Kelsey trudged on with his slide and his oxen, elated by his moral triumph. He glorified himself for his meekness. He joyed, with all the turbulent impulses of victory, in the blacksmith's discomfiture.

Yet he was cognizant of his own deeper, subtler springs of action. There was that within him which forbade him to take the life of an unarmed man, but he piqued himself that he forbore. He had withheld even the return of the blow. But he knew that in refraining he had struck deeper still. He dwelt upon the scene with the satisfaction of an inventor. He, too, could foresee the consequences: the blood-curdling eloquence; the port and pose of a martyr; the far-spread distrust of the blacksmith's professions of piety, under which that doughty religionist already quaked.

And as he reflected he replied, tartly, to the monitor within, 'Be angry, and sin not.'

And the monitor had no text.

Because of the night drifting down, perhaps—drifting down with a chilling change; because of the darkened solemnity of the dreary woods; because of the stars shining with a splendid aloofness from all that is human; because of the melancholy suggestions of a will-o'-the-wisp glowing in a marshy tangle, his exultant mood began to wane.

'Thar it is!' he cried suddenly, pointing at the mocking illusion—'that's my religion: looks like fire, an' it's fog!'

His mind had reverted to his wild supplications in the solitudes of the 'bald'—his unanswered prayers. The oxen had paused of their own accord to rest, and he stood looking at the spectral gleam.

'I'd never hev thunk o' takin' up with religion,' he said, in a shrill, upbraiding tone, 'ef I hed been let ter live along like other men be, or ef me an mine could die like other folks be let ter die! But it 'peared ter me ez religion war 'bout all ez war lef', arter I hed gin the baby the stuff the valley doctor hed lef' fur Em'ly—bein' ez I couldn't read right the old critter's cur'ous scrapin's with his pencil—an' gin Em'ly the stuff fur the baby. An' it died. An' then Em'ly got onsettled an' crazy, an' tuk ter vagrantin' 'roun', an' fell off'n the bluff. An' some say she flunged herself off'n it. And I knows she flunged herself off'n it through bein' out'n her mind with grief.'

He paused, leaning on the yoke, his dreary eyes still on the ignis fatuus of the woods. 'An' then Brother Jake Tobin 'lowed ez religion war fur sech ez me. I hed no mind ter religion. But the worl' hed in an' about petered out for me. An' I tuk up with religion. I hev sarved it five year faithful. An' now'—he cast his angry eyes upward—'ye let me believe that thar is no God!'

So it was that Satan hunted him like a partridge on the mountains. So it was that he went out into the desert places to upbraid the God in whom he I believed because he believed that there was no God. There was a tragedy in his faith and his unfaith. That this untrained, untutored mind should grope among the irreconcilable things—the problems of a merciful God and His afflicted people, foreordained from the beginning of the world and free agents! That to the ignorant mountaineer should come those distraught questions that vex polemics, and try the strength of theologies, and give the wise men an illimitable field for the display of their agile and ingenious solutions and substitutions! He knew naught of this: the wild Alleghanies intervened between his yearning, empty despair and their plenished fame, the splendid superstructure on the ruins of their faith. He thought himself the only unbeliever in a Christian world, the only inherent infidel: a mysteriously accursed creature charged with the discovery of the monstrous fallacy of that beneficent comfort, assuaging the grief of a stricken world, and called an overruling Providence. Again his flickering faith would flare up, and he would reproach God who had suffered its lapse. This was his secret and his shame, and he guarded it. And so when he preached his wild sermons with a certain natural eloquence; and prayed his frantic prayers, instinct with all the sincerities of despair; and sang with the people the mournful old hymns, in the little meeting-house on the notch, or on the banks of the Scolacutta River, where they went down to be baptized, his keen introspection, his moral dissent, which he might not forbear, yet would not avow, were an intolerable burden, and his spiritual life was the throe of a spiritual anguish.

Often there was no intimation in those sermons of his of the quaint doctrines which delight the simple men of his calling in that region, who are fain to feel learned. His Christ, to judge from this mood, was a Paramount Emotion; not the Christ who confuted the wise men in the temple, and read in the synagogues, and said dark allegories; but He who stilled the storm, and healed the sick, and raised the dead, and wept, most humanly, for the friend whom he loved. Kelsey's trusting heart contended with his doubting mind, and the simple humanities of these sermons comforted him. Sometimes he sought consolation otherwise; he would remember that he had never been like his fellows. This was only another manifestation of the dissimilarity that dated from his earliest recollections. He had from his infancy peculiar gifts. He was learned in the signs of the weather, and predicted the mountain storms; he knew the haunts and habits of every beast and bird in the Great Smoky, every leaf that burgeons, every flower that blows. So deep and incisive a knowledge of human nature had he, that this faculty was deemed supernatural, and akin to the gift of prophecy. He himself understood, although perhaps he could not have accurately limited and defined it, that he exercised unconsciously a vigilant attention and an acute discrimination; his forecast was based upon observation so close and unsparing, and a power of deduction so just, that in a wider sphere it might have been called judgment, and, reinforced by education, have attained all the functions of a ripened sagacity.

Crude as it was, it did not fail of recognition. In many ways his 'word' was sought and heeded. His influence yielded its richest effect when his confrÈre of the pulpit would call on him to foretell the fate of the sinner and the wrath of God to the Big Smoky. And then Brother Jake Tobin would accompany the glowing picture by a slow rhythmic clapping of hands and a fragmentary chant, 'That dreadful Day air a-comin' along!'—bearing all the time a smiling and beatific countenance, as if he were fireproof himself, and brimstone and flame were only for his friends.

Rousing himself from his reverie with a sigh, Hiram Kelsey urged the oxen along the sandy road, which had here and there a stony interval threatening the slide with dissolution at every jolt. They began presently to quicken their pace of their own accord. The encompassing woods and the laurel were so dense that no gleam of light was visible till they brought up suddenly beside a rail fence, and the fitful glimmer of firelight from an open door close at hand revealed the presence of a double log cabin. There was an uninclosed passage between the two rooms, and in this a tall, gaunt woman was standing.

'Thar be Hi now, with the steers,' she said, detecting the dim bovine shadows in the flickering gleams.

Tell Hiram ter come in right now,' cried a chirping voice, like a superannuated cricket. 'I hev a word ter ax him.'

'Tell Hiram ter feed them thar steers fust,' cried out another ancient voice, keyed several tones lower, and also with the ring of authority.

'Tell Hiram,' shrilly piped the other, 'ter hustle his bones, ef he knows what air good fur 'em.'

'Tell Hiram,' said the deeper voice, sustaining the antiphonal effect, 'I want them thar steers feded foreshortly.'

Then ensued a muttered wrangle within, and finally the shriller voice was again uplifted:

'Tell Hiram what my word air.'

'An' ye tell Hiram what my word air.'

The woman, who was tall as a grenadier, and had a voice like velvet, looked meekly back into the room, upon each mandate, with a nod of mild obedience.

'Ye hearn 'em,' she said softly to Kelsey. Evidently she could not undertake the hazard of discriminating between these co-equal authorities.

'I hearn 'em,' he replied.

She sat down near the door, and resumed her occupation of monotonously peeling June apples for 'sass.' Her brown calico sun-bonnet, which she habitually wore, in doors and out, obscured her visage, except her chin and absorbed mouth, that now and then moved in unconscious sympathy with her work. There was a piggin on one side of her to receive the quartered fruit, and on the other a white oak splint basket, already half full of the spiral parings. On the doorstep her husband sat, a shaggy-headed, full-bearded, unkempt fellow, in brown jeans trousers reaching almost to his collarbone in front, and supported by the single capable suspender so much affected in the mountains. His unbleached cotton shirt was open at the throat, for there was fire enough in the huge chimney-place to make the room unpleasantly warm, despite the change of temperature without. Now and then he stretched out his hand for an apple already pared, which his wife gave him with an adroit back-handed movement, and which he ate in a mouthful or two. He made way for Kelsey to enter, and asked him a question, almost inarticulate because of the apples, but apparently of hospitable intent, for Kelsey said he had had a bite and a sup at Jonas Trice's, and did not want the supper which had been providently saved for him.

Kelsey did not betray which command he had thought best to obey.

'I hed ter put my rifle on the rack in the t'other room, gran'dad,' he observed meekly, addressing one of two very old men who sat on either side of the huge fireplace. There were cushions in their rude arm chairs, and awkward little three-legged footstools were placed in front of them. Their shoes and clothing, although coarse to the last degree, were clean and carefully tended. They had each long ago lived out the allotted threescore years and ten, but they had evidently not worn out their welcome. One had suffered a paralytic attack, and every word and motion was accompanied with a convulsive gasp and jerk. The other old man was saturnine and lymphatic, and seemed a trifle younger than his venerable associate.

'What war ye a-doin' of with yer rifle?' mumbled gran'dad in wild, toothless haste.

'I tuk it along ter see, when I war a-comin' home, ef I mought shoot suthin' tasty for supper.'

'What did ye git?' demanded gran'dad, with retrospective greed; for supper was over, and he had done full justice to his share.

'I never got nuthin',' said Kelsey, a trifle shame-facedly.

'Waal, waal, waal! These hyar latter times gits cur'ouser ez they goes along. The stren'th an' the seasonin' hev all gone out'n the lan'. Whenst I war young, folks ez kerried rifles ter git suthin' fur supper never kem home a-suckin' the bar'l. Folks ez kerried rifles in them days didn't tote 'em fur—fur—a 'ornamint. Folks in them days lef preachin' an' prophecy an' sech ter thar elders, an' hunted the beastis an' the Injun,—though sinners is plentier than the t'other kind o' game on the Big Smoky these times. No man in them days, jes' turned thirty, sot hisself down ter idlin', an' preachin', an' convictin' his elders o' sin.'

Kelsey bore himself with the deferential humility characteristic of the mountaineers towards the aged among them.

'What war the word ez ye war a-layin' off to say ter me, gran'dad?' he asked, striving to effect a diversion.

'Waal, waal, look a-hyar, Hiram,' exclaimed the old man, remembering his question in eager precipitancy. 'This hyar 'Cajah Green, ye know, ez air a-runnin' fur sher'ff—air—air he Republikin or Dimmycrat?'

'Thar's no man in these hyar parts smart enough ter find that out,' interpolated Obediah Scruggs in the door, circumspectly taking the apple seeds out of his mouth. He was the son of one of the magnates, and the son-in-law of the other; his matrimonial venture had resulted in doubling his filial obligations. His wife had brought, instead of a dowry, her aged father to the fireside.

''Cajah Green,' continued the speaker, 'run ez a independent las' time, an' thar war so many bolters an' sech they split the vote, an' he war 'lected. An' now he air a-runnin' agin.'

The old man listened to this statement, his eye blazing, his chin in a quiver, his lean figure erect, and the pipe in his palsied hand shaking till the coal of fire on top showed brightening tendencies.

'Waal, sir! waal!' exclaimed the aged politician, with intense bitterness. 'The stren'th an' the seasonin' hev all gone out'n the lan'! Whenst I war young,' he declared dramatically, drawing the pitiable contrast, 'folks knowed what they war, an they let other folks know, too, ef they hed ter club it inter 'em. But them was Old Hickory's times. Waal, waal, we ain't a-goin' ter see Old Hickory no more—no—more!'

'I hopes not,' said the other old man, with sudden asperity. 'I hopes we'll never see no sech tormentin' old Dimmycrat agin. But law! I needn't fret my soul. Henry Clay shook all the life out'n him five year afore he died. Henry Clay made a speech agin Andrew Jackson in 1840 what forty thousan' people kem ter hear. Thar war a man fur ye! He hed a tongue like a bell; 'pears like ter me I kin hear it yit, when I listens right hard. By Gum!' triumphantly, 'that day he tuk the stiffenin' out'n Old Hickory! Surely, surely, he did! Ef I thought I war never a-goin' ter hear Old Hickory's name agin I'd tune up my ears fur the angel's quirin'. I war born a Republikin, I grow'd ter be a good Whig, an' I'll die a Republikin. Ef that ain't religion I dunno what air! That's the way I hev lived an' walked afore the Lord. An' hyar in the evenin' o' my days I hev got ter set alongside o' this hyar old consarn, an' hear him jow 'bout'n Old Hickory from mornin' till night. Ef I hed knowed how he war goin' ter turn out 'bout'n Old Hickory in his las' days, I wouldn't hev let my darter marry his son, thirty-five year ago. I knowed he war a Dimmycrat, but I never knowed the stren'th o' the failin' till I were called on ter 'speriunce it.'

'Ye 'lowed t'other day, gran'dad,' said Kelsey, addressing the aged paralytic in a propitiatory manner, 'ez ye warn't a-goin' ter talk 'bout'n Old Hickory no more. It 'pears like ter me ez ye oughter gin yer 'tention ter the candidates ez ye hev got ter vote fur in August—'Cajah Green, an' sech.'

But it must be admitted that Micajah Green was not half the man that Old Hickory was, and the filial remonstrance had no effect. The acrimonies of fifty years ago were renewed across the hearth with a rancour that suggests that an old grudge, like old wine, improves with time. No one ventured to interrupt, but Obediah Scruggs, still lounging in the door, commented in a low tone:

'The law stirs itself ter sot a time when a man air old enough ter vote an' meddle with politics ginerally. 'Pears like ter me it ought ter sot a time when he hev got ter quit.'

'Waal, Obediah!' exclaimed the soft-voiced woman, the red parings hanging in concentric circles from her motionless knife. 'That ain't religion. Ye talk like a man would hev ter be ez sensible an' solid fur politics ez fur workin' on the road. They don't summons the old men fur sech jobs ez that. They mought ez well enjye the evenin' o' thar days with this foolishness o' politics ez enny other.'

'Shucks!' said Obediah, who had the courage of his convictions. 'These hyar old folks hev hed ter live in the same house an' ride in the same wagin thirty-five year, jes' 'kase, when we war married, they agreed ter put what they hed tergether; an' they hev been a-fightin' over thar dead an' gone politics ev'ry minit o' the time sence. Thar may be some good Dimmycrats, an' thar may be some good Republikins, but they make a powerful oneasy team, yoked tergether. An' when it grows on 'em so, the law oughter step in, an' count 'em over age, an' shet 'em up. 'Specially ez dad hev voted fur Andy Jackson fur Presidint outer respec' fur his mem'ry, ev'y 'lection sence the tormentin' old crittur died.'

But he said all this below his breath, and presently fell silent, for his wife's face had clouded, and her soft drawling voice had an intimation of a depression of spirit.

'The kentry hev kem ter its ruin,' exclaimed the paralytic, 'when men—brazen-faced buzzards—kin go an' git 'lected ter office 'thout no party ter boost 'em! Look a-hyar,'—he turned to his grandson,—'ye air always a-prophesyin'. Prophesy some now. Air 'Cajah Green a-goin' ter be 'lected?'

He thumped the floor with his stick, and fixed his imperative eye upon Hiram Kelsey's face.

'Naw, gran'dad. He won't be 'lected,' said the prophet.

The old man's face was scarlet because of this contradiction of his own dismal vaticinations.

''Cajah Green will be 'lected,' he cried. 'The kentry's ruined. Folks dunno whether they air Republikins or Dimmycrats! Lor' Almighty, ter think o' that! The kentry's ruined! An' yer prophesyin' don't tech it. They hed false prophets in the old days, an' the tribe holds out yit.'

He struck the floor venomously with his stick. Its defective aim once or twice brought it upon a rough black bundle that lay rolled up in front of the fire like a great dog. A slow head was lifted inquiringly, with an offended mien, from the rolls of fat and far. Twinkling small eyes glared out. When another blow descended, with a wild disregard of results, there was a whimper, a long, low growl, a flash of white teeth, and with claw and fang the pet cub caught at the stick. The old man dropped it in a panic.

'Look a-yander at the bar!' he shrieked.

But the cub had crouched on the floor since the stick had fallen, and was whimpering again, and looking about in cowardly appeal.

The old man rallied. 'What d'ye bring the savage beastis home fur, Hiram, out'n the woods whar they b'long?' he vociferated.

'Kase he 'lowed he hed killed the dam, an' the young 'un war bound ter starve,' put in the other old man, actuated, perhaps, by some sympathy for the grandson, whose strength and youth counted for naught against this adversary.

'What air ye a-aimin' ter do with it? Ter kill sech chillen ez happen ter make game o' ye? That's what the prophets of old 'cited thar bars ter do—ter kill the little laffin' chillen.'

Kelsey winced. The cruelties of the old chronicles bore hard upon his wavering faith.

The old man saw his advantage, and with the wantonness of tyranny followed it up: 'That's it—that's it! That would suit Hiram, like the prophets—ter kill the innercent chillen!'

The young man recoiled suddenly. The patriarch, a wild terror on his pallid, aged face, recognised the significance of his words. He held up his shaking hands as if to recall them—to clutch them. He had remembered the domestic tragedy; the humble figure of the little mountain child, all gaiety and dimples and gurgling laughter, who had known no grief and had wrought such woe, who had left a rude, empty cradle in the corner, a mound—such a tiny mound!—in the graveyard, and an imperishable anguish of self-reproach, unquenchable as the fires of hell.

'I furgot—I furgot!' shrieked the old man. 'I furgot the baby! When war she buried?—las' week or year afore las'? The only one—the only great-gran'child I ever hed. The frien'liest baby! Knowed me jes' ez well!' He burst into senile tears. 'Don't ye go, Hiram. What did the doctor say ye gin her? Laws-a-massy! 'Pears like 'twar jes' yestiddy she war a-crawlin' 'round the floor, stidd'er that heejus beastis ez I wisht war in the woods—laffin'—Lord A'mighty! laffin' an' takin' notice ez peart. Hiram, don't ye go—don't ye go! Peartes', pretties' chile I ever see—an' I had six o' my own—an' the frien'lies'! An' I hed planned fur sech a many pleasures when she hed got some growth an' hed l'arned ter talk. I wanted ter hear what she hed ter say—the only great-gran'child I ever hed—an' now the words will never be spoke. 'Pears like ter me ez the Lord shows mighty little jedgmint ter take her, an' leave me a-cumberin' the groun'.'

Then he began once more to wring his hands and sob aloud—that piteous weeping of the aged!—and to mumble brokenly, 'The frien'lies' baby!'

The woman left her work and took off her bonnet, showing her grey hair drawn into a skimpy knot at the back of her head, and leaving in high relief her strong, honest, candid features, on which the refinements of all benign impulses effaced the effects of poverty and ignorance. She crossed the room to the old man's chair; her velvety voice soothed him. He suffered himself to be lifted by his son and grandson, and carried away bodily to bed in the room across the passage. In the meantime the woman filled a tin cup with lard, placing in its midst a button tied in a bit of cloth to serve as a wick, and lighted it at the fire, while the cub presided with sniffing curiosity at the unusual proceeding, pressing up close against her as she knelt on the hearth, well knowing that she was not to be held in fear nor in any special respect by young bears.

'I'm goin' ter gin him a button-lamp ter sleep by, bein' ez he hev tuk the baby in his head agin,' she said to her father in explanation; 'he won't feel so lonesome ef he wakes up.'

He had looked keenly after his venerable compeer as the paralytic was borne across the uninclosed passage between the two rooms.

'He's breaking some. He's aging,' he said critically; not without sympathy, but with a stalwart conviction that his own feebleness was as strength to the other's weakness. 'He's breaking some,' he repeated, with a physical vanity that might have graced a prize-fighter.

The next moment there came sharp and shrill through the open door the old man's voice, high and glib in cheerful forgetfulness, conversing with his attendants as they got him to bed.

'Whenst I war young,' he cried, 'I went down to Sevierville wunst. 'Twar when they war a-runnin' of Old Hickory.'

'Thar it is again!' exclaimed the ancient Republican. 'Old Hickory war bad enough when he war alive; but I b'lieves he's wusser now that he is dead, with this hyar old critter a-moanin' 'bout him night and day. I'd feel myself called ter fling him of'n the bluff, ef it warn't that he hev got the palsy, an' I gits sorry fur him wunst in a while. An' then I b'lieves that ennybody what is a Dimmycrat air teched in the head, an' ain't 'sponsible fur thar foolishness, 'kase sensible folks ain't Dimmycrats. That's been my 'speriunce fur eighty year, an' I hev hed no call ter change my mind. So I hev to try my patience an' stan' this hyar old critter's foolishness, but it air a mighty tough strain.'