Part 25 (1/2)
”You--you seen a houn' dog on--on a cent--how could he be on a cent?”
”Say, 'Frale seen a houn' dog on his scent, an' he's gone home to git shet of him.'”
”Frale seen a houn' dog on--on a--a cent, an'--an'--an' he's gone home to--to get shet of him. What's 'get shet of him,' Frale?”
”Nevah mind, honey; yer paw'll know. Run in an' tell him 'fore you forgit hit. Good-by.”
She danced gayly off toward the house, but turned to call back at him, as he stood watching her. ”Are you going to hit the 'houn'' dog with the pretty ball, Frale?”
”I reckon.” He laughed and strode off toward the one small station in the opposite direction from the way the man had taken.
Frale knew well where he had gone. On the outskirts of the village was a small grove of sycamore and gum trees, by a little stream, where it was the custom for the mountain people to camp with their canvas-covered wagons. There they would build their fires on a charred place between stones, and heat their coffee. There they would feed their oxen or mule team, tied to the rear wheels of their wagons, with corn thrown on the ground before them. At nightfall they would crawl under the canvas cover and sleep on the corn fodder within.
Often beneath the fodder might be found a few jugs of raw corn whiskey hidden away, while the articles they had brought down for sale or barter at the village stores were placed on top in plain view. Sometimes they brought vegetables, or baskets of splints and willow withes, made by their women, or they might have a few yards of homespun towelling.
The man Frale had seen was the older brother of his friend Ferdinand Teasley, and well Frale knew that he was camped with his ox team down by the spring, where it had been his habit to wait for the cover of darkness, when he could steal forth and leave his jugs where the money might be found for them, placed on some rock or stump or fallen trunk half concealed by laurel shrubs. How often had the products of Frale's still been conveyed down the mountain by that same ox team, in that same unwieldy vehicle!
Giles Teasley's cabin and patch of soil, planted always to corn, was a long distance from his father's mill, and also from his brother's still, hence he could with the more safety dispose of their illicit drink.
In the slow but deadly sure manner of his people, he had but just aroused himself to the fact that his brother's murderer was still alive and the deed unavenged; and Frale knew he had come now, not to dispose of the whiskey, since the still had been destroyed, but to find his brother's slayer and accord him the justice of the hills.
To the mountain people the processes of the law seemed vague and uncertain. They preferred their own methods. A well-loaded gun, a sure aim, and a few months of hiding among relatives and friends until the vigilance of the emissaries of the law had subsided was the rule with them. Thus had Frale's father twice escaped either prison or the rope, and during the last four years of his life he had never once ventured from his mountain home for a day at the settlements below; while among his friends his prowess and his skill in evading pursuit were his glory.
Now it was Frale's thought to dare the worst,--to walk to the station like any village youth, buy his ticket, and take the train for Carew's Crossing, and from there make his way to his haunt while yet Giles Teasley was taking his first sleep.
He reasoned, and rightly, that his enemy would linger about several days searching for him, and never dream of his having made his escape by means of the train. Since the first scurry of search was over, it was no longer the officers of the law Frale feared, but this same lank, ill-favored mountaineer, who was now warming his coffee and eating his raw salt pork and corn-bread by the stream, while his drooling cattle stood near, sleepily chewing their cuds.
CHAPTER XV
IN WHICH JERRY CAREW GIVES DAVID HIS VIEWS ON FUTURE PUNISHMENT, AND LITTLE HOYLE PAYS HIM A VISIT AND IS MADE HAPPY
Uncle Jerry Carew had led David's horse down to the station ready saddled to meet him, according to agreement, and side by side they rode back, the old man beguiling the way with talk of mountain affairs most interesting to the young doctor, who led him on from tales of his own youthful prowess, ”when catamounts and painters war nigh as frequent as woodchucks is now,” until he felt he knew pretty well the history of all the mountain side.
”Yas, when I war a littlin', no highah'n my horse's knees, I kin remember thar war a gatherin' fer a catamount hunt on Reed's Hill ovah to'ds Pisgah. Catamounts war mighty pesterin' creeters them days. Ev'y man able to tote a gun war thar. Ol' man Caswell--that war Miz Merlin--she war only a mite of a baby then--her gran'paw, he war the oldest man in th' country; he went an' carried his rifle his paw fit in th' Revolution with. He fit at King's Mountain, an' all about here he fit.”
”Did he fight in the Civil War, too?”
”Her gran'paw's paw? No. He war too ol' fer that, but his gran'son Caswell, he fit in hit, an' he nevah come back, neither. Ol' Miz Caswell--Ca.s.sandry Merlin's gran'maw, she lived a widow nigh on to thirty year. She an' her daughter--that's ol' Miz Farwell that is now--they lived thar an' managed the place ontwell she married Merlin.”
”You knew her first husband, then?”
”Yas, know him? Ev'ybody knew Thad Merlin. He come f'om ovah Pisgah way, an' he took Marthy thar. Hit's quare how things goes. I always liked Thad Merlin. The' wa'n't no harm in him.”
David saw a quaint, whimsical smile play about the old man's mouth. ”He war a preacher--kind of a mixtur of a preacher an' teacher an hunter.
Couldn't anybody beat him huntin'--and farmin'--well he could farm, too,--better'n most. He done well whatever he done, but he had a right quare way. He built that thar rock wall an' he 'lowed he'd have hit run plumb 'round the place.
”He war a fiddler, and he'd build awhile, and fetch his fiddle--he warn't right strong--an' then he'd set thar on the wall an' fiddle to the birds; an' the wild creeturs, they'd come an' hear to him. I seen squerrels settin' on end hearkin' to him, myself. Arter a while, folks begun to think 'at he didn't preach the right kind of religion, an' they wouldn't go to hear him no more without hit war to listen did he say anythin' they could fin' fault with. 'Pears like they got in that-a-way they didn' go fer nothin' else. Hit cl'ar plumb broke him all up. He quit preachin' an' took more to fiddlin', an' he sorter grew puny, an'
one day jes' natch'ly lay down an' died, all fer nothin', 'at anybody could see.”
”What was the matter with his preaching?” asked David, and again the whimsical smile played around the old man's mouth, and his thin lips twitched.