Charles Egbert Craddock

“ Pete laughed, his great fore-teeth, his flexible lip, his long, bony face and tangled mane giving him something of an equine aspect. His mood was unusually jocular; and, indeed, a man might experience some elation of spirit to be the only one of the 'lopers round' at the mill who had been present at a trial of such significance. The close attention accorded his every word demonstrated the interest in the subject, and the guffaws which greeted his sketch of the familiar character of the old 'Squair' was a flattering tribute to his skill as a raconteur. ”

“ But somehow the passion of covetousness is an untouched spring in the nature of these mountaineers. The idea of ownership did not enter into Dorinda's mind as she gazed at the green plaster parrot that perched in state on the high mantelpiece. She was sensible of its merits as a feature of the domestic landscape at the 'jestice's house,' precisely as the sight of the distant Chilhowee was company in her lonely errands about the mountain. To be deprived of either would be like a revulsion of nature. ”

“ It was a wild, aërial panorama—the black clouds, and the rain, and the mist rolling through the deep gorge, veined with lightnings and vocal with thunder, and the thunderous echoes among the rocks.
Not a leaf stirred on the mountain's brow, and the great 'bald' lifted its majestic crest in a sunshine all unpaled, and against the upper regions of the air, splendidly blue. There was an analogy in the scene with his mood and hers.
A moment ago he had been saying to himself that he did not want to be 'turned off' in favour of a man who was hunted like a wild animal through the woods ”

“ The moon had weighed anchor at last, and dropped down behind the mountain summit, leaving the bay with a melancholy waning suffusion of light, and the night very dark.
II.
The summer days climbed slowly over the Great Smoky Mountains. Long the morning lingered among the crags, and chasms, and the dwindling shadows. The vertical noontide poised motionless on the great balds. The evening dawdled along the sunset slopes, and the waning crimson waited in the dusk for the golden moonrise.
So little speed they made that it seemed to Rick Tyler that weeks multiplied while they loitered. ”

“ She paused often, and looked idly about her: sometimes at the distant mountains, blue and misty, against the indefinite horizon; sometimes down at the cool, dense shadows of the wooded valley, so far below the precipice, to which the steep clearing shelved; sometimes at the little log-cabin on the slope above, sheltered by a beetling crag and shadowed by the pines; sometimes still higher at the great 'bald' of the mountain, and its mingled phantasmagoria of shifting clouds and flickering sheen and glimmering peak. ”

“ The dark wooded coves had a clear distinctness of tone and definiteness of detail, despite the distance. The harmonies of colour that filled the landscape culminated in a crimson sumach growing hard by in a corner of a rail fence. The little house was still. The muffled tread of his horse's hoofs in the deep, dry sand did not rouse the sleeping hounds under the porch. The vines clambering to its roof were full of tiny yellow gourds; he could see through the gaps Dorinda's spinning-wheel against the wall. ”

“ The sun would shine, and the crops ripen, and the harvest come, and the snows sift down, and the seasons revolve. The boys would shoot for beef, and there was to be a gander-pulling at the Settlement when the candidates should come 'stumpin' the Big Smoky' for the midsummer elections. And when, periodically, 'the mountings' would wake to a sense of sin, and a revival would be instituted, all the people would meet, and clap their hands, and sing, and pray, and that busy sinner, D'rindy, might find time to think upon grace, and perhaps upon the man whom she likened to the prophets of old. ”

“ Grain grows apace in these scanty clearings, for the soil in certain favoured spots is mellow; and the weeds grow, too, and in a wet season the ploughs are fain to be active. They are of the bull-tongue variety, and are sometimes drawn by oxen. As often as otherwise they are followed by women.
In the gracious June mornings, when winds are astir and wings are awhirl in the wide spaces of the sunlit air, the work seemed no hardship to Dorinda Cayce—least of all one day when another plough ran parallel to the furrows of her own, and a loud, drawling, intermittent conversation became practicable. ”

“ An' mebbe I won't be so durned lonesome when I gits back hyar.'
He mounted his horse, later in the day, and picked his way slowly down the banks of the stream and through the great gate.
The Settlement on a spur of the Big Smoky illustrated the sacrilege of civilization. A number of trees, girdled years ago, stretched above the fields their gigantic skeletons, suggesting their former majesty of mien and splendid proportions. Their forlorn, leafless branches rattled together with a dreary sound, as the breeze stirred among the gaunt and pallid assemblage. ”

“ Always enwrapped in the illusory mists, always touching the evasive clouds, the peaks of the Great Smoky Mountains are like some barren ideal, that has bartered for the vague isolations of a higher atmosphere the material values of the warm world below. ”

“ Upon those mighty and majestic domes no tree strikes root, no hearth is alight; humanity is an alien thing, and utility set at naught. Below, dense forests cover the massive, precipitous slopes of the range, and in the midst of the wilderness a clearing shows, here and there, and the roof of a humble log-cabin; in the valley, far, far lower still, a red spark at dusk may suggest a home, nestling in the cove. ”

“ Women looked out of the windows, and a girl on a porch, reeling yarn, found a reason to stop her work. A man came out of a house close by, and sat on the fence, within range of any colloquy in which he might wish to participate. The whole town could join at will in a municipal conversation. The forge fire showed a dull red against the dusky brown shadows in the recesses of the shop. The blacksmith stood in front of the door, his eyes shielded with his broad blackened right hand, and looked critically at the steed. Horses were more in his line than men. ”

“ The displeasure of his fellows is a slight and ephemeral matter to a man whose mind is fixed on a great essential question, charged with moral gravity and imperishable consequence; whose physical courage is the instinct of his nature, conserved by its active exercise in a life of physical hardship.
Kelsey had forgotten the gander-pulling, the impending election, the excitement of the escape, before he had ridden five miles from the Settlement. ”

“ They could not pursue and capture the men in the dark. If the furnace door were opened they would be targets in the glare for the lurking moonshiners in the glooms beyond. It did not occur to them that the cave had another outlet, until, as the echoes of the fallen fragment grew faint, they heard far away a voice crying out, 'Don't leave me!' and the mocking rocks repeating it with their tireless mimicry. ”

“ The dark, lustrous reflection of the sassafras and huckleberry bushes on the summit of the vertical rocky bank was like some mezzotinted landscape under glass. A frog on one of the ledges at the waterside was a picture of amphibious content; sometimes his mouth opened and shut quickly, with an expression, if not beautiful, implying satisfaction. Pete lazily caught up a stick which he had been whittling. ”

“ His perceptions were inefficient to accurately distribute blame; he was only receptive, poor fellow! and we all know that in every sense those who can only take, and cannot return, have little to hope from the world. He was evidently not worth fearing; and Micajah Green disregarded him as completely as the presence of the anvil.
'Talkin' 'bout Rick Tyler, did you-uns go sarchin' that night—the dep'ty's party—ter the still they say old man Cayce runs?'
'Naw'—Gid Fletcher paused, his hammer uplifted, the red glow of the iron on his meditative face and eyes ”

“ For the lack of the more modern broche-holder she thrust a stick through the tunnel of the shuck on which the yarn was wound, placing the end of it, to hold it steady, in her low shoe; catching the thread between her deft fingers she threw it with a fine free gesture over the periphery of the reel. And then the whirling spokes were only a rayonnant suggestion, so swiftly they sped round and round in the light of the fire, and a musical low whirr broke forth. Now and then the reel ticked and told off another cut, and she would bend forward to tie the thread with a practised dextrous hand. ”

“ He sat brooding upon them, and looking at the fire with dulled meditative eyes. One of the logs, burnt in twain, broke with a crash under the burden of the others, and the fire, quickening about them, sent up myriads of sparks attendant upon the freshening flames; among the pulsating red coals there were dazzling straw-tinted gleams, and a vista of white heat that repelled the eye.
Outside the wind was rising—its voice hollow, keen, and shrill as it swept over the icy chasms; the trees were crashing their bare boughs together. ”

“ A man is never so plastic to virtuous impulses as when he is doing well his chosen work. Labour was ordained to humanity as a curse; surely God repented Him of the evil. What blessing has proved so beneficent! ”

“ It was strange, looking upon their faces, and with a knowledge of the limited phases of their existence, their similarity of experience here, where a century might come and go, working no change save that, like the leaves, they fluttered awhile in the outer air with the spurious animation called life, and fell in death, and made way for new bourgeonings like unto themselves—strange to mark how they differed. ”

“ I'll take it back,' said Amos gravely. 'I'm the Philistine myself; fur pa'son read ez Samson killed a passel o' Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, an' ez long ez ye be talkin' I feel in an' about dead.'
Amos James had bent close attention to the sermon, and had brought as much accurate information from meeting as was consistent with hearing so sensational a story as Samson's for the first time. In the mountains men do not regard church privileges as the opportunity of a quiet hour to meditate on secular affairs, while a gentle voice drones on antiquated themes. ”

“ Down a precipitous path, hardly more civilized of aspect than if it were trodden by the deer, filled with interlacing roots, barricaded by long briery tangles, overhung by brush and overshadowed by trees—down this sylvan way Dorinda, followed by Jacob and one or two of the companionable old hounds, was wont to go to the spring under the crag. ”

“ Dorinda might be thought to abuse her opportunities.
'He ain't studyin' 'bout'n me, no more 'n I be 'bout'n him,' she said, with scant relish for the spectacle of Rick Tyler's jealousy. 'Pa'son Kelsey jes' stops thar ter the house ter rest his bones awhile, arter he comes down off'n the bald, whar he goes ter pray.'
'In the name o' reason,' exclaimed the young fellow petulantly, 'why can't he pray somewhar else? A man ez hev got ter h'ist hisself on the bald of a mounting ten mile high—except what's lackin'—ter git a purchase on prayer hain't got no religion wuth talkin' 'bout. ”

“ The blacksmith had risen, panting, with wild eyes, his veins standing out in thick cords, perspiring from every pore, and in a bounding fury.
'What do I want with him? I want ter put his head on my anvil thar, an' beat the foolishness out'n it with my hammer. I want ter kick him off'n this hyar bluff down ter the forge fires o' hell. That air what I want. An' the State o' Tennessee ain't wantin' much differ.'
'Gid Fletcher,' said the man who had been sitting on the stump—he spoke in an accusing voice—'ye ain't keerin' nuthin' fur the law o' the land, nor the peace o' Big Smoky, nuther. ”

“ One might regard the satisfaction of this simple scene as the due meed of his labours; one might account his pride in his attainments as a harmless human weakness. There have been those of his calling, proud, too, of a finite knowledge, and fain to conserve fame, whose conscience makes no moan—who care naught for humility, and hardly hope to be genuine. ”

“ Yer paster b'lieves, an' he'll lead ye ter grace—leastwise ter a better life. But fur me thar's the nethermost depths of hell, ef'—how his faith and his unfaith tried him!—'ef thar be enny hell. Leastwise——Stop, brother,'—he held up his hand in deprecation, for Parson Tobin had risen at last, with a white, scared face; nothing like this had ever been heard in all the length and breadth of the Great Smoky Mountains—'bear with me a little; ye'll see me hyer no more. Fur me thar is shame, ah! an' trial, ah! an' doubt, ah! an' despair, ah! The good things o' life hev not fallen ter me. ”

“ The mysterious disappearance of a horse-thief or a revenue spy, dramatically chronicled, with a wink and a significant grin, as 'never hearn on no more,' or 'fund dead in the road one mornin',' affects the mountaineers much as the hangman's summary in the Friday evening papers impresses more law-abiding communities—shocking, but necessary. ”

“ An' thar's that thar D'rindy, a-seein' it all, an' a-lookin' at it ez wide-eyed ez a cat in the dark.'
Dorinda went home planning a rescue. Against the law this probably was, she thought. 'Ef it air—it oughtn't ter be,' she concluded arbitrarily. 'It don't hurt nobody.' How serious it was—a felony—she did not know, nor did she care. She went on sturdily, debating within herself how best to tell the news. With an intuitive knowledge of human nature, she reckoned on the prejudice aroused by the recital of the blacksmith's assault upon the preacher, and the forbearance of the man of God. ”