How lovely the face was!How pure!How child-like with all its hidden strength!How absolute her confidence in him!How great her love!It was of her love that he thought,not of his own;but with a new realization of her dependence upon him for happiness,his clasp tightened about her almost unconsciously.She stirred slightly,and,bending his head lower,Clayton whispered in her ear:
Have you been asleep,dear?
She lifted her face and looked tenderly into his eyes,shaking her head slowly,and then,as he bent over again,she clasped her arms about his neck and strained his face to hers.
Not until the opening of the door at the stair-way stirred them did they notice that the music and dancing below had ceased.The door was instantly closed again after a slight sound of scuffling,and in the moment of stillness that followed,they heard Raines say calmly:
"No;you can't go up thar."
A brutal oath answered him,and Easter started to her feet when she heard her father's voice,terrible with passion;but Clayton held her back,and hurried down the stairway.
"Ef ye don't come away from that door,"he could hear Hicks saying,"'n'stop this meddlin',I'll kill you 'stid o'the furriner."As Clayton thrust the door open,Raines was standing a few feet from the stairway.The drunken man was struggling in the grasp of several mountaineers,who were coaxing and dragging him across the room.
About them were several other men scarcely able to stand,and behind these a crowd of shrinking women.
Git back!git back!"said Raines,in low,hurried tones.
But Hicks had caught sight of Clayton.For a moment he stood still,glaring at him.Then,with a furious effort,he wrenched himself from the men who held him,and thrust his hand into his pocket,backing against the wall.The crowd fell away from him as a weapon was drawn and levelled with unsteady hand at Clayton.
Raines sprang forward;Clayton felt his arm clutched,and a figure darted past him.The flash came,and when Raines wrenched the weapon from the mountaineer's grasp the latter was standing rigid,with horror-stricken eyes fixed upon the smoke,in which Easter's white face showed like an apparition.As the smoke drifted aside,the girl was seen with both hands at her breast.Then,while a silent terror held every one,she turned,and,with outstretched hands,tottered toward Clayton;and as he caught her in his arms,a low moan broke from her lips.
Some one hurried away for a physician,but the death-watch was over before he came.
For a long time the wounded girl lay apparently unconscious,her face white and quiet.Only when a wood-thrush called from the woods close by were her lids half raised,and as Clayton pushed the shutter open above her and lifted her gently,she opened her eyes with a grateful look and turned her face eagerly to the cool air.
The dawn was breaking.The east was already aflame with bars of rosy light,gradually widening.Above them a single star was poised,and in the valley below great white mists were stirring from sleep.For a moment she seemed to be listlessly watching the white,shapeless things,trembling as with life,and creeping silently into wood and up glen;and then her lashes drooped wearily together.
The door opened as Clayton let her sink upon the bed,breathing as if asleep,and he turned,expecting the physician.Raines,too,rose eagerly,stopped suddenly,and shrank back with a shudder of repulsion as the figure of the wretched father crept,half crouching,within.
Sherd!
The girl's tone was full of gentle reproach,and so soft that it reached only Clayton's ears.
Sherd!
This time his name was uttered with an appeal ever so gentle.
Pore dad!Pore dad!"she whispered.Her clasp tightened suddenly on Clayton's hand,and her eyes were held to his,even while the light in them was going out.
A week later two men left the cabin at dusk.
Half-way down the slope they came to one of the unspeakably mournful little burying-grounds wherein the mountain people rest after their narrow lives.It was unhedged,uncared for,and a few crumbling boards for headstones told the living generation where the dead were at rest.For a moment they paused to look at a spot under a great beech where the earth had been lately disturbed.
"It air shorely hard to see,"said one in a low,slow voice,"why she was taken,'n1him left;why she should hev to give her life fer the life he took.But He knows,He knows,"the mountaineer continued,with unfaltering trust;and then,after a moment's struggle to reconcile fact with faith:"The Lord took whut He keered fer most,'n'she was ready,'n'he was'nt.
The other made no reply,and they kept on in silence.Upon a spur of the mountain beneath which the little mining-town had sunk to quiet for the night they parted with a hand-clasp.Not till then was the silence broken.
"Thar seems to be a penalty fer lovin'too ''much down hyar,"said one;"'n'I reckon,"he added,slowly,"that both of us hev got hit to pay."Turning,the speaker retraced his steps.The other kept on toward the lights below.
End
