That after supper Charity sat alone in the and to Mr. Royall and Harney talking in the porch.
She had after the table had been and old Verena had up to bed. The window was open, and Charity seated herself near it, her hands on her knee. The was and still. Beyond the black an west passed into green, and then to a in which a great star hung. The soft of a little came through the dusk, and its calls the men's voices rose and fell.
Mr. Royall's was full of a satisfaction. It was a long time since he had had anyone of Lucius Harney's quality to talk to: Charity that the man all his and past. When Miss Hatchard had been called to Springfield by the of a sister, and Harney, by that time on his of and all the old houses Nettleton and the New Hampshire border, had the possibility of at the red house in his cousin's absence, Charity had Mr. Royall should refuse. There had been no question of the man: there was no room for him. But it appeared that he still live at Miss Hatchard's if Mr. Royall would let him take his at the red house; and after a day's Mr. Royall consented.
Charity him of being of the to make a little money. He had the of being an man; but she was to think he was than people knew. His had little more than a legend, only at by a to Hepburn or Nettleton; and he appeared to for his mainly on the produce of his farm, and on the from the that he in the neighbourhood. At any rate, he had been in Harney's offer to the at a and a a day; and his with the had itself, enough, at the end of the week, by his a ten-dollar bill into Charity's as she sat one day her old hat.
“Here—go a Sunday that'll make all the other girls mad,” he said, looking at her with a in his deep-set eyes; and she that the present—the only gift of money she had from him—represented Harney's payment.
But the man's had Mr. Royall other than benefit. It gave him, for the time in years, a man's companionship. Charity had only a of her guardian's needs; but she he himself above the people among he lived, and she saw that Lucius Harney him so. She was to how well he to talk now that he had a who him; and she was by Harney's deference.
Their was mostly about politics, and her range; but tonight it had a for her, for they had to speak of the Mountain. She a little, they should see she was in hearing.
“The Mountain? The Mountain?” she Mr. Royall say. “Why, the Mountain's a blot—that's what it is, sir, a blot. That up there ought to have been in long ago—and would have, if the people here hadn't been clean of them. The Mountain to this township, and it's North Dormer's fault if there's a of and over there, in of us, the laws of their country. Why, there ain't a or a tax-collector or a coroner'd go up there. When they of trouble on the Mountain the look the other way, and pass an to the town pump. The only man that goes up is the minister, and he goes they send and him there's any of them dies. They think a of Christian on the Mountain—but I of their having the minister up to them. And they trouble the Justice of the Peace either. They just together like the heathen.”
He on, in language how the little of had to keep the law at bay, and Charity, with eagerness, Harney's comment; but the man more to Mr. Royall's views than to his own.
“I you've been up there yourself?” he presently asked.
“Yes, I have,” said Mr. Royall with a laugh. “The here told me I'd be done for I got back; but nobody a to me. And I'd just had one of their sent up for seven years too.”
“You up after that?”
“Yes, sir: right after it. The came to Nettleton and ran amuck, the way they sometimes do. After they've done a wood-cutting job they come and the money in; and this man ended up with manslaughter. I got him convicted, though they were of the Mountain at Nettleton; and then a thing happened. The sent for me to go and see him in gaol. I went, and this is what he says: 'The that me is a chicken-livered son of a—and all the of it,' he says. 'I've got a job to be done for me up on the Mountain, and you're the only man I in that looks as if he'd do it.' He told me he had a child up there—or he had—a little girl; and he wanted her and like a Christian. I was sorry for the fellow, so I up and got the child.” He paused, and Charity with a heart. “That's the only time I up the Mountain,” he concluded.
There was a moment's silence; then Harney spoke. “And the child—had she no mother?”
“Oh, yes: there was a mother. But she was to have her go. She'd have her to anybody. They ain't up there. I the mother's by now, with the life she was leading. Anyhow, I've of her from that day to this.”
“My God, how ghastly,” Harney murmured; and Charity, with humiliation, to her and ran upstairs. She at last: that she was the child of a and of a mother who wasn't “half human,” and was to have her go; and she had this history of her related to the one being in she to appear to the people about her! She had noticed that Mr. Royall had not named her, had any that might identify her with the child he had from the Mountain; and she it was out of for her that he had silent. But of what use was his discretion, since only that afternoon, by Harney's in the out-law colony, she had to him of from the Mountain? Now every word that had been spoken her how such an must the them.
During his ten days' at North Dormer Lucius Harney had not spoken a word of love to her. He had in her with his cousin, and had Miss Hatchard of her as a librarian; but that was a act of justice, since it was by his own fault that those had been questioned. He had asked her to drive him about the country when he lawyer Royall's to go on his sketching expeditions; but that too was natural enough, since he was with the region. Lastly, when his was called to Springfield, he had Mr. Royall to him as a boarder; but where else in North Dormer he have boarded? Not with Carrick Fry, wife was paralysed, and large family his table to over-flowing; not with the Targatts, who a mile up the road, with old Mrs. Hawes, who, since her had her, had the to cook her own while Ally up her as a seamstress. Mr. Royall's was the only house where the man have been offered a hospitality. There had been nothing, therefore, in the of events to in Charity's the with which it trembled. But the visible resulting from Lucius Harney's there ran an as and as the that makes the into the ice is off the pools.
The on which Harney had come was authentic; Charity had the from a New York publisher him to make a study of the eighteenth century houses in the less familiar of New England. But as the whole was to her, and hard as she it to why he paused neglected and houses, while others, and “improved” by the local builder, did not a glance, she not but that Eagle County was less rich in than he averred, and that the of his (which he had at a month) was not with the look in his when he had paused her in the library. Everything that had to have out of that look: his way of speaking to her, his in her meaning, his to their and to on every of being with her.
The of his were enough; but it was hard to how much they meant, his manner was so different from anything North Dormer had her. He was at once and more than any one she had known; and sometimes it was just when he was that she most the them. Education and opportunity had them by a that no of hers bridge, and when his and his him nearest, some word, some allusion, to her across the gulf.
Never had it so wide as when she up to her room with her the echo of Mr. Royall's tale. Her was the prayer that she might see Harney again. It was too to picture him as the to such a story. “I wish he'd go away: I wish he'd go tomorrow, and come back!” she to her pillow; and into the night she there, in the dress she had to take off, her whole a on which her and about like straws.
Of all this only a heart-soreness was left when she opened her the next morning. Her was of the weather, for Harney had asked her to take him to the house under Porcupine, and then around by Hamblin; and as the was a long one they were to start at nine. The sun rose without a cloud, and than she was in the kitchen, making sandwiches, into a bottle, up slices of apple pie, and Verena of having away a she needed, which had always on a in the passage. When she came out into the porch, in her pink calico, which had a little in the washing, but was still to set off her dark tints, she had such a of being a part of the and the that the last of her vanished. What did it where she came from, or child she was, when love was dancing in her veins, and the road she saw Harney toward her?
Mr. Royall was in the too. He had said nothing at breakfast, but when she came out in her pink dress, the in her hand, he looked at her with surprise. “Where you going to?” he asked.
“Why—Mr. Harney's starting than today,” she answered.
“Mr. Harney, Mr. Harney? Ain't Mr. Harney learned how to drive a yet?”
She no answer, and he sat in his chair, on the rail of the porch. It was the time he had spoken of the man in that tone, and Charity a of apprehension. After a moment he up and walked away toward the of ground the house, where the man was hoeing.
The air was and clear, with the that a north wind to the in early summer, and the night had been so still that the on everything, not as a moisture, but in that like diamonds on the and grasses. It was a long drive to the of Porcupine: across the valley, with the open slopes; then into the beech-woods, the of the Creston, a over ledges; then out again onto the farm-lands about Creston Lake, and up the of the Eagle Range. At last they the of the hills, and them opened another valley, green and wild, and it more away to the sky like the of a tide.
Harney the to a tree-stump, and they their under an with a out of which darted. The sun had hot, and them was the of the forest. Summer on the air, and a of white the of the fireweed. In the not a house was visible; it as if Charity Royall and Harney were the only beings in the great of earth and sky.
Charity's and on her. Young Harney had silent, and as he her, his arms under his head, his on the network of above him, she if he were on what Mr. Royall had told him, and if it had her in his thoughts. She he had not asked her to take him that day to the house; she did not want him to see the people she came from while the of her birth was fresh in his mind. More than once she had been on the point of that they should the and drive to Hamblin, where there was a little house he wanted to see; but and her back. “He'd know what of I to,” she said to herself, with a defiance; for in it was that her silent.
Suddenly she her hand and pointed to the sky. “There's a up.”
He her and smiled. “Is it that of cloud among the that you?”
“It's over the Mountain; and a cloud over the Mountain always means trouble.”
“Oh, I don't the you all say of the Mountain! But anyhow, we'll to the house the rain comes.”
He was not wrong, for only a had when they into the road under the of Porcupine, and came upon the house. It alone a with and tall bulrushes. Not another was in sight, and it was hard to what have the early who had his home in so a spot.
Charity had up of her companion's to what had him to the house. She noticed the fan-shaped of the light above the door, the of the at the corners, and the window set in the gable; and she that, for that still her, these were to be and recorded. Still, they had other houses more “typical” (the word was Harney's); and as he the on the horse's he said with a of repugnance: “We won't long.”
Against the their white to the the house looked desolate. The paint was almost gone from the clap-boards, the window-panes were and with rags, and the garden was a of nettles, and tall swamp-weeds over which big blue-bottles hummed.
At the of a child with a tow-head and like Liff Hyatt's over the and then away an out-house. Harney jumped and helped Charity out; and as he did so the rain on them. It came slant-wise, on a gale, and trees flat, off their like an autumn storm, the road into a river, and making of every hollow. Thunder rolled through the of the rain, and a of light ran along the ground under the blackness.
“Lucky we're here after all,” Harney laughed. He the under a half-roofless shed, and Charity in his ran with her to the house. The boy had not reappeared, and as there was no response to their Harney the door-handle and they in.
There were three people in the to which the door them. An old woman with a over her was by the window. She a sickly-looking on her knees, and it jumped and to away she and it without any of her aged, face. Another woman, the that Charity had once noticed in by, against the window-frame and at them; and near the an man in a shirt sat on a asleep.
The place was and and the air with the of and tobacco. Charity's sank. Old of the Mountain people came to her, and the woman's was so disconcerting, and the of the sleeping man so and bestial, that her was with a dread. She was not for herself; she the Hyatts would not be likely to trouble her; but she was not sure how they would a “city fellow.”
Lucius Harney would have laughed at her fears. He about the room, a “How are you?” to which no one responded, and then asked the woman if they might take till the was over.
She her away from him and looked at Charity.
“You're the girl from Royall's, ain't you?”
The colour rose in Charity's face. “I'm Charity Royall,” she said, as if her right to the name in the very place where it might have been most open to question.
The woman did not to notice. “You stay,” she said; then she away and over a dish in which she was something.
Harney and Charity sat on a bench of a on two boxes. They a door on a hinge, and through the they saw the of the tow-headed boy and of a little girl with a across her cheek. Charity smiled, and to the children to come in; but as soon as they saw they were they away on feet. It to her that they were of the sleeping man; and the woman their fear, for she moved about as and going near the stove.
The rain to against the house, and in one or two places it sent a through the and ran into on the floor. Every now and then the and down, and the old woman and it, it tight in her hands; and once or twice the man on the woke, his position and again, his on his breast. As the minutes passed, and the rain still against the windows, a of the place and the people came over Charity. The of the weak-minded old woman, of the children, and the man sleeping off his liquor, the setting of her own life a of peace and plenty. She of the at Mr. Royall's, with its and full of china, and the of and coffee and soft-soap that she had always hated, but that now the very symbol of order. She saw Mr. Royall's room, with the high-backed chair, the carpet, the of books on a shelf, the of “The Surrender of Burgoyne” over the stove, and the with a and white on a moss-green border. And then her mind to Miss Hatchard's house, where all was freshness, purity and fragrance, and to which the red house had always so and plain.
“This is where I belong—this is where I belong,” she to herself; but the had no meaning for her. Every and her a among these swamp-people like in their lair. With all her she she had not to Harney's curiosity, and him there.
The rain had her, and she to under the thin of her dress. The woman must have noticed it, for she out of the room and came with a tea-cup which she offered to Charity. It was full of whiskey, and Charity her head; but Harney took the cup and put his to it. When he had set it Charity saw him in his pocket and out a dollar; he a moment, and then put it back, and she that he did not wish her to see him money to people she had spoken of as being her kin.
The sleeping man stirred, his and opened his eyes. They rested for a moment on Charity and Harney, and then closed again, and his drooped; but a look of came into the woman's face. She out of the window and then came up to Harney. “I you go along now,” she said. The man and got to his feet. “Thank you,” he said, out his hand. She not to notice the gesture, and away as they opened the door.
The rain was still down, but they noticed it: the pure air was like in their faces. The clouds were and breaking, and their the light from hollows. Harney the horse, and they off through the rain, which was already with sunlight.
For a while Charity was silent, and her did not speak. She looked at his profile: it was than usual, as though he too were by what they had seen. Then she out abruptly: “Those people there are the of I come from. They may be my relations, for all I know.” She did not want him to think that she having told him her story.
“Poor creatures,” he rejoined. “I wonder why they came to that fever-hole.”
She laughed ironically. “To themselves! It's up on the Mountain. Bash Hyatt married the of the farmer that used to own the house. That was him by the stove, I suppose.”
Harney to nothing to say and she on: “I saw you take out a to give to that woman. Why did you put it back?”
He reddened, and to a swamp-fly from the horse's neck. “I wasn't sure——”
“Was it you they were my folks, and I'd be to see you give them money?”
He to her with full of reproach. “Oh, Charity——” It was the time he had called her by her name. Her over.
“I ain't—I ain't ashamed. They're my people, and I ain't of them,” she sobbed.
“My dear...” he murmured, his arm about her; and she against him and out her pain.
It was too late to go around to Hamblin, and all the were out in a clear sky when they the North Dormer and up to the red house.
