Charles Egbert Craddock

“ The “gyarden spot” at the side of the house was full of brown and withered skeletons of the summer growths; among the crisp blades of the Indian-corn a sibilant voice was forever whispering; down the tawny-colored vistas the pumpkins glowed. The sky was blue; the yellow hickory flaming against it and hanging over the roof of the cabin was a fine color to see. The red sour-wood tree in the fence corner shook out a myriad of white tassels; the rolling tumult of the gray clouds below thickened, and he could hear the rain a-falling—falling into the dreary depths of the Cove. ”

“ The wind stirred in the trees; on the dark lustrous water a shimmer of sunshine fluctuated like some ethereal golden mesh. Once, the joy of spring and the bliss of love and the buoyancy of life overcame the fear in the redbird’s heart, and he sang out suddenly, as if he too would have to do with the poetry of thought and the melody of utterance, and the little brown bird in the nest listened in admiring silence. All the time Royce was conscious of Euphemia’s amazed eyes on his face; when he had finished he could scarce trust himself to meet the mute rapture of her gaze. ”

“ Even the ground, when the repetitious woods held no new revelation of tree or flower, or hazy, flickering insect dandering through the yellow sunshine and the olive-tinted shadow and the vivid green foliage, the very ground had a word for him.
"This formation here," he said, leaning from his saddle to watch the path slipping along beneath his horse's hoofs, like the unwinding of coils of brown ribbon, "is like that witch-face slope that we saw awhile ago. It seems to occur at long intervals in patches. You see down that declivity how little grows, how barren." ”

“ Julius said now and again, as he listened. He had sat long in his rickety arm-chair in the broad slant of the moonlight, that fell athwart the dim furniture and the gray shadows, for the night continued fair and the moon was specially brilliant. Once in the clear glow he saw distinctly in the further spaces the figure of a man, watchful-eyed, eager, springing toward him as he moved, and he experienced the cold chill of despair before he realized that it was his own reflection in a dull mirror at the opposite side of the great room that had elicited this apparition of terror. ”

“ For many a month afterward, whenever Lillian closed her eyes, she saw that little red coat. Shutting out the light, the world, brought neither rest nor darkness; instead, the long flaring vistas of gold and russet foliage and gray crags and flaming sunset remained indelible, and amidst it all one vivid point of scarlet hue as the little red coat was tossed through the air like a red leaf flying in the wind.
Now, as all unprescient she watched the group, she thought again they were gone. But no! Fairy-foot was a handful, even for so capital a whip as Briscoe. ”

“ She could look up into the infinite vaults of the darkness, and her hope, her soul, no longer fainted within her. The lantern, like a tiny star, lucently white, with a rayonnant halo about its focus, showed vast, rugged, crag-shaped forms looming indistinctly in these undreamed-of subterranean realms, and now the path skirted an abyss of unimagined depth, and now toiled up an ascent, mountain-like in its vague immensity, but she had no tremors, no thought of regret for the bland outer air, and the bliss of the candid sunshine. ”

“ A vivid green tipped the sombre plumes of the pines. The dull gray mists etherealized to a silver gauze, and glistened above the mellowing landscape. The wild cherry was blooming far and near. From the summit of the mountain could be seen for many a mile the dirt-road in the valley,—a tawny streak of color on every hilltop, or winding by every fallow field and rocky slope. A wild, new hope was suddenly astir in Cynthia's heart; a new energy fired her blood. It may have been only the recuperative power of youth asserting itself. ”

“ Captain Treherne lifted his head and looked about him,—only the bare sand of the bar, dimly visible in the vague light of the clouded moon, and of a differing tint from the dull neutral hue of the atmosphere of darkness. The steamer was absolutely silent, save as a loose chain might clank, swinging in the wind, for at this distance one could not discern the shaking of the transoms in their casings. There was no sight or sound of living creature, until a great bird, driven forth from its roost by the falling of a bough, or evicted by the wind, went screaming overhead. ”

“ The conical-shaped winter tenements had each a thatch of snow; the great circular council-house, with its whitened dome, glimmered as stately as some marble rotunda, on its high mound, distinct against the blurring blue shadow of the night and the gray clouds and the bare boughs of the encompassing forest. No living creature was to be seen, save the dog that had followed him, and that had paused to investigate some real or fancied find beneath the snow,—a bone, perhaps, flung out from the feastings of overnight; perhaps some little animal, young or hurt, whelmed in the drift. ”

“ A lateral spur was in the immediate foreground, high, steep, and heavily wooded, the monotony of the deep, restful green of its slopes broken here and there by vertical lines of gleaming white, betokening the trunks of the beech-trees amidst the dark preponderance of walnut and pine; more than one hung, all bleached and leafless, head downward, half uprooted, for thus the wind, past this long time, left trace of its fury. A stream—a native mountaineer, wild and free and strong—took its way down the gorge between the spur and the mountain from which it shot forth. ”

“ The lessening distance magnified them to his vision till he could discern now a bright glint of steely light as the sun struck on the burnished arms of the riders, and could distinguish the tints of the steeds—gray, blood-bay, black and roan-red; he could soon hear, too, the jingle of the spurs, the clank of sabers and carbines, and now and again the voices of the men, bluff, merry, hearty, as they rode at their ease. He would not lose sight of them till they had paused to pitch their camp at the foot of a great spur of the mountain opposite. ”

“ A vague sweet fragrance was on the vesperal air; some subtle distillation of asters or jewel-weed or “mountain-snow,” and the leafage of crimson sumac and purple sweet-gum and yellow hickory and the late ripening frost-grapes—all in the culmination of autumnal perfection; more than one star gleamed whitely palpitant in a sky that was yet blue and roseate with a reminiscence of sunset; a restful sentiment, a brief truce stilled the guerilla’s tempestuous pulse as he continued to stand beside his horse’s head while the girl waited, seated on the saddle blanket. ”