly-wise: only for a moment did he stand in indecision; then catching suddenly the small brown eyes, he held up the pitcher with a grin of invitation. “Rick!” he called out above the scraping of the violin and the clatter of the dancing feet, “slip round hyar ef ye kin,—I’ve got somethin’ for ye;” and he shook the pitcher significantly.
Not that Mr. Harrison would for a moment have thought of Rick Pearson in a matrimonial point of view, for even the sophistication of the Cross-Roads had not yet brought him to the state of mind to consider such a half-loaf as this better than no bread; but he felt it imperative from every point of view to keep that set of young mountaineers dancing in peace and quiet, and their guns idle and out of mischief against the wall. The great red beard disappeared and reappeared at intervals, as Rick Pearson slipped along the gun-lined wall to join his host and the cider pitcher; and after he had disposed of the refreshment, in which the gang shared, he relapsed into silently watching the dancing, and meditating a participation in that festivity.
Now it so happened that the only young girl unprovided with a partner was “that thar Mandy Tyler,” of Wilkins settlement renown: the young men had rigidly adhered to their resolution to ignore her in their invitations to dance, and she had been sitting since the beginning of the festivities, quite neglected, among the married people, looking on at the amusement which she had been debarred sharing by that unpopular bit of coquetry at Wilkins settlement. Nothing of disappointment or mortification was expressed in her countenance. She felt the slight, of course,—even a “mounting” woman is susceptible of the sting of wounded pride; all her long-anticipated enjoyment had come to naught by this infliction of penance for her ill-timed jest at the expense of those five young fellows dancing with their triumphant partners, and bestowing upon her not even a glance: but she looked the express image of immobility as she sat in her clean pink calico, so carefully gotten up for the occasion, her short black hair curling about her ears, and watched the unending reel with slow dark eyes. Rick’s glance fell upon her, and without further hesitation he strode over to where she was sitting, and proffered his hand for the dance. She did not reply immediately, but looked timidly about her at the shocked pious ones on either side, who were ready but for mortal fear to aver that “dancin’ anyhow air bad enough, the Lord knows, but dancin’ with a horse thief air jest scandalous!” Then—for there is something of defiance to established law and prejudice in the born flirt everywhere—with a sudden daring spirit shining in her brightening eyes, she responded, “Don’t keer ef I do,” with a dimpling half-laugh; and the next minute the two outlaws were flying down the middle together.
While Rick was according grave attention to the intricacies of the mazy dance, and keeping punctilious time to the scraping of the old fiddle—finding it all a much more difficult feat than galloping from the Cross-Roads to the “Snake’s Mouth” on some other man’s horse with the sheriff hard at his heels,—the solitary figure of a tall gaunt man had followed the long winding path leading deep into the woods, and now began the steep descent to Harrison’s Cove. Of what was old Mr. Kenyon thinking, as he walked on in the mingled shadow and sheen? Of St. Augustine and his Forty Monks, probably, and what they found in Britain. The young men of his acquaintance would gladly have laid you any odds that he could think of nothing but his antique hobby, the ancient Church. Mr. Kenyon was the most prominent man in St. Martin’s Church in the city of B——, not excepting the rector. He was a lay-reader, and officiated upon occasions of “clerical sore-throat,” as the profane denominate the ministerial summer exodus from heated cities. This summer, however, Mr. Kenyon’s own health had succumbed, and he was having a little “sore-throat” in the mountains on his own account. Very devout was Mr. Kenyon. Many people wondered that he had never taken orders. Many people warmly congratulated themselves that he never had; for drier sermons than those he selected were surely never heard, and a shuddering imagination shrinks appalled from the problematic metal drought of his ideal original discourse. But he was an integrant part of St. Martin’s; much of his piety, materialized into contributions, was built up in its walls, and shone before men in the costliness of its decorations. Indeed, the ancient name had been conferred upon the building as a sort of tribute to Mr. Kenyon’s well-known enthusiasm concerning apostolic succession and kindred doctrines.
Dull and dismal was Mr. Kenyon, and therefore it may be considered a little strange that he should be a notable favorite with men. They were of many different types, but with one invariable bond of union: they had all at one time served as soldiers; for the war, now ten years passed by, its bitterness almost forgotten, had left some traces that time can never obliterate. What a friend was the droning old churchman in those days of battle and bloodshed and suffering and death! Not a man sat within the walls of St. Martin’s who had not received some signal benefit from the hand stretched forth to impress the claims of certain ante-Augustine British clergy to consideration and credibility; not a man who did not remember stricken fields where a good Samaritan went about under shot and shell, succoring the wounded and comforting the dying; not a man who did not applaud the indomitable spirit and courage that cut his way from surrender and safety, through solid barriers of enemies, to deliver the orders on which the fate of an army depended; not a man whose memory did not harbor fatiguing recollections of long, dull sermons read for the souls’ health of the soldiery. And through it all—by the camp-fires at night, on the long white country roads in the sunshiny mornings; in the mountains and the morasses; in hilarious advance and in cheerless retreat; in the heats of summer and by the side of frozen rivers—the ancient British clergy went through it all. And whether the old churchman’s premises and reasoning were false, whether his tracings of the succession were faulty, whether he dropped a link here or took in one there, he had caught the spirit of those stanch old martyrs, if not their falling churchly mantle.
The mountaineers about the New Helvetia Springs supposed that Mr. Kenyon was a regularly ordained preacher, and that the sermons which they had heard him read were, to use the vernacular, out of his own head. For many of them were accustomed on Sunday mornings to occupy humble back benches in the ball-room, where on week-day evenings the butterflies sojourning at New Helvetia danced, and on the Sabbath metaphorically beat their breasts, and literally avowed that they were “miserable sinners,” following Mr. Kenyon’s lugubrious lead.
The conclusion of the mountaineers was not unnatural, therefore; and when the door of Mr. Harrison’s house opened and another uninvited guest entered, the music suddenly ceased. The half-closed eyes of the fiddler had fallen upon Mr. Kenyon at the threshold; and supposing him a clergyman, he immediately imagined that the man of God had come all the way from New Helvetia Springs to stop the dancing and snatch the revelers from the jaws of hell. The rapturous bow paused shuddering on the string, the dancing feet were palsied, the pious about the walls were racking their slow brains to excuse their apparent conniving at sin and bargaining with Satan; and Mr. Harrison felt that this was indeed an unlucky party, and it would undoubtedly be dispersed by the direct interposition of Providence before the shed-room was opened and the supper eaten. As to his soul—poor man! these constantly recurring social anxieties were making him callous to immortality: this life was about to prove too much for him, for the fortitude and tact even of a father of four marriageable young ladies has a limit. Mr. Kenyon too seemed dumb as he hesitated in the doorway; but when the host, partially recovering himself, came forward and offered a chair, he said with one of his dismal smiles, that he hoped Mr. Harrison had no objection to his coming in and looking at the dancing for a while. “Don’t let me interrupt the young people, I beg,” he added as he seated himself.
The astounded silence was unbroken for a few moments. To be sure he was not a circuit-rider, but even the sophistication of Cheatham’s Cross-Roads had never heard of a preacher who did not object to dancing. Mr. Harrison could not believe his ears, and asked for a more explicit expression of opinion.
“Ye say ye don’t keer ef the boys an’ gals dance?” he inquired. “Ye don’t think it’s sinful?”
And after Mr. Kenyon’s reply, in which the astonished “mounting folks” caught only the surprising statement that dancing if properly conducted was an innocent, cheerful, and healthful amusement, supplemented by something about dancing in the fear of the Lord, and that in all charity he was disposed to consider objections to such harmless recreations a tithing of mint and anise and cummin, whereby might ensue a neglect of weightier matters of the law; that clean hands and clean hearts,—hands clean of blood and ill-gotten goods, and hearts free from falsehood and cruel intention,—these were the things well pleasing to God: after his somewhat prolix reply, the gayety recommenced. The fiddle quavered tremulously at first, but soon resounded with its former vigorous tones, and the joy of the dance was again exemplified in the grave joggling back and forth.
Meanwhile Mr. Harrison sat beside this strange new guest, and asked him questions concerning his church; being instantly, it is needless to say, informed of its great antiquity, of the journeying of St. Augustine and his Forty Monks to Britain, of the church they found already planted there, of its retreat to the hills of Wales under its oppressors’ tyranny; of many cognate themes, side issues of the main branch of the subject, into which the talk naturally drifted,—the like of which Mr. Harrison had never heard in all his days. And as he watched the figures dancing to the violin’s strains, and beheld as in a mental vision the solemn gyrations of those renowned Forty Monks to the monotone of old Mr. Kenyon’s voice, he abstractedly hoped that the double dance would continue without interference till a peaceable dawn.
His hopes were vain. It so chanced that Kossuth Johns, who had by no means relinquished all idea of dancing at Harrison’s Cove and defying Rick Pearson, had hitherto been detained by his mother’s persistent entreaties, some necessary attentions to his father, and the many trials which beset a man dressing for a party who has very few clothes, and those very old and worn. Jule, his sister-in-law, had been most kind and complaisant, putting on a button here, sewing up a slit there, darning a refractory elbow, and lending him the one bright ribbon she possessed as a neck-tie. But all these things take time; and the moon did not light Kossuth down the gorge until she was shining almost vertically from the sky, and the Harrison’s Cove people and the Forty Monks were dancing together in high feather. The ecclesiastic dance halted suddenly, and a watchful light gleamed in old Mr. Kenyon’s eyes, as he became silent, and the boy stepped into the room. The moonlight and the lamplight fell mingled on the calm, inexpressive features and tall, slender form of the young mountaineer. “Hy’re, Kossute!” a cheerful greeting from many voices met him. The next moment the music ceased once again, and the dancing came to a standstill; for as the name fell on Pearson’s ear he turned, glanced sharply toward the door, and drawing one of his pistols from his belt, advanced to the middle of the room. The men fell back; so did the frightened women,—without screaming, however, for that indication of feminine sensibility had not yet penetrated to Cheatham’s Cross-Roads, to say nothing of the mountains.
“I told ye that ye warn’t ter come hyar,” said Rick Pearson imperiously; “and ye’ve got ter go home ter yer mammy, right off, or ye’ll never git thar no more, youngster.”
“I’ve come hyar ter put you out, ye cussed red-headed horse thief!” retorted Kossuth angrily: “ye hed better tell me whar that thar bay filly is, or light out, one.”
It is not the habit in the mountains to parley long on these occasions. Kossuth had raised his gun to his shoulder as Rick, with his pistol cocked, advanced a step nearer. The outlaw’s weapon was struck upward by a quick, strong hand; the little log cabin was filled with flash, roar, and smoke; and the stars looked in through a hole in the roof from which Rick’s bullet had sent the shingles flying. He turned in mortal terror and caught the hand that had struck his pistol; in mortal terror, for Kossuth was the crack shot of the mountains, and he felt he was a dead man. The room was somewhat obscured by smoke; but as he turned upon the man who had disarmed him,—for the force of the blow had thrown the pistol to the floor,—he saw that the other hand was over the muzzle of young Johns’s gun, and Kossuth was swearing loudly that by the Lord Almighty if he didn’t take it off he would shoot it off.
“My young friend,” Mr. Kenyon began, with the calmness appropriate to a devout member of the one catholic and apostolic church; but then, the old Adam suddenly getting the upper hand, he shouted out in irate tones, “If you don’t stop that noise I’ll break your head!—Well, Mr. Pearson,” he continued, as he stood between the combatants, one hand still over the muzzle of young Johns’s gun, the other, lean and sinewy, holding Pearson’s powerful right arm with a vise-like grip,—“Well, Mr. Pearson, you are not so good a soldier as you used to be: you didn’t fight boys in the old times.”
Rick Pearson’s enraged expression suddenly gave way to a surprised recognition. “Ye may drag me through hell an’ beat me with a soot-bag ef hyar ain’t the old fightin’ preacher agin!” he cried.
“I have only one thing to say to you,” said Mr. Kenyon. “You must go: I will not have you here shooting boys and breaking up a party.”
Rick demurred. “See hyar, now,” he said, “ye’ve got no business meddlin’.”
“You must go,” Mr. Kenyon reiterated.
“Preachin’s yer business,” Rick continued: “’pears like ye don’t ’tend to it, though.”
“You must go.”
“S’pose I say I won’t,” said Rick good-humoredly: “I s’pose ye’d say ye’d make me.”
“You must go,” repeated Mr. Kenyon. “I am going to take the boy home with me, but I intend to see you off first.”
Mr. Kenyon had prevented the hot-headed Kossuth from firing by keeping his hand persistently over the muzzle of the gun; and young Johns had feared to try to wrench it away lest it should discharge in the effort. Had it done so, Mr. Kenyon would have been in sweet converse with the Forty Monks in about a minute and a quarter. Kossuth had finally let go the gun, and made frantic efforts to borrow a weapon from some of his friends, but the stern authoritative mandate of the belligerent peace-maker had prevented them from gratifying him; and he now stood empty-handed beside Mr. Kenyon, who had shouldered the old rifle in an absent-minded manner, although still retaining his powerful grasp on the arm of the outlaw.
“Waal, parson,” said Rick at length, “I’ll go, jest ter pleasure you-uns. Ye see, I ain’t forgot Shiloh.”
“I am not talking about Shiloh now,” said the old man. “You must get off at once—all of you,” indicating the gang, who had been so whelmed in astonishment that they had not lifted a finger to aid their chief.
“Ye say ye’ll take that—that—” Rick looked hard at Kossuth while he racked his brains for an injurious epithet—“that sassy child home ter his mammy?”
“Come, I am tired of this talk,” said Mr. Kenyon: “you must go.”
Rick walked heavily to the door and out into the moonlight. “Them was good old times,” he said to Mr. Kenyon, with a regretful cadence in his peculiar drawl; “good old times, them War days. I wish they was back agin,—I wish they was back agin. I ain’t forgot Shiloh yit, though, and I ain’t a-goin’ ter. But I’ll tell ye one thing, parson,” he added, his mind reverting from ten years ago to the scene just past, as he unhitched his horse and carefully examined the saddle-girth and stirrups, “ye’re a mighty queer preacher, ye air, a-sittin’ up an’ lookin’ at sinners dance, an’ then gittin’ in a fight that don’t consarn ye—ye’re a mighty queer preacher! Ye ought ter be in my gang, that’s whar ye ought ter be,” he exclaimed with a guffaw, as he put his foot in the stirrup; “ye’ve got a damned deal too much grit fur a preacher. But I ain’t forgot Shiloh yit, an’ I don’t mean ter, nuther.”
A shout of laughter from the gang, an oath or two, the quick tread of horses’ hoofs pressing into a gallop, and the outlaw’s troop were speeding along the narrow paths that led deep into the vistas of the moonlit summer woods.
As the old churchman, with the boy at his side and the gun still on his shoulder, ascended the rocky, precipitous slope on the opposite side of the ravine above the foaming waters of the wild mountain stream, he said but little of admonition to his companion: with the disappearance of the flame and smoke and the dangerous ruffian, his martial spirit had cooled; the last words of the outlaw, the highest praise Rick Pearson could accord to the highest qualities Rick Pearson could imagine,—he had grit enough to belong to the gang,—had smitten a tender conscience. He, at his age, using none of the means rightfully at his command,—the gentle suasion of religion,—must needs rush between armed men, wrench their weapons from their hands, threatening with such violence that an outlaw and desperado, recognizing a parallel of his own belligerent and lawless spirit, should say that he ought to belong to the gang! And the heaviest scourge of the sin-laden conscience was the perception that so far as the unsubdued old Adam went, he ought indeed.
He was not so tortured, though, that he did not think of others. He paused on reaching the summit of the ascent, and looked back at the little house nestling in the ravine, the lamplight streaming through its open doors and windows across the path among the laurel bushes, where Rick’s gang had hitched their horses.
“I wonder,” said the old man, “if they are quiet and peaceable again: can you hear the music and dancing?”
“Not now,” said Kossuth. Then, after a moment, “Now I kin,” he added, as the wind brought to their ears the oft-told tale of the rabbit’s gallopade in the pea-patch. “They’re a-dancin’ now, and all right agin.”
As they walked along, Mr. Kenyon’s racked conscience might have been in a slight degree comforted had he known that he was in some sort a revelation to the impressible lad at his side; that Kossuth had begun dimly to comprehend that a Christian may be a man of spirit also, and that bravado does not constitute bravery. Now that the heat of anger was over, the young fellow was glad that the fearless interposition of the warlike peace-maker had prevented any killing, “’kase ef the old man hedn’t hung on ter my gun like he done, I’d have been a murderer like he said, an’ Rick would hev been dead. An’ the bay filly ain’t sech a killin’ matter nohow: ef it war the roan three-year-old now, ’twould be different.”