Payne Erskine - The Mountain Girl

If only his fate were a tangible thing, to be grappled with! To meet a foe and fight hand to hand to the death was not so hard as to yield himself to the inevitable. Sullenly he sat with his head in his hands, and life seemed to stretch before him, leading to a black chasm. But one ray of light was there to follow – "Cass, Cass." If only he would accept the help offered him and go to the station, take his seat in the train, and find himself in Farington, while still his pursuers were scouring the mountains for him, he might – he might win out. Moodily and stubbornly he resisted the thought.

At last, screened by the darkness, he turned out his soiled and torn garments, and divesting himself of every article Thryng had given him, he placed them carefully in the valise. Then, relieved of one humiliation, he set himself again on the path toward Hanging Rock cabin.

As he passed the great holly tree where Cassandra had sat beside him, he placed his hand on the stone and paused. His heart leaned toward her. He wanted her. Should he go down to her now and refuse to leave her? But no. He had promised. Something warm splashed down upon his hand as he bent over the rock. He sprang up, ashamed to weep, and, seizing the doctor's valise, plunged on through the shadows up the steep ascent.

He had no definite idea of how he would explain his act, for he did not comprehend his own motives. It was only a wordless repugnance that possessed him, vague and sullen, against this man's offered friendship; and his relief was great when he found David asleep before his open door.

Stealthily he entered and placed his burden beneath the couch, gazed a moment at the sleeping face whereon the firelight still played, and softly crept away. Cassandra should know that she had no need to thank the Englishman for his freedom.

Then came the weary tramp down the mountain, skulking and hiding by day, and struggling on again by night – taking by-paths and unused trails – finding his uncertain way by moonlight and starlight – barked at by dogs, and followed by hounds baying loudly whenever he came near a human habitation – wading icy streams and plunging through gorges to avoid cabins or settlements – keeping life in him by gnawing raw turnips which had been left in the fields ungathered, until at last, pallid, weary, dirty, and utterly forlorn, he found himself, in the half-light of the dawn of the fourth day, near Farington. Shivering with cold, he stole along the village street and hid himself in the bishop's grounds until he should see some one astir in the house.

The bishop had sat late the night before, half expecting him, for he had received Cassandra's letter, also one from Thryng. Neither letter threw light on Frale's deed, although Cassandra's gave him to understand that something more serious than illicit distilling had necessitated his flight. David's was a joyous letter, craving his companionship whenever his affairs might bring him near, but expressing the greatest contentment.

When Black Carrie went out to unlock the chicken house door and fetch wood for her morning fire, she screamed with fright as the young man in his wretched plight stepped before her.

"G'long, yo – pore white trash!" she cried.

"I'm no poor white trash," he murmured. "Be Bishop Towah in the house?"

"Co'se he in de haouse. Whar yo s'poses he be dis time de mawnin'?" She made with all haste toward her kitchen, bearing her armful of wood, muttering as she went.

"I reckon I'll set hyar ontwell he kin see me," he said, dropping to the doorstep in sheer exhaustion. And there he was allowed to sit while she prepared breakfast in her own leisurely way, having no intention of disturbing her "white folkses fer no sech trash."

The odor of coffee and hot cakes was maddening to the starving boy, as he watched her through the open door, yet he passively sat, withdrawn into himself, seeking in no way either to secure a portion of the food or to make himself known. After a time, he heard faintly voices beyond the kitchen, and knew the family must be there at breakfast, but still he sat, saying nothing.

At last the door of the inner room was burst open, and a child ran out, demanding scraps for her puppy.

"I may! I may, too, feed him in the dining room. Mamma says I may, after we're through."

"Go off, honey chile, mussin' de flo' like dat-a-way fer me to clean up agin. Naw, honey. Go out on de stoop wif yer fool houn' dog." And the tiny, fair girl with her plate of scraps and her small black dog leaping and dancing at her heels, tumbled themselves out where Frale sat.

Scattering her crusts as she ran, she darted back, calling: "Papa, papa! A man's come. He's here." The small dog further emphasized the fact by barking fiercely at the intruder, albeit from a safe distance.

"Yas," said Carrie, as the bishop came out, led by his little daughter, "he b'en hyar sence long fo' sun-up."

"Why didn't you call me?" he said sternly.

"Sho – how I know anybody wan' see yo, hangin' 'roun' de back do'? He ain' say nuthin', jes' set dar." She continued muttering her crusty dislike of tramps, as the bishop led his caller through her kitchen and sent his little daughter to look after her puppy.

He took Frale into his private study, and presently returned and himself carried him food, placing it before him on a small table where many a hungry caller had been fed before. Then he occupied himself at his desk while he quietly observed the boy. He saw that the youth was too worn and weak to be dealt with rationally at first, and he felt it difficult to affix the thought of a desperate crime upon one so gentle of mien and innocent of face; but he knew his people well, and what masterful passions often slept beneath a mild and harmless exterior.

Nor was it the first time he had been called upon to adjust a conflict between his own conscience and the law. Often in his office of priest he had been the recipient of confidences which no human pressure of law could ever wrest from him. So now he proceeded to draw from Frale his full and free confession.

Very carefully and lovingly he trespassed in the secret chambers of this troubled soul, until at last the boy laid bare his heart.

He told of the cause of his anger and his drunken quarrel, of his evasion of his pursuers and his vow with Cassandra before God, of his rejection of Doctor Thryng's help and his flight by night, of his suffering and hunger. All was told without fervor, – a simple passive narration of events. No one could believe, while listening to him, that storms of passion and hatred and fear had torn him, or the overwhelming longing he had suffered at the thought of Cassandra.

But when the bishop touched on the subject of repentance, the hidden force was revealed. It was as if the tormenting spirit within him had cried out loudly, instead of the low, monotonous tone in which he said: —

"Yas, I kin repent now he's dade, but ef he war livin' an' riled me agin that-a-way like he done – I reckon – I reckon God don't want no repentin' like I repents."

It was steel against flint, the spark in the narrow blue line of his eyes as he said the words, and the bishop understood.

But what to do with this man of the mountains – this force of nature in the wild; how guard him from a far more pernicious element in the civilized town life than any he would find in his rugged solitudes?

And Cassandra! The bishop bowed his head and sat with the tips of his fingers pressed together. The thought of Cassandra weighed heavily upon him. She had given her promise, with the devotion of her kind, to save; had truly offered herself a living sacrifice. All hopes for her growth into the gracious womanhood her inheritance impelled her toward, – her sweet ambitions for study, gone to the winds – scattered like the fragrant wild rose petals on her own hillside – doomed by that promise to live as her mother had lived, and like other women of her kin, to age before her time with the bearing of children in the midst of toil too heavy for her – dispirited by privation and the sorrow of relinquished hopes. Oh, well the bishop knew! He dreaded most to see the beautiful light of aspiration die out of her eyes, and her spirit grow sordid in the life to which this untamed savage would inevitably bring her. "What a waste!"