The Mountain Girl

  CHAPTER IX

  IN WHICH DAVID ACCOMPANIES CASSANDRA ON AN ERRAND OF MERCY

  Filled with the enthusiasm of his thoughts, David climbed too rapidly,and now he found he must take the more gradual rise of the mule trailwithout haste. His cap thrust in his pocket, the breeze lifted his hairand dried the perspiration which would still come with any too eagerexertion. But why should he care? Even to be alive these days was joy.This was continually the refrain of his heart, nor had he begun toexhaust his resources for entertainment in his solitary life.

  Never were the days too long. Each was filled with such new and livelyinterest as to preclude the thought of ennui. To provide against it, hehad sent for books--more than he had had time to read in all the busydays of the last three years. These and his microscope and his surgicalinstruments had been brought him on a mule team by Jerry Carew, who didhis "toting" for him, fetching all he needed for work or comfort, inthis way, from the nearest station where goods could be sent until thehotel opened in the early summer. Not that he needed them, but that, asan artist loves to keep a supply of paints and canvas, or a writer--evenwhen idle--is happier to know that he has at hand plenty of pens andblank paper, he liked to have them.

  Thus far he had felt no more need of his books than he had for hissurgical instruments, but now he was glad he had them for the sake ofthe girl who was "that sot on all such." He would open the box themoment he had eaten, and look them over. The little brother should takethem down to her one at a time--or better--he would take them himselfand watch the smile which came so rarely and sweetly to play about herlips, and in her eyes, and vanish. Surely he had a right to that for hispains.

  He heard the sound of rapid hoof beats approaching across the levelspace from the cabin above him, and looking up, as if conjured from hisinnermost thought, he saw her coming, allowing the colt to swing alongas he would. Her bonnet hung by the strings from her arm, her hair blewin crinkling wisps across her face, and the rapid exercise had broughtroses into the creamy whiteness of her skin. She kept to the brow of theridge and would have passed him unseeing, her eyes fixed on the distanthills, had he not called to her in his clear Alpine jodel.

  She reined in sharply and, slipping from the saddle, walked quickly tohim, leading the colt, which was warm and panting as if he had carriedher a good distance at that pace.

  "Oh, Doctor Thryng, we need you right bad. That's why I took this wayhome. Have you been to the house?"

  "Yes. I have just come from there."

  "Is mother all right?"

  "Doing splendidly." He waited, and she lifted her face to him anxiously.

  "We need you bad, Doctor."

  "Yes--but not you--you're not--" he began stupidly.

  "It's Mr. Irwin. I went there to see could I help any, and seemed like Icouldn't get here soon enough. When I found you were not at home, I wasthat troubled. Can--can you go up there and see why I can't rest forthinking he's a heap worse than he reckons? He thinks he's better,but--but--"

  "Come in and rest and tell me about it."

  "Mistress Irwin isn't quite well, and I must go back as soon as I canget everything done at home. I must get dinner for mother and Hoyle. Youhave been that kind to mother--I thought--I thought--if you could onlysee him--they can't spare him to die."

  "Indeed, I'll go, gladly. But you must tell me more, so that I may knowwhat to take with me. What is the matter with the man? Is he ill orhurt? Let me--oh, you are an independent young woman."

  She had turned from him to mount, and he stepped forward withoutstretched hand to aid her, but, in a breath, not seeing his offer,she placed her two hands on the horn of the saddle, and from the slightrise of ground whereon she stood, with one agile spring, landed easilyin the saddle and wheeled about.

  "He's been cutting trees to clear a patch for corn, and some way he hurthis foot, and he's been lying there nigh a week with the misery. Lastevening she sent one of the children for mother, not knowing she was badherself, so I went for Aunt Sally; but she was gone, so I rode on to theIrwins to see could I help. He said he wasn't suffering so much to-day,and it made my heart just stop to hear that, when he couldn't lifthimself. You see, my stepfather--he--he was shot in the arm, and rightsoon when the misery left him, he died, so I didn't say much--but on theway home I thought of you, and I came here fast. We know so little hereon the mountains," she added sadly, as she looked earnestly down at him.

  "You have acted wisely. Just ride on, Miss Cassandra, and I will followas soon as--"

  "Come down with me now and have dinnah at our place. Then we can starttogethah."

  "Thank you, I will. You are more expert in the art of dinner gettingthan I am, so we will lose less time." He laughed and was rewarded withthe flash of a grateful smile as she started on without another word.

  It took David but a few minutes to select what articles he suspected,from her account, might be required. He hurried his preparations, and,being his own groom, stable boy, and man-of-all-work, he was very busyabout it.

  As a strain of music or a floating melody will linger in the backgroundwith insistent repetition, while the brain is at the same time busilyoccupied with surface affairs, so he found himself repeating some of herquaint phrases, and seeing her eyes--the wisps of wind-blown hair--andthe smile on her lips, as she turned away, like an accompaniment to allhe was thinking and doing.

  Soon, equipped for whatever the emergency might demand, he was at thewidow's door. His horse nickered and stretched out his nose towardCassandra's colt as if glad to have once more a little horsecompanionship. Side by side they stood, with bridles slipped back andhung to their saddles, while they crunched contentedly at the corn onthe ear, which Hoyle had brought them.

  While at dinner, Cassandra showed David her books, pleased that heasked to see them. "I brought them to study, should I get time. It'sright hard to give up hope--" she glanced at her mother and lowered hervoice. "To stop--anyhow--I thought I might teach Hoyle a little."

  "Ah, these are mostly school-books," he said, glancing them over.

  "Yes, I was at school this time--near Farington it was. Once I stayedwith Bishop Towahs and helped do housework. I could learn a heapthere--between times. They let me have all the books I wanted to read."She looked lovingly at her few precious school-books. "I haven't touchedthese since I got back--we're that busy."

  Then she resumed her work about the house, cooking at the fireplace,waiting upon David, and serving her mother, while directing Hoyle whatto do, should she be detained that night. He demurred and hung abouther, begging her not to stay.

  "I won't, son, without I can't help it. You won't care so muchnow--mother's not bad like she was."

  "Yas, I will," he mourned.

  "I reckon I'll have to call you 'baby' again," said his mother. "You'regettin' that babyfied since Cass come back doin' all fer ye. You has aheap o' company. Thar's the cow to keer fer, 'n' ol' Pete hollerin' atye, an' the chickens tellin' how many aigs they've laid fer ye. Run now.Thar's ol' Frizzle cacklin'. Get the aig, an' we'll send hit to the poresick man. Thar, Cass," she added, as Hoyle ran out, half ashamed, to doher bidding--"hit's your own fault fer makin' such a baby of him. I 'lowyou betteh take 'long a few fresh aigs; likely they'll need 'em, sotriflin' they be. I don't guess you'll find a thing in the house fer himto eat."

  Cassandra packed one of her oddly shaped little baskets, as her mothersuggested, for the sadly demoralized and distracted family to which theywere going, and tucked in with the rest the warm, newly laid egg Hoylebrought her, smiling indulgently, and kissing his upturned face as shetook it from him.

  Toward David she was always entirely simple and natural, except whenabashed by his speech, which seemed to her most elaborate and sometimesmystifying. She would pause and gaze on him an instant when he extendedto her a courtesy, as if to give it its exact value. Not that she in theleast distrusted him, quite the contrary, but that she was wholly unusedto hearing phrased courtesies, or enthusiasms expressed in the form ofwords.

&nb
sp; She had seen something of it in the bishop's pretty complimentarypleasantries with his wife, but David's manner of handing her a chair,offering her a suggestion--with a "May I be allowed?" was foreign toher, and she accepted such remarks with a moment's hesitation and acertain aloofness hardly understood by him.

  He found himself treating her with a measure of freedom from theconstraint which men often place upon themselves because of therecognition of the personal element which will obtrude between them andfemininity in general. He recognized the reason for this in her absolutelack of coquetry toward him, but analyze the phenomenon, as yet, hecould not.

  To her he was a being from another world, strange and delightful, butset as far from her as if the sea divided them. She turned toward himsweet, expectant eyes. She listened attentively, gropingly sometimes.She would understand him if she could,--would learn from him and trusthim implicitly,--but her femininity never obtruded itself. Herpersonality seemed to be enclosed within herself and never to leantoward him with the subtile flattery men feel and like to awaken, butwhich they often fear to arouse when they wish to remain themselvesunstirred. Her dignified poise and perfect freedom from all arts toattract his favor and attention pleased him, but while it gave him thesafe and unconstrained feeling when with her, it still piqued his man'snature a little to see her so capable of showing tenderness to her own,yet so unstirred by himself.

  Cassandra had never been up to his cabin when he was there, untilto-day, since the morning she came to consult him about Frale, nor hadthat young man's name been uttered between them. David had said nothingto her of the return of the valise, not wishing to touch on the subjectunless she gave the opportunity for him to ask what she knew about it.Now, since his morning's talk with her mother had envisioned an ideal,and shown a glory beyond, he was glad to have this opportunity of beingalone with her and of sounding her depths.

  For a long time they rode in silence, and he remembered her mother'swords, "He may have told Cass, but she is that still." She carried herbasket carefully before her on the pommel of her saddle. Gradually thelarge sunbonnet which quite hid her face slipped back, and the sunlighted the bronze tints of her hair. As he rode at her side he studiedher watchfully, so simply dressed in homespun material which had fadedfrom its original color to a sort of turquoise green. The stuff washeavy and clung closely to her figure, and she rode easily, perched onher small, old-fashioned side-saddle, swaying with lithe movement to themotion of her horse. She wore no wrap, only a soft silk kerchief knottedabout her neck, the fluttering ends of which caressed her chin.

  Her cheeks became rosy with the exercise, and her gray eyes, under thegreen pines and among the dense laurel thickets, took on a warm,luminous green tint like the hue of her dress. David at last found itdifficult to keep his eyes from her,--this veritable flower of thewilderness,--and all this time no word had been spoken between them. Howimpersonal and far away from him she seemed! While he was filled withinterest in her and eager to learn the secret springs of her life, shewas riding on and on, swaying to her horse as a flower on its slenderstem sways in a breeze, as undisturbed by him as if she were not a humanbreathing girl, subject to man's dominating power.

  Was she, then, so utterly untouched by his masculine presence? hewondered. If he did not speak first, would she keep silent forever?Should he wait and see? Should he will her to speak and of herselfunfold to him?

  Suddenly she turned and looked clearly and pleasantly in his eyes."We'll be on a straight road for a piece after this hill; shall we hurrya little then?"

  "Certainly, if you think best. You set the pace, and I'll follow." Againsilence fell.

  "Do you feel in a hurry?" he asked at length.

  "I would like to get there soon. We can't tell what might be." Shepressed her hand an instant to her throat and drew in her breath as ifsomething hurt her.

  "What is it?" he asked, drawing his horse nearer.

  "Nothing. Only I wish we were there now."

  "You are suffering in anticipation, and it isn't necessary. Better not,indeed. Think of something else."

  "Yes, suh." The two little words sounded humbly submissive. He had neverbeen so baffled in an endeavor to bring another soul into a moodresponsive to his own. This gentle acquiescence was not what he wished,but that she should reveal herself and betray to him even a hint--agleam--of the deep undercurrent of her life.

  Suddenly they emerged on the crest of a narrow ridge from which theycould see off over range after range of mountain peaks on one side,growing dimmer, bluer, and more evanescent until lost in a heavenlydistance, and on the other side a valley dropping down and down into adeep and purple gloom richly wooded and dense, surrounded by precipicestopped with scrubby, wind-blown pines and oaks--a wild and rocky descentinto mystery and seclusion. Here and there a slender thread of smoke,intensely blue, rose circling and filtering through the purple densityagainst a black-green background of hemlocks.

  Contrasted with the view on the other side, so celestially fair, thisseemed to present something sinister, yet weirdly beautiful--a baffling,untamed wilderness. Along this ridge the road ran straight before themfor a distance, stony and bleak, and the air swept over it sweet andstrong from the sea, far away.

  "Wait--wait a moment," he called, as his panting horse rounded the lastcurve of the climb, and she had already put her own to a gallop. Shereined in sharply and came back to him, a glowing vision. "Stand amoment near me. We'll let our horses rest a bit and ourselves, too.There is strength and vitality in this air; breathe it in deeply. Whatjoy to be alive!"

  She came near, and their horses held quiet communion, putting theirnoses together contentedly. Cassandra lifted her head high and turnedher face toward the billowed mountains, and did what Thryng had notknown her to do, what he had wondered if she ever did-- Shelaughed--laughed aloud and joyously.

  "Why do you laugh?" he asked, and laughed with her.

  "I'm that glad all at once. I don't know why. If the mountains couldfeel and be glad, seems like they'd be laughing now away off there bythe sea. I wonder will I ever see the ocean."

  "Of course you will. You are not going to live always shut up in thesemountains. Laugh again. Let me hear you."

  But she turned on him startled eyes. "I clean forgot that poor man downbelow, so like to die I am 'most afraid to get back there. Look down. Itmust have been in a place like that where Christian slew Apollyon in thedark valley, like I was reading to Hoyle last night."

  "Does he live down in there? I mean the man Irwin--not Apollyon. He'sdead, for Christian slew him."

  "Yes, the Irwins live there. See yonder that spot of cleared red ground?There's their place. The house is hid by the dark trees nigh the redspot. Can you make it out?"

  "Yes, but I call that far."

  "It's easy riding. Shall we go on? I'm that frightened--we'd betterhurry."

  "Is that your way when you are afraid to do a thing; you hurry to do itall the more?"

  "Seems like we have to a heap of times. Seems like if I were only a man,I could be brave, but being a girl so, it is right hard."

  She started her horse to a gallop, and side by side they hurried overthe level top of the ridge--to Thryng an exhilarating moment, to her aspeeding toward some terrible, unknown trial.