Judith of the Cumberlands. MacGowan Alice
sixteen—choked, reddened, held down his head, studying the marshal’s face anxiously from beneath lowered flax-coloured brows.
“Yes, them’s Andy and Jeff Turrentine,” Bonbright heard the husky, reluctant whisper. “Now cain’t I go?”
The newcomers were beyond earshot, but the by-play was ominous to them. The lean young bodies stiffened in their saddles, the reins came up in their hands. For a moment it seemed as if they would turn and run for it. But it was too late. Without making any reply Haley shoved his prisoner into the hands of the deputy and with prompt action intercepted the two and placed them under arrest. Bonbright observed one of the boys beckon across the heads of the gathering crowd before he dismounted, and noted that some one approached from the direction of the Court House steps and received the three riding animals. In the confusion he did not see who this was. Haley spoke to his deputy, and then drew their party sharply off toward the jail, which could be used temporarily for the detention of United States prisoners. To the last the young Turrentines muttered together and sent baleful glances toward Bonbright, whom they plainly conceived to be the author of their troubles. Poor Pony Card plodded with bent head mutely behind them, a furtive hand travelling now and again to his eyes.
Such crowd as the little village had collected was following, Bonbright with the rest, when he encountered the girl who had come from the milliner’s shop. She stood now alone by the sorrel horse with the side-saddle on it, holding the bridle-reins of the two mules, and there was a bewildered look in her dark eyes as the noisy throng swept past her which brought him—led in the hand of destiny—instantly to her side.
“What’s the matter?” he asked her. “Can I help you?” And Judith who, in her perturbation, had not seen him before, started violently at the words and tone.
“They’ve tuck the boys,” she hesitated, in a rich, broken contralto, that voice which beyond all others moves the hearts of hearers, “I—I don’t know how I’m a-goin’ to get these here mules home. Pete he won’t lead so very well.”
“Oh, were you with the men Haley arrested?” ejaculated Bonbright.
“Yes, they’re my cousins. I don’t know what he tuck ’em for,” the young, high-couraged head turned jailward; the dark eyes flashed a resentful look after the retiring posse.
“It looks like to me, from what Haley said, that there’s nothing against them,” Bonbright reassured her. “But they’re likely to be held as witnesses—that’s the worst about this business.
“I was going over there right now to see what can be done about it—being a sort of lawyer. But let me help you first. I’m Creed Bonbright—reckon you know the name—born and raised on Big Turkey Track.”
Judith’s heart beat to suffocation, the while she answered in commonplace phrase, “I shorely do. My name is Judith Barrier; I live with Uncle Jephthah Turrentine, on my farm. Hit’s right next to the old Bonbright place. We’ve been livin’ thar more’n four years. I hate to go back and tell Uncle Jep of the boys bein’ tuck; and that big mule, Pete, I don’t know how I’m a-goin’ to git him out o’ the settlement, he’s that mean and feisty about town streets.”
“I reckon I can manage him,” Bonbright suggested, looking about. “Oh, Givens!” he called to a man hurrying past. “When you get over there ask Haley not to take any definite action—I reckon he wouldn’t anyhow. I’m going to represent the prisoners, and I’ll be there inside of half an hour. Now let me put you on your horse, Miss Judith, and I’ll lead the mules up the road a piece for you.”
And so it came about that Judith sprang to the back of the sorrel nag from Creed Bonbright’s hand. Creed, still bareheaded, and wholly unconscious of the fact, walked beside her leading the mules. They passed slowly up the street towards the mountainward edge of Hepzibah, talking as they went in the soft, low, desultory fashion of their people.
The noises of the village, aroused from its usual dozing calm, died away behind them. Beyond the last cabin they entered a sylvan world all their own. While he talked, questioning and replying gravely and at leisure, the man was revolving in his mind just what action would be best for the prisoners whose cause he had espoused. As for Judith, she had forgotten that such persons existed, that such trivial mischance as their arrest had just been; she was concerned wholly with the immediate necessity to charm, to subjugate the man.
“Creed walked beside her leading the mules.”
A rustic belle and beauty, used to success in such enterprises, in the limited time at her command she brought out for Creed’s subduing her little store of primitive arts. She would know, Pete suggesting the topic, if he didn’t despise a mule, adding encouragingly that she did. The ash, it seemed, was the tree of her preference; didn’t he think it mighty sightly now when it was just coming into bloom? His favourite season of the year, his favoured colour, of such points she made inquiry, giving him, in an elusive feminine fashion, ample opportunity to relate himself to her. And always he answered. When all was spoken, and at the first sharp rise she drew rein for the inevitable separation, she could not have said that she had failed; but she knew that she had not succeeded.
“Ye can jest turn Pete a-loose now,” she told him gently. “He’ll foller from here on.”
Bonbright, on his part, was not quite aware why he paused here, yet it seemed cold and unfriendly to say good-bye at once, Again he assured her that he would go immediately to the jail and find what could be done for her cousins. There was no more to be said now—yet they lingered.
It was a blowy, showery March day, its lips puckered for weeping or laughter at any moment, the air full of the dainty pungencies of new life. Winged ants, enjoying their little hour of glory, swarmed from their holes and turned stone or stump to a flickering, moving grey. About them where they stood was the awakening world of nature. Great, pale blue bird-foot violets were blooming on favoured slopes, and in protected hollows patches of eyebright made fairy forests on the moss, while under tatters of dead leaves by the brookside arbutus blushed. Above their heads the tracery of branches was a lace-work overlaid with fanlike budding green leaves, except where the maples showed scarlet tassels, or the Judas tree flaunted its bold, lying, purple-pink promise of fruitage never to be fulfilled.
Could two young creatures be wiser than nature’s self? It was the new time; all the gauzy-winged ephemeræ in the moist March woods were throbbing with it, buzzing or flashing about seeking mates and nectar. The earth had wakened from her winter sleep and set her face toward her ancient, ardent lover, the sun. In the soul of Judith Barrier—Judith the nature woman—all this surged strongly. As for the man, he had sent forth his spirit in so general a fashion, he conceived himself to have a mission so impersonal, that he scarce remembered what should or should not please or attract Creed Bonbright.
Judith dreaded lest he make his farewells before she had from him some earnest of a future meeting. He could not say good-bye and let her leave him so! It seemed to her that if he did she should die before she reached the mountain-top. Dark, rich, earth-born, earth-fast, material, she looked down at Creed where he stood beside her, his hand on the sorrel’s neck, his calm blue eyes raised to hers. Her gaze lingered on the fair hair flying in the March breeze, above a face selfless as that of some young prophet. Her eager, undisciplined nature found here what it craved. Coquetry had not availed her; it had fallen off him unrecognised—this man who answered it absently, and thought his own thoughts. And with the divine pertinacity of life itself she delved in the ancient wisdom of her sex for a lure to make him rise and follow her. It was not bright eyes nor red lips that could move or please him? But she had seen him moved, aroused. The hint was plain. Instantly abandoning her personal siege, she espoused the cause of her bodiless rival.
“I—I heard you a-speakin’ back there,” she said with a little catch in her breath.
Bonbright’s eyes returned from the far distances to which they had travelled after giving her—Judith Barrier, so worthy of a blue-eyed youth’s respectful attention—a passing