Charles Egbert Craddock

“ Ackert unwillingly cast his eagle eye down upon the cringing old man, as if he would rather welcome contradiction than assent.
“It’s accordin’ to the articles o’ war and the law of nations,” he averred. “People take advantage of age and disability”—he glanced at the blacksmith, whose left hand mechanically grasped the stump of his right arm—“as if that could protect ‘em in acts o’ treason an’ treachery;” then with a blast of impatience, “Where’s the man?” ”

“ The blacksmith’s shop, the centre of the primitive civilization, had soon an expectant group in its widely flaring doors, for the smith had had enough of the war, and had come back to wistfully, hopelessly haunt his anvil like some uneasy ghost visiting familiar scenes in which he no more bears a part;—a minié-ball had shattered his stanch hammer-arm, and his duties were now merely advisory to a clumsy apprentice. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The underbrush or the jungles of laurel that covered the steeps rendered outlet through the forests impracticable, and indeed the only road was invisible save for a vague line among the dense pines of a precipitous slope, where on approach it would materialize under one’s feet as a wheel track on either side of a line of frosted weeds, which the infrequent passing of wagon-beds had bent and stunted, yet had not sufficed to break. ”

“ He was quick of perception.
“You have no call to be afraid,” he remarked—a sort of gruff upbraiding, as if her evident trepidation impugned his justice in reprisal. “Come, you can guide me. Show me just where they came in, and just where they got out—damn ‘em!” ”

“ In a vague glimmer, growing ever stronger and clearer, he could see himself in the astral splendor of the official stars of a major-general—for in the far day of the anticipated success of the Confederacy he looked to be an officer of the line. ”

“ So feeble a community of non-combatants might hardly compass a warlike affront calculated to warrant reprisal, but the predominant Union spirit of East Tennessee was all a-pulse in the Cove, and the deed was no trifle. ”

“ Brusie, in irritation, “though ye knowed that thar guerilla, Ackert, hed been movin’ heaven an’ earth ter overhaul Tolhurst’s command before they could reach the main body. An’ hyar they war cotched like a rat in a trap.”
“I was sure that the Cornfeds, ez hed seen them lope down inter the Cove, would be waitin’ ter capshur them when they kem up the road agin—I jes’ showed him how ter crope out through the cave,” Ethelinda sobbed. ”

“ The jedge an’ jury thunk the same, fur they ‘lowed ez she war crazy—an’ so she war, ter hev ever married him! They turned her loose, but she never got another husband—I never knowed a man-person but what was skittish ‘bout any unhealthy meddlin’ with his vittles.”
She paused to count the stitches on her needles, the big shadow of her cap-ruffles bobbing on the daubed and chinked log walls in antic mimicry, while down Ethelinda’s pink cheeks the slow tears coursed at the prospect of such immurement. ”

“ The blacksmith nodded. “They say that he ‘lowed ez traitors orter be treated like traitors. But I be a-goin’ ter tell him that the Confederacy hev got one arm off’n me more’n its entitled to, an’ I’m willin’ ter call it quits at that.”
“‘Tain’t goin’ ter do him no good ter raid the Cove,” an ancient farmer averred; “an’ it’s agin’ the rebel rule, ennyhows, ter devastate the kentry they live off’n—it’s like sawin’ off the bough ye air sittin’ on.” ”

“ I’m a magistrate sir, or I was before the war run the law clean out o’ the kentry. We dun’no’ the guide—we never seen the troops.” Then, in reply to an impatient snort of negation: “If ye’ll cast yer eye on the lay of the land, ye’ll view how it happened. Thar’s the road “—he waved his hand toward that vague indentation in the foliage that marked the descent into the vale—“an’ down this e-end o’ the Cove thar’s nex’ ter nobody livin’.” ”

“ I be lookm’ fur ye ter break out with it any day. When the war is over an’ the men come back to the Cove, none of ‘em will so much as look at ye, with yer skin all pock-marked—fair an’ fine as it is now, like a pan of fraish milk. ”

“ That man, the leader, he stopped me down on the bank o’ the creek whar I war a-huntin’ of the cow, an’ he axed ‘bout the roads out’n the Cove, an’ I tole him thar war no way out ‘ceptin’ by the road he had jes’ come, an’ a path through a sorter cave or tunnel what the creek had washed out in the spur o’ the mounting, ez could be travelled whenst the channel war dry or toler’ble low, an’ he axed me ter show him that underground way. ”

“ Whenst I war a gal I war acquainted with a woman what pizened her husband, an’ they kep’ her in jail a consider’ble time—a senseless thing ter do ter jail her, ter my mind, fur he war a shif’less no-’count fool, an’ nobody but her would hev put up with him ez long ez she did. ”

“ Now only the ancient weaklings and the frail callow remained of the male population among the women and girls, who seemed mere supernumeraries in the scheme of creation, rated by the fitness to bear arms. ”

“ Once more he gazed wonderingly at her.
“I expect to do some courtin’ in this kentry when the war is over,” the guerilla said, soberly, reaching down to readjust the reins. “I haven’t got time now. Will you be waiting fur me here in Tanglefoot Cove—if I promise not to hang you fur your misdeeds right off now?” ”

“ We-uns air well an’ stout, an’ live in our good home an’ beside our own h’a’th-stone; an’ they air sick, an’ pore, an’ cast out, an’ I reckon they ain’t ever been remembered before in gifts. An’ I ‘lowed the coffee, bein’ unexpected an’ a sorter extry, mought put some fraish heart an’ hope in ‘em—leastwise show ‘em ez God don’t ‘low ‘em ter be plumb furgot. ”

“ Folks in gineral don’t think o’ them, ‘cept ter git out o’ thar way; an’ nobody keers fur them, but kase Jesus is Gawd He makes somebody remember them wunst in a while! An’ they did seem passable glad. ”