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Julia Crosswell / Fort Worth, TX /
Bob Klein / Pasadena, MD /
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Across a mountain road, above which the oaks and hickories bend low, and here and there nearly touch the tall grass growing in the old ruts beneath, two men with guns come stealthily creeping. Selecting one of the hickories under which the punctured nuts and the halfgnawed rinds show that the squirrels have been at work, they noiselessly dispose themselves upon the ground and wait patiently for the game. It is the latter part of an August day, far up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Out in the open yonder the air is simmering in the intense heat, and all nature seems overcome as by a soporific; but here in the woods there is a restful sense of coolness which seems singularly in harmony with the intense stillness. Strange that in all the forest scarcely a sound is heard, save here and there the monotonous hum of a katydid, or, at intervals the sharp energetic pecking of a logcock, which noises only show you how very quiet it all is. Half an hour, threequarters pass, and still no signs of the little bushy tails. The men are perfectly motionless. The sun is rapidly sinking, and from far up Shiflet’s Hollow the barking of a dog and the noise of an axe come to the ear. The latter sound seems to remind the younger man of something amusing, for with a low laugh he turns to his companion. “I tell you what, Nick,” he says, “that thar old Mrs. Shiflet’s a team.” The other turns inquiringly to him. “You know old man Shiflet, will have his dram. He’ll sell the last thing he’s got fer a drink, when he’s hard up.” The elder man nodded. Shiflet’s failings are an old story in the small mountain world, where every one knows the characteristics of every one else, and the secrets are few. “Well, sir,” continued Josh Sprouse, the narrator, “last Saturday night things had got pretty low over at the mill, Shiflet didn’t have but a bushel of meal left in the house, and the old lady swore by thunder he shouldn’t trade that off fer whiskey. So she kep’ the mealbag right in the kitchen by her side all day, whar she knowed Shiflet warn’t goin’ to try to git it. Well, sir, todes evenin’ Shiflet had got pisonous oneasy. Had his old mar’ all saddled an’ ready and tied out in the bushes, unbeknownst to the old woman. But she was watchin’ that ar’ mealbag like a hawk. Presently one o’ the chillun hollered down at the spring, ‘Oh, mammy, daddy, come runnin’. Here’s a big snake, long as your arm!’ Shiflet sung out, “Run, old woman, skotch him wid a rock, while I get my gun an’ kill the dern thing.” Down the hill went Mrs. Shiflet, and Shiflet put into the house, shouldered the mealbag, slapped on his mar’ and put out fer Davis’ store as fast as old Sal could lay foot to th’ ground. I was thar at the barroom when he came in. First thing he did, he must order drinks all ‘round and then he lit into laughin’, an’ tellin’ how he’d fooled the old woman. Took us to the door and showed us the meal on old Sal, an’ then went to drinkin’ sure enough. He was jest callin’ fer about the fifth, when I seed Mrs. Shiflet comin’ round the bend o’ the road, puffin’ an’ blowin’, har a flyin’ an’ mad as a ba’r. She beckoned to me to come to meet her an’ when I got up close, she sorter panted out, “That fool, Shiflet, in thar?” Fore I could answer she seen his horse, an’ I know’d it war all up with the old man, so I never said a word. “ Ef he’s in that ar’ place o’ tormint,’ says she, ’I boun’ I’ll fetch him out! an’ in she put. “Well sir, you nuvver see men scatter so in your life, as these men did when she busted in. But Shiflet somehow didn’t see her, ‘fore she had him by the back of his neck an’ was shakin’ him so he spilt a glass o’ whiskey he had in his hand on the barroom floor. “‘Nuvver you mind, you disgraceful rascal, you,” she says an’ every time she called him a name she shuk him most out of his shoes. “You villyun, you, I’ll learn you how to lie to me. Come on, sir!” “An’ wid that she marched him off - he jest as meek as a possum - an’ got him on his horse. “Little Billie Houchens thought he’d play funny man, an’ try to git his pay fer the whiskey at the same time; so he hollered after them: “‘I’d like to have my money for them drinks o’ yourn, Mr. Shiflet.” Shiflet was too drunk to hear him, but the old lady stopped an’ gave him his answer - “You kiss my foot, will yer! You ar’ nuthin’ but a puny fool, nohow!” An’ off she went, walkin, ‘long side Sal, an’ holdin’ Shiflet on; and that’s the last we seen of ‘em both.” As Josh finished, and was just about rising to go, they heard a sound in the top branches of the hickory as they were being violently shaken. A moment later a sharp, impudent little bark sounded just over them, and Josh, without a moment’s hesitation, fired at a patch of gray that was clinging fast to the trunk. A halfeaten nut fell the ground, and before Nick could get a shot, the squirrel had leaped into a large, thick oak and disappeared. “Dern my luck; gone in a hole,” said the unfortunate marksman, whose gamebag swayed at his every movement, with suspicious lightness. “I wish now I hadn’t been so rapid. You’d a gotten him an’ that would’a’ made six fer you.” Nick Shiflet, the other, nodded. He was a man of few words. One of those ever calm individuals, who never shoot until they are sure of their aim, and never speak till they have calculated the effect their words will produce. People wondered that he and Josh should be such friends for the latter was an impetuous, happygolucky sort of fellow, almost always in a laughing humor, though on rare occasions be had shown that be could be unpleasantly in earnest, Nick often exasperated him by his slow careful ways of acting and speaking, but the former had few friends, and it was perhaps for this more than for any other reason that Josh stuck to him. Half an hour later the two men were standing at Shiflet’s mill. The mill was situated at the foot of a large depression in the mountains, which in former times had been christened Shiflet’s Hollow, on account of the prevalence of that name among its inhabitants. But at the time at which our story begins the Shiflets had, by constant intermarrying and by numerous family feuds which generally ended in bloodshed, become considerably reduced in number, so that the Hollow was Shiflet’s hardly more than in name. They had ever been a wild, vengeful sort of people, these Shiflet mountaineers, and before the time of railroads and Sunday schools many a dark deed had transpired in the Hollow which to human court of justice had ever taken cognizance; but the reputation of Shiflet’s Hollow was something better now than of old, not because the Shiflets had improved much individually, but because they were fewer in number than before. Shiflet’s mill was a rather large building made of logs, in one side of which the dwelling Mrs. Shiflet reigned supreme. Absolute monarchy was the principle of her rule. In the other side, among the mealbags and the flour dust, Jim Shiflet generally held sway. The alliance of these two kingdoms seemed to be as a the case of all partnerships for offense and defense. But strange to say, in this particular instance, the defense for the most part was on the side of Mr. Shiflet, while his lady saw that the offensive part was fully attended to. But let it not be supposed that she was always the head of the house. Sometimes when Shiflet had been on an extended spree, and his brain had become saturated with the fumes of liquor, he would throw off his bonds, and celebrate his newly regained liberty by terrifying the children and chastising Mrs. Shiflet. Generally, though, she was more than a match for him in point of strategy, for when she perceived the approach of one of these spells, she would take the first opportunity to lock him up in the mill, and there leave him to sober up. Taken all together, Mrs. Shiflet’s life was far from a happy one and though like most of her sex, she bore it all without complaining, still her troubles had cut deep lines in her face and given her a careworn look, though she was still what might be called a finelooking woman. “Well, Josh,” she is saying, “whar your squirrels? Lef ‘em back thar in the woods, didn’t yer?” “I’ll tell you what’s the fact, Mrs. Shiflet,” replied Josh, ‘I had dead aim on that ‘ar last squirrel, but I got to thinkin’ about Sairey thar, and dog my skin ef I could hold my hind stiddy. Now ef you’ll gimme Sairey, sw’ar I’ll keep you supplied with squirrel meat, ‘cause I kin shoot true then, I’ll bet you. Won’t have nuthin’ to bother we then, you see.” “I wish you’d hush your mouth and git erlong wid your foolishness, now,” replied Sairey, a tall, blackeyed girl of seventeen, standing in the door of the dwelling, affecting to be quite angry with Josh for his somewhat personal remarks, though blushing violently in a very telltale manner. Josh’s love affair was a familiar subject for jest with others as well as himself, and the poor fellow had seemingly become resigned to the hard conditions imposed upon him by Mrs. Shiflet, that not until he went to work and made enough to support a wife should the two enter upon matrimonial happiness. He had honestly and earnestly tried to work, but, although he really loved the girl, somehow his restless, roving disposition would break out, and before the end of the week you would see him in the woods again, gun on shoulder. So at the time our story opens, the farmers had begun to refuse him employment, and poor Josh was compelled to pick up rather a precarious living by hunting the rabbits, squirrels and wild turkeys which were tolerably plentiful in the mountains. And it really seemed now as if his case were hopeless, and had it not been for a certain Micawberlike sanguineness which characterized him he would certainly have given himself up to despondency. As it was, however, he preferred to wait for something to “turn up.” The men turned to go. The slanting rays of sifting through the trees into the mill clearing fell on the manly figure of Josh and his companion. There was a sort of pathos in the quiet humility with which this man turned his back on the happiness which he seemed so content to wait for, and plodded along up the mountain path. Perhaps something of this struck even the prosaic Mrs. Shiflet, for she turned to Sairey, who was watching her retreating lover with a wistful look in her eyes, which was strangely at variance with the rather brusque manner with which she had treated him a few minutes before. “I declare,” said Mrs. Shiflet, “I wish he warn’t so no ‘count, cause he cert’n’y is a finelooking man, and he’d make you a good husband if he’d jest work.” And strange to say, although Mrs. Shiflet was a woman, and consequently in the habit of valuing a fine personal appearance above moral and intellectual qualities, still in this case she remained firm in her veto of Josh. The two men trudged along through the gathering shadows up the mountain path. For some time neither spoke; at length Nick, speaking slowly, broke the silence: “Josh,” he said, “I tell you, I’d give a good deal to get my hand on some o’ that money an’ stuff that’s hid up yonder at the B’ar Den.” “B’ar Den!” suddenly echoed a strange, shrill voice from the side of the path. Both men turned and then stopped, awed by the seeming apparition so close to them. The person who had addressed them was not one that you would care to meet in a lonely mountain hollow at night. An old woman, wrinkled and somewhat bent, whose straggling gray locks fell about her shoulders, she was not at all a desirable looking companion. “Good Gawd, Nick, it’s the Sprouse Woman!” Said Josh. “B’ar Den!” repeated the Sprouse Woman, for such was the name which the mountain people had given this strange individual. “An’ what do you know about the B’ar Den? What do you know about money bein’ hid thar? You, Nick Shiflet, as has the blood of murders in your veins, what do you want ‘round the B’ar Den? The B’ar Den don’t know nuthin’ of murder! An’ you, Josh Sprouse, as bears my own name, but Gawd knows, you ain’t no kin o’ mine, I warn you both no man yit has come to good huntin’ fer the B’ar Den. I knows whar it is. Yas, that’s whar I live, but I swar you all shall nuvver find it!” The old woman, having finished this wild tirade, descended into the path and without another word took her way down the hollow. For some moments the two men looked at each other in silence. “I reckon, now,” said Josh, at last, “you ain’t so anxious to find the B’ar Den as you was a while ago.” “I don’t know ‘bout that,” said the other, in a low voice, as if he feared that the Sprouse Woman might return at any moment. “She ain’t nuthin’ but an old woman. An’ I tell you, Josh, I done set my heart so on gittin’ that money that ef she was the devil himself, I’d go in thar after it, ef I could jest find the place.” “Reckon it’s thar yit?” asked Josh. “Course it is. Ef it was thar when she came thar, it’s thar now. She ain’t spent it, you know.” “I wonder the man what put it thar ain’t come back fer it, ef he’s in the lan’ o’ the livin’,” said Josh. “That’s just what’s the matter,” said the other, stopping and speaking directly to Josh, a thing he seldom did. “He ain’t in the lan’ o’ the livin’. I hearn he was killed in the war, an’ I believe it. Nuvver mind,” he went on, resuming his way up the mountain. “I’ll git my hands on that ‘ar money yit, an’ then if the owner comes fer it, it’ll be time ‘nough to think about him.” They were by this time in sight of Josh’s cabin, and in a few moments the men separated for the night. “Yas,” said Nick, to himself, as he walked along in the mountain stillness, “an’ when I git that money, we’ll see who gits Sairey, Josh or me.” Far out in the woods the mournful cry of a screech owl sounded weirdly. The mountain people regard this bird as a messenger of misfortune. “Nuvver mind,” muttered Nick, “I don’t keer whether you mean bad luck or good luck, I’m a goin’ to git that money an’ Sairey, ef I die fer it.” And with such thoughts in his heart, with the intention of supplanting the only friend he had ever had, we leave Nick Shiflet for the present. There was a peculiar air of mystery about the person they called the Sprouse Woman. It was known that she lived in the Bear Den, an excavation under a rock far up the Hollow, as tradition said, for it had been many years since any one had seen the place. More than this no one knew. How she lived, how, when the winter winds roared up and down the Hollow, and the wellbuilt log cabins were hardly an efficient protection against the bitter cold, this old woman managed to keep body and soul together, no one knew. Her past life had been even in Shiflet’s Hollow, a dark record of evil. But the one deed, which had cast a shade over her, and driven her from all association with the mountaineers, had occurred in the following manner: Late one evening, some fifteen years before, a lady and little child got off the cars at Mechum’s River, a small station about two miles from the Hollow. She inquired if any one could direct her to the house of her sister, who had married a gentleman well known in the neighborhood. A young mountaineer who was lounging near, offered to conduct her to her destination; so they set out, he carrying the child and her small satchel, and she walking in front. Their route lay near the foot of Shiflet’s Hollow, and after she had passed the Hollow a short distance, looking back, she found that the man had disappeared, taking the child with him. Well, she wandered in her despair all through the mountains that night, but saw no one until morning, when meeting some women, they directed her to her sister’s house. From her description they recognized the man as the son of the Sprouse Woman, and a party set out directly after the lady’s arrival, bound straight for her cabin. On their arrival, the place was deserted, the cabin empty, and no trace of anything they sought. The next day the body of the child was found near the cabin, and the day after, some men who had been on the watch near by captured young Sprouse, who, drawn by that strange attraction which sometimes makes men revisit the scene of a crime they have committed, had come back. It was supposed that he had at first intended merely to abduct the child and hold it for a ransom, but finding quite a sum of money in the satchel, and becoming frightened at the possible consequences of his deed, he had made way with the child in sheer desperation. It was generally thought, though there was no direct proof of it, that his mother was implicated, for while the young man was in jail, she visited him repeatedly, and adjured him to hold out and not confess, no matter what happened. And in the courtroom when the verdict of “guilty” was unhesitatingly returned by the jury, and the judge had just finished a most touching appeal to Sprouse to confess the deed, the silence following was broken by the voice of the Sprouse Woman, “Hold out agin ‘em all, Jimmy. Don’t you let ‘em back you down. Don’t you confess to nothin’! And he obeyed her to the letter. Such was the woman, who after the execution of her son, left her old cabin and buried herself in one of the dark recesses of the Hollow. She would soon have dropped out of the thoughts of the mountain people had it not been for the fact that she was reputed to have found and to be occupying the Bear Den, a place in which it was said a considerable sum of money had been left by a Shiflet, to whom it had been entrusted by his employer. This employer had joined the army, and nothing more had ever been heard of him. Such was the Sprouse Woman, and such her surroundings at the time our story opens. She was seldom seen by the mountaineers, and it was said that of late years her mind had become unsettled. Of this we will be able to judge as we proceed. Mrs. Shiflet was just entering the house, after the departure of Josh and Nick, when a couple on the mill porch whom we have not hitherto noticed, attracted her attention. One was a solemn, meeklooking little man, with a curious habit of elevating his enormous eyebrows whenever you made a statement to him. There was an air of conscious dejection about the whole man, which he seemed to be constantly striving to throw off. The result was a curious mixture of swagger and humility. This is Mr. Shiflet, of Shiflet’s mill. The other is “Old Man Kyirby,” as he is generally called, a rather elderly man, in the regulation mountain costume, hickory shirt, jeans pants, and broad straw hat. It has been said that you can generally judge a man by the way in which he wears his hat, and this was certainly true of Kyirby. He had pinned up part of the brim and wore it set jauntily on the side of his head. The general effect was very pleasant, and seemed to indicate that the owner was a man accustomed to get on with the ladies. Kyirby was in the habit of calling himself a widower, but this must be understood to be one of his jokes, as he was as far from being in that condition as can be imagined. He had had, at different intervals, three wives, all living now, though none blessed his roof at present. Do not start, gentle reader. This is a thing of frequent occurrence, in these mountains, where the inhabitants are not twenty miles from civilization; nor do the mountaineers regard the crime with any abhorrence, but seem to feel only a kind of pity for the man who is fool enough to make the matrimonial venture so often. Kyirby’s reputation in other ways was not the most enviable, but he had a kind of selfpossession and assurance which had enabled him thus far to despise the slanders of his enemies. For instance, some time before, one of the mountaineers hearing an uproar in his backyard one night, on going out to ascertain the cause, found Mr. Kyirby in his pigpen, in the act of carrying off the only occupant. Of course the owner remonstrated and in somewhat strong terms, when Kyirby, drawing himself up, replied; “Well, you needn’t cut up so much about it. Who wants yer derned old pig, anyhow? Come down to my house, and I’ll give you a pig.” And with that he stalked majestically out of the yard, leaving the simple mountaineer rather in doubt as to which was the injured party, himself or Kyirby. The two men are deeply engaged in a game of seven-up, and seem to be entirely unaware of the approach of Mrs. Shiflet, till that lady makes her presence known. “Look a here, Shiflet,” she says, “this thing has been goin’ on all the evenin’, an’ I’m a gittin’ tired of it. Fust thing you know you’ll bet away the last thing we’ve got in the house, an’ then we’ll be in a nice fix. Now mind what I say,” she added, impressively, “ef that ‘ar game ain’t stopped by moonrise, I give you my honest word, I’m a goin’ out yonder to the dam and drown myself, so he’p me.” Except that his eyebrows went through their usual performance, Mr. Shiflet seemed strangely unmoved by this awful threat, and encouraged by the presence of Kyirby, who whispered to him not to pay “no ‘tention to her,” he went so far as to adjure her to go ahead and drown herself if she chose, intimating that he could stand it if she could, and that it would be a good riddance. He then went into the mill, and shortly returned with a candle which he set up in its own grease on the head of the nailkeg which served them for a table and the game continued. Soon over the treetops the moon slowly appears. It lights up the clearing like day, and throws a sort of glamour over the mountains, which rise clothed with dark masses of foliage high above the mill. Mrs. Shiflet peeps stealthily out of her door, and seeing, in bold relief, the figures of the two votaries of fortune, slips back again, and proceeds at once to the pond. Presently Shiflet looks up uneasily, and noticing how high the moon has risen, says in an alarmed undertone, strangely at variance with the bravado with which he had last addressed Mrs. S.: “Kyirby, we better go look after that woman. She’s jest about fool enough to go an’ drown herself, sure.” So around the corner of the mill they go, and up towards the pond. The water is in the shadow, and all is silent save where the outlet of the dam is rushing underneath the motionless wheel. Just as they reach the pond, a large body is seen to leap out from a willow tree, which bends over the water on the other side, and a terrific splash meets the ears of the astonished men. Old Shiflet loses no time. “Run, Kyirby, she’s in! She’s in!” he shouts in anguished tones, and, without more ado, they plunge in up to their necks, and begin feeling around for the lost Mrs. Shiflet. But they are utterly unsuccessful, and finally when wet, cold, and despairing, they are about to abandon the search, their blood is frozen by a familiar voice from the depths of the willow. It says, “When you two fools git tired o’ huntin’ fer that rock I throwed in thar I reckin’ you had better come out ‘fore you ketch yer death o’ cold!” Wretched and humiliated, they sneak to the shore, and for that evening, at least, the sevenup is discontinued. Shortly after this a horseman riding past Shiflet’s mill called out, - “They say Josh Sprouse done got the fever at last.” To a person not acquainted with the characteristics of these localities, these words do not seem to convey any awful intelligence. But to the inhabitants of these mountains, the fever, by which they mean the typhoid, is a dreaded foe, whose ravages are generally fatal. This disease requires such thorough hygienic precautions, the diet must be so carefully attended to, and the medicines administered so regularly, three things which these rude people are almost incapable of doing with any sort of success that the chances are ten to one against a mountaineer recovering when attacked by it. Sairey heard this with a sickening heart. She knew, poor child, only too well what it meant, for, like the children of the very poor the world over, poverty, dirt, and their natural result, disease, were familiar things to her. She did not sing as was her wont as she went about her tasks that day; and her mother noticed this, but said nothing, partially, though only partially, guessing what was passing in her mind. The next day came, and the next, and the doctor passing by on his mission, which was practically one of charity, had still no encouragement for those inquiring; always the same wearisome words, “No better.” Sairey now was almost perfectly silent. She ate nothing, and there was a restless look in her eyes, which even her mother could not explain. “I hope you ain’t a goin’ to take the fever,” she said to her. The girl shook her head. “No danger,” she murmured. But that evening when Mrs. Shiflet returned from milking, her daughter, whom she had left to attend to supper, was nowhere to be found. “Gone to inquire after Josh, I reckin’,” volunteered old Shiflet, going on with supper. But the mother had divined more than the father suspected, and dashing into Sairey’s room, she saw at once that the girl had taken with her almost all of her scanty wardrobe. A few moments later, Mrs. Shiflet had her calico sunbonnet on, and was opening the gate of the little yard in front of the house. “Whar you goin’ ?” Shiflet called after. “After Sairey,” she answered from the road. “You jest stay thar till I come back, you hear?” The eyebrows almost disappeared in the wilds of the shaggy, sandy hair at this announcement, but Shiflet was accustomed to obedience, and so resumed his supper in silence. In his lonely cabin on the side of the mountain road, Josh Sprouse was lying unconscious. A dim light was burning in a cheap glass lamp on the rude pine table in the middle of the room. Old, Ike, Josh’s father, was asleep in the next apartment, and in one end of the front room, bending over the small fire and trying to coax it into ablaze, is Sairey. She seems to have taken her position as nurse as a matter of course, and after a few brief words of explanation to old Ike on her arrival, she had settled down at once to her duties. She was only a poor, rude, mountain girl, yet her loving woman’s heart had impelled her to this. And it would, I suspect, have brought tears to your eyes to have seen the solicitude with which she tried to walk easily in her coarse shoes on the bare floor, and how careful she was not to move the few glasses and things on the table noisily, striving in every way to accustom herself to the necessary quiet of the sick room. There is a quick step outside, and a knock at the door. Before she has time to rise and answer, the door opens and her mother tiptoes in. She gives just a passing glance at the sick man and then comes up to the fire place. “Well,” she says, “this is a pretty howdedo. You look like you have come fer good.” Sairey had risen to her feet. Her hands were clasped in front of her, and to this sally of her mother’s she made no answer, only nodded and looked down. “But look ahere,” said the old woman, rather daunted by this calm determination, so unexpected from one of her household. “You can’t stay here. This here typhoid fever is catchin’ as smallpox, an’ ef you git it, don’t you know you’ll die?” “May be I will ketch it,” said Sairey, raising her eyes to her mother’s face, “but I don’t keer. Jest look at him over yonder, mammy. Not a soul in this house to tend to him but old Ike, an’ what kin’ he do? Ef Josh was to die, an’ I hadn’t done nuthin’ fer him, Lord knows I’d feel like I’d killed him. He’ll feel better, too, when he wakes up an’ finds I’m here, I know he will. An’ mammy, ef I do take it an’ die, it won’t make no great difference to nobody ‘cept Josh, an’ maybe not to him then.” She had gone and sat down by him on the bed, and put one hand on his hot forehead. There was a grace about this girl, a sort of wild freedom of movement, like that of some creature of her native mountains, which was very attractive. Mrs. Shiflet, somehow, seemed to be awed by her passionate earnestness. “Well, this beats my time,” she said, half aloud; but that gal’s jest like me, an’ I b’lieve I’d a done the same fer Shiflet when I was her age.” A few moments after, Sairey, surprised at her silence and looking around, sees her with her bonnet off and seated near the fire. “You go on to sleep,” the old lady says, finally, “I’ll tend ter him the rest o’ the night.” And so the next morning old Ike, to his astonishment, found her sitting up in her chair asleep, “jest ketchin’ a wink,” she explained to him, when his coming in awakened her. At her direction he set off after breakfast up the Hollow to bring his sister to nurse Josh, and when that lady arrived, Mrs. Shiflet prepared for the departure of herself and daughter. But here again Sairey made a stand, and declared that she would as she expressed it, “see Josh through.” So Mrs. Shiflet fairly beaten, was compelled to return to the mill alone. Shiflet’s Hollow at night! A gloomy place you would have said, a place to be avoided. You don’t know whom you might meet in the dark there, and even that man in front, whom we will follow, as he seems to know the way, we would rather walk behind thus, than meet face to face. He has a gun on his shoulder, and a gamebag which seems heavy. It is Nick Shiflet returning from a hunt. The woods are very still. It is that time of night, just before moonrise, when nature seems to quiet her multitudinous voices, and waits expectantly for the soft influence of the moonlight to steal over her and hush her to rest. We are now very near the head of the Hollow, and our man, pausing a moment, suddenly leaves the path and strikes out through the woods, evidently intending to make a short cut. We have not gone far before we see him stop, and gaze intently before him up the mountain. What is it? Only a light, you say. Yes, but there is no cabin in this part of the mountains, and, as, still following Nick, we draw nearer, we soon see that the light comes from a fire kindled at the base of a large boulder in front of a small cavern in the rock. Seeing no one near, we look again at Nick. He is trembling like a leaf. We hear him mutter, “Fore Gawd! the B’ar Den!” And then he draws nearer. Yes, this is the place about which he has thought and even dreamed so much. But where is the Sprouse Woman? Is she in the cave or out in the woods somewhere? He waits for some time, and then seemingly convinced that the latter alternative is true, he steps out into the open and advances towards the cave. Just at that moment a large stone falls from the top of the boulder, and, striking nearly at Nick’s feet, rolls down the mountain. With a low cry of alarm he looks up, and standing almost directly above him on the boulder whence the stone had fallen, was the Sprouse Woman. The moon, just rising, could be seen through the trees behind her and caused her figure to stand out in bold relief, while the flickering light of the fire playing upon her features, gave them a most unearthly appearance. She stood thus for in instant, and then bending down, began without a word to push against a large rock at her feet. What with the influences of the surroundings, the traditions about the woman, and the danger from her missiles, Nick’s nerves were completely overcome, and just as the huge stone began to topple, he turned and fled down the mountain. He heard the rock fall and then begin its course, crashing through the bushes, gathering momentum every instant, right on his track, till he had just time to jump behind a tree to avoid it, as leaping, rolling, like some live thing it passed him and was lost in the depths of the Hollow. From up the mountain came the harsh, mocking laughter of the Sprouse Woman, and Nick continued his flight. Two weeks passed from the time that Sairey had taken up her position as Josh’s nurse, and finally the doctor pronounced the invalid convalescent. Whether the disease had assumed a milder form than usual, or whether the grim Death Angel, pitiful for once, seeing the young loving heart that watched so anxiously and faithfully beside the man’s pillow, stayed his hand, certain it was that Josh had passed the crisis, and was rapidly improving. There was really no necessity for Sairey to remain any longer’ but Josh had begged her to wait until he should be strong enough to accompany her back to the mill, when he intended to ask Mrs. Shiflet for her once more. And Sairey consented, for somehow they did not believe he would be refused this time. Several weeks later the doctor, passing by, stopped to tell Sairey that Mrs. Shiflet’s youngest child, a boy some four years old, who bore the name of Romeo John, had been lost in the mountains. The child had been Sairey’s favorite of her numerous brothers and sisters, so she declared her intention of returning to the mill the next morning. Accordingly, bright and early the following day, the two set out together. Now what they said to each other along that mountain road is nobody’s business. To those of my readers who are not able to guess pretty near it, I am afraid I should not make myself intelligible if I attempted to tell it, so will let it go. These were but simple, plain, mountain folk, and yet I believe the affection which existed between them was nearer the genuine article than ninetenths of the poetry-fostered, novelnourished, socalled love which exists in the refined and cultured world. It is probable that they said little in words, but the dancing of the shadows on the road before them, the multitudinous voices of the woods around them, the gladness of a morning in the midst of nature, filled their hearts with a perfect content, and knowing they were together, they were satisfied. It was a pretty sight, and so it seemed to strike some one who was standing above the road as they went by, and who, now descending, called after them. They looked back and saw the Sprouse Woman holding by the hand Romeo John. Sairey dashed back, and catching the child in her arms covered him with kisses, which Romeo John, who did not resemble his affectionate Veronese namesake, bore with philosophic calmness. The Sprouse Woman had remained for a moment watching the girl, and then, without a word, took her way up the mountain. No questioning from either Josh or Sairey could elicit from Romeo John where he had spent the night, and the lovers, finally despairing of learning anything from him, devoted themselves to each other for the remainder of the journey. So successful were they in this, that when they reached the mill, somewhat after Romeo John, that gentleman was just in the midst of a circumstantial account, which he ended with these words, - “An’ they hugged an’ kissed; ain’t that so, Sairey?” Well, the, upshot of the whole affair was that Mrs. Shiflet withdrew her veto, saying, - “Yes, chillun, you all have done me one good turn by bringin’ me my little boy back, so I reckin’ I can’t do no less than to do like you want me. Take the gal, Josh, but doggone me, if you don’t behave yourself right after this, I sw’ar I’ll come an’ live wid you an’ keep you straight myself !” And it is needless to say that Mrs. Shiflet was never called upon by any fault of Josh to fulfill her threat. One evening, sometime after this, they were all at the mill, sitting around the fire, for it was the fall of the year. Shiflet was in one corner smoking, Mrs. Shiflet was shelling some dried beans into a pan in her lap, Josh was looking in the fire abstractedly, and Sairey was holding Romeo John, and trying to get him to sleep. It was a homely, quiet scene, but withal a very attractive one. The old cabin, lit up by the fitful gleam of the firelight, seemed a very playground for the shadows that rose and fell on the wall and ceiling. From the rafters hung strings of bright red peppers, and prodigies in the way of twin ears of corn, and a large potato grotesquely resembling the face of a man, the especial pride of Romeo John. Presently the silence was broken by Josh, who suddenly slapped his leg and exclaimed - “Well, doggone my skin!” Romeo John sat bolt upright in his sister’s lap and awaited developments, Sairey looked at Josh inquiringly, and Mr. Shiflet, with his eyebrows at least two inches out of their normal position, removed his pipe from his mouth, took deliberate aim at a knot on one of the burning logs, spit at it, missed it, and sank back in his chair with his eyes on Josh. The only one who was unmoved was Mrs. Shiflet. “Dog my skin,” continued Josh, “here I’ve been studyin’ an’ studyin’ how to git to that ar’ B’ar Den, an’ I’ve got a man right here to take me to it.” “Whar is he?” said Mrs. Shiflet. “Thar he is, Romeo John’s the man,” said Josh, “I know he’s mighty skeered o’ the old lady up yonder, but I do b’lieve we kin git him to show us the way.” So Romeo John, after much persuasion and entreaty on the part of Josh, agreed to conduct him to the Bear Den, where he had spent the night with the Sprouse Woman, and the next day they started. After several hours of hard walking up the Hollow, the child stopped, looked around him a moment, and then pushing through the bushes, he and Josh stood in front of the Bear Den. There were no signs of human life anywhere around. The leaves had begun to fall, and the view was comparatively unobstructed, but the Sprouse Woman was nowhere to be seen. Nothing but rocks and trees on every side. At length Josh, telling the boy to wait for him outside, crawled in the cave. There seemed to be a hole somewhere back in the roof through which the light entered, so that it was without difficulty that he soon perceived the Sprouse Woman in the far end of the cave, lying on a pallet, seemingly asleep. He drew nearer. She was breathing heavily, and touching her hand, he found it was at fever heat. “Poor creeture she’s got the fever,” said Josh, who was too lately recovered from it himself not to recognize the symptoms. The Sprouse Woman opened her eyes. The wild look was gone from them, and there was now no expression but one of extreme weariness. “Well, Josh Sprouse,” she said, speaking almost in a whisper, so weak was she. “You’ve found the B’ar Den, an’ now what are you goin’ to do?” “I think I had better go after the doctor the first thing,” said Josh. “No ’taint no use in that. Doctor ain’t goin’ to do me no good. My time is come, an’ I know it. I reckon now,” she continued after a pause, “you don’t see nothin’ in that ar’ pile o’ dirt over yonder to make an old woman watch it an’ guard it all these years, do you?” Josh went to the corner indicated by the woman, and to his surprise found that the dirt of the cave had been heaped up in the form of a grave. It had settled somewhat, but still preserved, to a great extent, its original shape. “It looks like a grave, to me,” said he, coming back. The Sprouse Woman gave a start, and then quietly looking him in the face, said, “That’s what it is, Josh; sit down here now, an’ I’ll tell you, ‘cause I must tell somebody, about that grave an’ the B’ar Den money, or some o’ them fools down thar in the Hollow will be diggin’ in here after I’m gone.” Josh hesitated, for, looking towards the door, he saw peering in the frightened face of Romeo John. “Let me go an’ git the little Shiflet boy, an’ bring him in,” he said. The old woman turned on her pillow, and seeing the child, beckoned to him. And Romeo John, with no thought of disobedience, came up to Josh. “Yas,” said the Sprouse Woman, looking at the grave in the corner, “that is a grave, an’ in it thar is buried the best man that ever drawed the breath o’ life. That ‘ar is the grave of Jim Sprouse, my son. You’ve heerd o’ him, I know. You’ve heerd how he stood out agin’ the judge an, jury, an’ thar warn’t the man livin’ that could back him down, an’ make him own up. You know that much, but you don’t know how, the night after they hung him, I crep’ down to ole man Shiflet’s, stole his horse and wagon, an’ went down ter the graveyard whar they had him buried, an’ fore day nex’ mornin’ I was back at the B’ar Den with him. Now you know, Josh Sprouse, why the Sprouse Woman has watched the B’ar Den, an’ lived in it. It was because my only chile is buried here, an’ I was afeered ef people knowed it they would take him away from me. But now they can’t. There is nothin’ but dust in that ‘ar grave, an’ they wouldn’t take that.” The woman paused. Josh made no answer, for he had thought at first that the mound in the corner contained the Bear Den money. Finally, the Sprouse Woman broke the silence, “I know why you come here, Josh, I know why you hunted me out, you wanted money, an’ I’m sorry you didn’t find it, ‘cause I like you, Josh, an’ believe you to be a squar’ man. No, I found the money. I found it when I was diggin’ my son’s grave, an’ I put it away, ‘cause I didn’t have no use for it. But one night, I woke up sudden like, ‘cause I heerd somebody diggin’ over thar by my son’s grave; I jumped up an’ jumped on him, an’ we wrastled thar in the dark. I thought it was somebody come to take my Jim away from me. An’ presently he threw me down an’ cursed me, an’ then I recognized the voice of Aleck Shiflet, the man who put that money thar. I told him I had the money, and when I lit the fire so he could count it, he swore it was not all thar, an’ began to search the cave. So I took out the money what Jim had brought home in the satchel he took from the lady, an’ wid that Aleck Shiflet left. So you see, Josh,” continued she, “you have missed it, but you can tell the folks in Shiflet’s Hollow, that thar ain’t nothin’ in the B’ar Den ‘cept one grave, tho’ thar will be another soon, ‘cause I want you to bury me right in the den here alongside o’ Jim, my son.” Josh promised the woman that her wish should be executed to the letter, and then leaving her, made his way down the Hollow for the doctor. He returned that evening. But on entering the cave, they found that they had come too late, for in the silence of this mountain fortress, a silence broken only by the sighing of the wind up Shiflet’s Hollow, the buried and the unburied lay equally as cold and pulseless. “It is Saturday night at Davis’s Store, by which name is designated a small collection of houses a few miles from Shiflet’s Hollow. The barroom which forms part of the store is crowded with the mountaineers and a few negroes, all of whom are “celebrating,” having received their wages for the week. Among the noisiest of the revellers is old man Kyirby, who has been drinking all the evening, and, after having contributed largely to the amusement of the assemblage by impromptu songs and jigs, has now reached the bellicose state, and is expressing his ardent desire to fight the company one and all. He would probably have been disappointed in this particular, but for the entrance of another man. This was Nick Shiflet. There was a sort of a hush as he entered, for, as we have said before, Nick was far from popular with the people of Shiflet’s Hollow. It seemed as if he felt this tonight, and besides, the disappointments he had lately experienced had made him morose and gloomy. He spoke to the company with a sort of cordiality which was not natural to him, but when his eye lighted on Kyirby a thought struck him. “How are ye, Kyirby?” he said, carelessly, with a malicious look; “been fishin’ for any more rocks in the millpond lately?” This was all the pretext Kyirby, in his condition, desired. He at once launched into a furious tirade, liberally interspersed with oaths, of which Nick was the theme. Abuse, satire, and invective followed one another in quick succession; and he finally ended by insinuating that Nick was a coward and afraid to fight him. “Look here, old man,” said Nick, at last, “I’ve had about enough o’ this, an’ ef you don’t hold in that jaw o’ yourn, I’ll break it fer you.” “You will, will yer?” said Kyirby, now perfectly frantic; “I jest wish you would, I do. Stack your rags, an’ come on.” So Nick proceeded to “stack his rags,” by which elegant term the reader may not have guessed that Mr. Kyirby meant to intimate to Nick to take off his coat. The operation was hardly completed before the old man made a rush at Nick. The latter reached over the bar, near which he had been standing, and seizing a glass hurled it at Kyirby’s head. The old man dodged, but hardly in time, for the missile struck the top of his head, and, glancing off, broke against the door. In another instant the two men were clinched. The greatest excitement now prevailed in the crowd, some cheering on one combatant, some the other, though most of the voices were for the old man. “Now yer got him, Kyirby, “ said one “ketch the under holt.” “Nick’s beatin’, Kyirby’s givin’ out.” “No he ain’t. He’s waitin’ his chance. Lookathar now, what did I say?” Sure enough Kyirby, who though many years older than Nick was still very strong and active, now began to push his antagonist backward, and the next instant they were rolling over and over on the floor, locked fast in each other’s embrace. But this exercise was too violent to last, and finally when their exertions came to a stop, Kyirby was seen sitting astride of Nick with his hands at the latter’s throat. They pulled him off, and Nick rose to his feet. “I’ll get even with yer fer this, old man,” he said in his slow way. “Do it now, why don’t ye?” yelled Kyirby. “No, I’ll find me a time,” replied the other, and picking up his hat and coat he moved slowly out the door. Winter has come again to the mountains. The trees are stripped of their leaves, and the cold winds roar over the ridges and up and down the Hollow, making a most doleful sound tonight, as Mrs. Shiflet sits close to her fire, and waits for the homecoming of her husband. It is very lonely at the mill tonight, the children having gone on a visit to Sairey, and Shiflet being down at Davis’s Store. He had been drinking steadily for two weeks, spending all of each day, and most of the night at the store. The mill is entirely neglected, and things have gotten very scarce at the house, but he cares little for this, for to a man in his condition, whiskey seems to supply the place of food. Mrs. Shiflet has seen a hard time this winter. Shiflet has gone from one spree into another, so that for a month or two he has been unable to attend to the mill. And Shiflet drunk is very different from Shiflet sober. The meek, inoffensive person, who submits to his wife’s authority without a murmur, becomes, under the influence of liquor, quarrelsome, unreasonable, and even violent, and more than once has Mrs. Shiflet locked herself in upstairs to escape from his attacks. Sairey has often, since her marriage, conjured her mother to leave him and come and live with her, but the old lady has never consented. A strange combination, this woman, strongwilled and hightempered, yet willing to bear anything from this man rather than leave him. It is probably not from any excess of sentiment that she persists in this determination. No, though Mrs. Shiflet has, no doubt, her woman’s share of it somewhere in her nature, rough and uncouth as she is. It is rather because of her unwillingness to root up the ties and associations of home, which have become, as in the case of all good women, almost a part of her being. Some tender memories are connected with almost everything about the old mill cabin. There on the mantelpiece is the eightday clock, which she brought with her from her father’s, whose ticking has been like the voice of a companion to her all these years. Then there is the rough wood cradle, made by Shiflet, where she has watched and tended the children in their infancy, and seen them safely through the measles and whooping cough, and other ills that babyhood is heir to. She could never, she felt, leave that behind. There is a somewhat timid knock at the door, and going to open it she finds outside old Kyirby. “Kin yer let we come in till it stops snowin’?” he asks. Under any other circumstances she would have refused at once, for she despised the man, and had never taken any pains to conceal her feelings. But it was a terrific night . The snow was deep under foot, and the flakes were swirling and eddying in the high wind from up the Hollow. “Come in,” she said simply. He obeyed, taking off his snowcovered hat and leaving it near the door. “Had a hard time crossin’ the river,” he said, “reckon you all will have to go ’round by my house to the store, till the water falls.” Mrs. Shiflet made no answer. “I saw Shiflet at the store,” he said, after a pause. “Drunk?” asked the wife. “Wild and crazy,” he replies, and the conversation drops. An hour passed. At length Kyirby went to the door and opened it. “I reckon I’ll be gittin’ erlong,” he said, “it’s done stopped snowin’, but man, sir, the wind is turrible!” She followed him, handed him his hat, and was just saying goodnight, when the light from the open door showed them Shiflet riding up the road. The two men passed at the gate. Shiflet was tying his horse and made no answer to Kyirby’s greeting. When he entered the house his wife saw that there was more the matter with him than whiskey. He was, it is true, very tipsy, but there was a wildness about his eyes which showed that he was in a dangerous mood tonight. She said nothing as he came in, but motioned to the table on which his supper was standing ready, and went to the fireplace to get his coffee. But she had hardly turned around before she felt her arm seized, and turning to confront him, saw that he was perfectly frantic with rage. “This is the way you carry on when I’m away from home,” he roared, “a settin’ up here at night entertainin’ Kyirby. I’ll teach you how to go back on me. I’ve got a good mind to kill yer right here.” “He came in out of the cold. I couldn’t turn him away, Shiflet,” she said. “Couldn’t turn him away? No, I know you couldn’t. But I kin turn you away, an’ dern quick at that, you hear me?” he almost shrieked, staggering to the door, and flinging it open. The snow from a drift outside blew in on the floor. Involuntarily Mrs. Shiflet shivered. “What do you mean, Shiflet?” she asked. She had never known him this way before. He stood holding by the door. “Here’s what I mean. Put your bonnet on your head, and git out o’ this house forever. Don’t you nuvver put your foot inside my door ag’in. I don’t want you here no longer.” “Lord Almighty, Shiflet, whar kin I go?” she asked, imploringly, and almost crying. “Go to Kyirby. That’s whar you kin go,” he cried, pulling open the door again which had blown shut. At this Mrs. Shiflet raised her head. He had never used such words to her before. She went to the pine wardrobe, and taking down a poor, old red shawl threw it over her head. “Shiflet,” she said, coming up to him and speaking very slowly, “you’ve done said the worst thing you could. I have lived along o’ you nigh onto twenty year, now an’ stood by you faithful, Lord knows. Many and many’s the night worse than this is, that I’ve gone down to the store yonder after you, an’ brought you home when you was too drunk to help yourself. I have set up fer you many an’ many a night, so that you might see the lamp a burnin’ an’ know how to find your way home. I’ve stood and let you beat me when you was drunk, knowin’ you didn’t mean it, an’ would be sorry when you got sober. I’ve done stood a lot from you, Shiflet, but this is the fust time you have uvver said what you did just now. Whether you are drunk or sober, I can’t stand that, an’ I’m a goin’. The Lord in heaven only knows what’ll become o’ you, but as fur me, I’ll nuvver set foot in this house ag’in.” “Well, don’t stand thar all night talkin’ about it!” screamed Shiflet, “Go on!” And Mrs. Shiflet, without another word, drawing the thin shawl closely about her, walked through the door her husband held open for her, and out into the storm. All around her were the mountains, rising one upon another as far as the eye could reach. They seemed so strong and steadfast. They had not changed, she thought, if Shiflet had. It was no longer snowing, but the wind sweeping down the Hollow, and sobbing mournfully in the trees, was very cold. She had determined to go to Sairey’s, if possible. To do this she would have to pass Kyirby’s cabin, the light from which she soon saw far up the ridge. She trudged on, trying to follow Kyirby’s tracks which had almost disappeared in the snow. At length, nearly exhausted, she came to the cabin of Kyirby. “I’ll jest stop outside here under the shed fer a minute an’ rest,” she said to herself, “an’ then go on.” But she was more fatigued than she knew, and sitting down on an old box near the wall, out of the wind, she soon began to doze. She was aroused in a short time by the sound of some one coming up the road on horseback. She arose and shrank nearer the house, as she saw that it was Shifiet on his way back to the store. He saw the movement, and coming nearer recognized her figure. “That’s what I thought,” he called out with an oath. “Come on to his house, did yer? Now you stay thar, an’ nuvver let me see you ag’in.” She made a movement towards him as if to answer him, but he had ridden on. Mrs. Shiflet shook the snow from the old shawl, and once more took up her way to Sairey’s. Shiflet was about fifty yards ahead of her, and suddenly from out of the woods in front of him a man came, leaping. He carried an axe, and looked wildly around him. When he saw Shiflet an idea seemed to strike him. She heard him stop him and say: “Hello, Shiflet, I wish you’d take this axe down to the store fer me, will yer?” Shiflet took it mechanically, making no reply. She had seen him several time lift a bottle to his lips and he now seemed too drunk to answer. She shrank into the bushes as the man passed her, but the snow made it sufficiently light for her to see the general outline of his figure. It was one that she knew. An hour or two later, she had arrived safely at Sairey’s house, where they were all glad to see her and welcomed her in. Meanwhile Shiflet had arrived at Davis’s Store. Going into the barroom, he set the axe down in the corner and called for a drink. He was not in a sociable mood that night, but was loud in his curses of Kyirby; told of his finding him at his house and swore that he deserved to be killed. No one paid much attention to his ravings, finally he subsided into a state bordering on stupidity. Presently one of the men, going by the corner, picked up the axe with an exclamation of surprise: “Lord, Shiflet.” he said, “thar’s blood on your axe! What you been killin’ this time o’ night?” But Shiflet only looked up stupidly, making no reply. They gathered around him, and tried to find out where he had gotten the axe; but he seemed to have forgotten everything that had transpired that night except the affair of Kyirby and his wife. “We’ll find out in the mornin’, gentlemen,” said Billy Houchens, and so the crowd separated for the night. The next morning being Sunday, Billy hitched up his horse to his little sleigh and determined to take his wife over to visit some of her relations. The mountain road led right by the door of Kyirby’s cabin, and the horse, as he approached the house, began to behave in a very peculiar manner. He sniffed the air auspiciously, and when in front of the door, stopped still, trembling in every nerve, and refused to go on. “I nuvver knew him to behave that way ‘cept when he smelt blood,” said Billy, “an’ I know Kyirby ain’t been killin’ no hogs lately.” Then he called to Kyirby to come out and lead the horse by. There was no reply. All around there was perfect stillness, broken only by the falling of crisp pieces of snow from limbs of an oak tree near the cabin. The door was slightly open, and Billy got down from his seat and went and knocked. Still no answer. He looked in cautiously. From his position all he could see was a man’s foot protruding from behind the door. Pushing the door wide open, he found Kyirby. The old man was lying on his face with his head near the fireplace, and a mass of congealed blood in the drifted snow beside him, extended up to a terrific wound in the back of his head. The blow had evidently been dealt him from behind while he was sitting before his fire, and with an axe. The news, of course, spread quickly over the mountains that Kyirby had been killed by Shiflet. Mrs. Shiflet heard it that night, but said nothing. She saw her revenge within her grasp. Circumstances, she knew, would convict Shiflet before any jury in the world. Should she, who knew the secret of his innocence, remain silent, and allow the law to take its course? It was a great temptation, and Mrs. Shiflet partially yielded. “I’ll let ‘em keep him in jail till the trial,” she said to herself, “an’ then I’ll go down and tell, an’ git him out.” But the next day, which was courtday, Josh came home from Charlottesville, the countyseat, where the jail was, and said that there was serious talk of lynching Shiflet the next night. This decided her. She had not thought of that before. There was no time to lose. What if Shiflet had ill treated her? She did not even think of it now. His life was in danger; that was her only thought. The next morning she arose intending to start. But Josh, whom she meant should go with her, had already gone with the only horse. Nothing daunted, she set out at once for the mill, where, finding old Sal in the stable, she mounted and began the journey. It was twenty miles to Charlottesville from the mountains, and it would take till night to get there. Leaving her on the road, we will now transfer our readers to Charlottesville. All that Tuesday evening little groups of men might have been noticed coming into town by the different country roads. Towards night you could have seen that they were beginning to disguise themselves. Some had their coats turned wrong side outward, all had their hats pulled over their eyes, and, altogether, there was an air of mystery about them that was very suspicious. Although they came from different, directions, they seemed all to have a common destination the jailyard. About ten o’clock the jailer was awakened by some one calling him from the street outside. Going out, he found himself confronted by a crowd of men, the leader of whom demanded the jail key. “You had better give it up, Wright,” he said, seeing the man hesitate. “You see the men are determined to have it, and they are already excited by the work they have on hand.” The jailer, at this, gave up the key, and the crowd moved on toward the jail. The majority remained outside, in case of an attack from the Monticello Guard, while eight or ten of the leaders went inside, and straight to the cell of Shiflet. The old man had gone to bed, and he awoke with a start when the door was opened and the light from the lanterns fell on his face. “For Lord’s sake, gentlemen, what are you goin’ to do?” he asked. “Never mind, git up,” said one, roughly. The old man leaped out on the floor. He had been chained to the wall with a long iron chain. The lynchers did not have the key to his fetters, so began at once to rain blows upon the staple in the wall with an axe they had brought. Far out into the night the sounds of the clanking resounded, and Mrs. Shiflet, just getting into town, heard them. “Lord Almighty, Sal, git up,” she murmured, not knowing what the noises meant but connecting them in some way with the jail and Shiflet. The old mare seemed to feel that her master’s life depended upon her exertions, and she put on as much speed as was possible to her in her jaded condition. “Ten minutes later Shiflet with the noose around his neck was standing under a large oak tree in the suburbs of the town. The eyebrows were working convulsively, but except for that, there was no sign of agitation. The leader stands out near him. “Did you commit the murder of Josiah Kyirby, James Shiflet?” he asked. “The good Lord in heaven only knows,” answered Shiflet. “I don’t think I did, gentlemen, but I was drunk, an’ to save my soul I can’t remember.” “That’s enough, string him up, boys. We can’t have men going around killing people and then not knowing they did it or not.” “Lord’s sake, gentlemen,” said the old man, gimme time to say my pra’rs, won’t ye?” “How much time did you give Kyirby?” said a voice from the crowd, and the rope began to tighten. “But, gentlemen,” said he once more, “yonder comes somebody I know. It’s my old woman! Lemme make up with her and say goodbye, in the name o’ pity.” “Goodbye ter nothin’!” called Mrs. Shiflet, for she it was, just in time. “What air you fools tryin’ to do? Don’t you know you air hangin’ the wrong man?” At the latter question the men paused. Mrs. Shiflet gazed around the circle as if in search for some one. At last her eyes fell upon a familiar figure which was slowly slouching off. “Ketch that man! he’s the one that done it,” she cried, and jumping off old Sal, she ran up to him, lifted his bat brim, and disclosed the terrorstricken features of Nick Shiflet. “I seen him give the axe to Shiflet in the road Saturday night, when the old man was too drunk to see what he was about. You know he swore he’d get even with Kyirby, when the old man beat him in the barroom.” “Nick Shiflet, is this true?” asked the leader. But Nick never looked up nor said a word. “Boys, this is the justice for men like him. Up with him.” And a moment later the murderer of Kyirby was struggling in the air. About five o’clock the next morning, two people, a woman on horseback and a man walking, might have been seen entering the clearing at Shiflet’s mill. “So you’re comin’ back ter me sure ‘nough, old woman?” Shiflet is saying. “Well, you needn’t be afeered, any more. I’ve done had a lesson from whiskey that I’ll never forgit. An’ whenever I think about a drink I know I’ll feel that ‘ar rope ‘round my neck ag’in, and you kin bet I’ll keep sober.” And so he did. And there is happiness and contentment in one family at least in the Hollow, and that is at Shiflet’s, of Shiflet’s Mill. |