The Mountain Girl. Erskine Payne
rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_1f309b6f-4983-507b-aa59-5a345f78f177">CHAPTER XXV
IN WHICH DAVID THRYNG VISITS HIS MOTHER
IN WHICH DAVID THRYNG ADJUSTS HIS LIFE TO NEW CONDITIONS
IN WHICH THE OLD DOCTOR AND LITTLE HOYLE COME BACK TO THE MOUNTAINS
IN WHICH FRALE RETURNS TO THE MOUNTAINS
IN WHICH CASSANDRA VISITS DAVID THRYNG'S ANCESTORS
IN WHICH CASSANDRA GOES TO QUEENSDERRY AND TAKES A DRIVE IN A PONY CARRIAGE
IN WHICH DAVID AND HIS MOTHER DO NOT AGREE
IN WHICH CASSANDRA BRINGS THE HEIR OF DANESHEAD CASTLE BACK TO HER HILLTOP, AND THE SHADOW LIFTS
ILLUSTRATIONS
| "We will go home to my home just like this, together." Frontispiece. See Page 311. |
| "Casabianca, was it?" said Thryng, smiling. Page 17. |
| "I take it back—back from God—the promise I gave you there by the fall." Page 171. |
| Cassandra stood silent, quivering like one of her own mountain creatures brought to bay. Page 286. |
THE MOUNTAIN GIRL
CHAPTER I
IN WHICH DAVID THRYNG ARRIVES AT CAREW'S CROSSING
The snow had ceased falling. No wind stirred among the trees that covered the hillsides, and every shrub, every leaf and twig, still bore its feathery, white load. Slowly the train labored upward, with two engines to take it the steepest part of the climb from the valley below. David Thryng gazed out into the quiet, white wilderness and was glad. He hoped Carew's Crossing was not beyond all this, where the ragged edge of civilization, out of which the toiling train had so lately lifted them, would begin again.
He glanced from time to time at the young woman near the door who sat as the bishop had left her, one slight hand grasping the handle of her basket, and with an expression on her face as placid and fraught with mystery as the scene without. The train began to crawl more heavily, and, looking down, Thryng saw that they were crossing a trestle over a deep gorge before skirting the mountain on the other side. Suddenly it occurred to him that he might be carried beyond his station. He stopped the smiling young brakeman who was passing with his flag.
"Let me know when we come to Carew's Crossing, will you?"
"Next stop, suh. Are you foh there, suh?"
"Yes. How soon?"
"Half an houh mo', suh. I'll be back d'rectly and help you off, suh. It's a flag station. We don't stop there in winter 'thout we're called to, suh. Hotel's closed now."
"Hotel? Is there a hotel?" Thryng's voice betokened dismay.
"Yes, suh. It's a right gay little place in summah, suh." He passed on, and Thryng gathered his scattered effects. Ill and weary, he was glad to find his long journey so nearly at an end.
On either side of the track, as far as eye could see, was a snow-whitened wilderness, seemingly untouched by the hand of man, and he felt as if he had been carried back two hundred years. The only hint that these fastnesses had been invaded by human beings was an occasional rough, deeply red wagon road, winding off among the hills.
The long trestle crossed, the engines labored slowly upward for a time, then, turning a sharp curve, began to descend, tearing along the narrow track with a speed that caused the coaches to rock and sway; and thus they reached Carew's Crossing, dropping down to it like a rushing torrent.
Immediately Thryng found himself deposited in the melting snow some distance from the station platform, and at the same instant, above the noise of the retreating train, he heard a cry: "Oh, suh, help him, help him! It's poor little Hoyle!" The girl whom he had watched, and about whom he had been wondering, flashed by him and caught at the bridle of a fractious colt, that was rearing and plunging near the corner of the station.
"Poor little Hoyle! Help him, suh, help him!" she cried, clinging desperately, while the frantic animal swung her off her feet, close to the flying heels of the kicking mule at his side.
Under the heavy vehicle to which the ill-assorted animals were attached, a child lay unconscious, and David sprang forward, his weakness forgotten in the demand for action. In an instant he had drawn the little chap from his perilous position and, seizing the mule, succeeded in backing him to his place. The cause of its fright having by this time disappeared, the colt became tractable and stood quivering and snorting, as David took the bridle from the girl's hand.
"I'll quiet them now," he said, and she ran to the boy, who had recovered sufficiently to sit up and gaze in a dazed way about him. As she bent over him, murmuring soothing words, he threw his arms around her neck and burst into wild sobbing.
"There, honey, there! No one is hurt. You are not, are you, honey son?"
"I couldn't keep a holt of 'em," he sobbed.
"You shouldn't have done it, honey. You should have let me get home as best I could." Her face was one which could express much, passive as it had been before. "Where was Frale?"
"He took the othah ho'se and lit out. They was aftah him. They—"
"S-sh.