Judith of the Cumberlands

Alice Macgowan

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• Publié par: vooj
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 18
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg eBook, Judith of the Cumberlands, by Alice MacGowan, Illustrated by George Wright This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Judith of the Cumberlands Author: Alice MacGowan Release Date: September 4, 2008 [eBook #26527] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JUDITH OF THE CUMBERLANDS*** E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) “The moonlight flickered on the blade in his hand as he reeled backward over the bluff” (page 145). JUDITH OF THE CUMBERLANDS BY ALICE MACGOWAN AUTHOR OF “THE WIVING OF LANCE CLEAVERAGE,” “THE LAST WORD,” “HULDAH,” “RETURN,” ETC. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR BY GEORGE WRIGHT GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK COPYRIGHT , 1908 BY ALICE MACGOWAN This edition is issued under arrangement with the publishers, G. P. P UTNAM ’S S ONS, NEW Y ORK AND LONDON DEDICATION To my mountain friends, dwellers in lonely cabins, on winding horseback trails and steep, precarious roads; or in the tiny settlements that nestle in the highhung inner valleys; lean brown hunters on remote paths in the green shadowed depths of the free forest, light-stepping, keen-eyed, humorouslipped, hitting the point as aptly with an instance as with the old squirrel gun they carry; wielders of the axe by many a chip pile, where the swinging blade rests readily to answer query or offer advice; tanned, lithely moving lads following the plough, turning over the shoulder a countenance of dark beauty; grave, shy girls, pail in hand, at the milking-bars in dawn or dusk; young mothers in the doorway, looking out, babe on hip; big-eyed, bare-footed mountain children clinging hand in hand by the roadside, or clustered like startled little partridges in the shelter of the dooryard; knitters in the sun and grandams by the hearth; tellers and treasurers all of tales and legends couched in racy old Elizabethan English; I dedicate this—their book and mine. FOREWORD I have been so frequently asked how I, a woman, came by my intimate acquaintance with life in the more remote districts of the southern Appalachians, particularly in the matter of illicit distilling, that I think it not amiss to here set down a few words as to my sources of knowledge. I have always lived in a small city in the heart of the Cumberlands, and a portion of each year was spent in the mountains themselves. The speech of Judith and her friends and kin has been familiar to me from childhood; their point of view, their customs and possessions as well known to me as my own. Then when I began to write, I was one summer at Roan Mountain, on the North Carolina-Tennessee line, probably less than two hundred miles from Chattanooga by the railway, and Gen. John T. Wilder, who had campaigned all through the fastnesses of that inaccessible region, suggested to me that I buy a mountain-bred saddle horse, and ride such a route as he would give me, bringing up, after about a thousand miles of it, at my home. To follow the itinerary that the old soldier marked out on the map for me was to leave railroads and modern civilisation as we know it, penetrate the wild heart of the 407 region, and, depending on the wayside dwellers for hospitality and lodging from night to night, be forcibly thrust into an intimate comprehension of a phase of American life which is perhaps the most primitive our country affords. I was more than eight weeks making this trip, carrying with me all necessary baggage on my capacious, cowgirl saddle with its long and numerous buckskin tie-strings. At first I shrank very much from riding up to a cabin—a young woman, alone, with garments and outfit that must challenge the attention and curiosity of these people—in the dusk of evening or in a heavy rain-storm, and asking in set terms for lodging. But it took only a few days for me to find that here I was never to be stared at, wondered at, nor questioned; and that, proffering my request under such conditions, I was met by instant hospitality, and a grave, uninquiring courtesy unsurpassed and not always equalled in the best society, and I seemed to evoke a swift tenderness that was almost compassion. During this journey I became acquainted with some features of mountain life which I might never have known otherwise. My best friends in the mountains in the neighbourhood of my own home had always been a little shy of discussing moonshine whiskey and moonshiners; but here I earned a dividend upon my misfortunes, being more than once taken for a revenue spy; and in the apologetic amenities of those who had misjudged me, which followed my explanations and proofs of innocence, I have been shown in a spirit of atonement, illicit still and “hideout.” I have heard old Jephthah Turrentine make his protest against the government’s attitude toward the mountain man and his “blockaded still.” I have foregathered with the revenuers in the settlements at the foot of the circling purple ranges, and been shown the specially made axes and hooks they carry with them for breaking up and destroying the simple appurtenances of the illicit manufacture. Knowing that Blatch Turrentine’s still must have cost him three hundred dollars, I cannot wonder that a mountain man, a thrifty fellow like Blatch, should have lingered, even in great danger, over the project of carrying it with him. These dwellers in the southern mountain region, the purest American strain left to us, hold the interest and appeal of a changing, vanishing type. The tide of enlightenment and commercial prosperity must presently sweep in and absorb them. And so I might hope that a faithful picture of the life and manners I have sought to represent in Judith of the Cumberlands would be the better worth while. A. MAC G. 408 409 Contents CHAPTER PAGE I. II. III. IV. SPRING AT “THE EDGE” SUITORS BUILDING 1 20 47 64 V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI. XII. XIII. XIV. XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII. XIX. XX. XXI. XXII. XXIII. XXIV. XXV. XXVI. XXVII. XXVIII. THE R ED R OSE AND THE BRIAR THE PLAY-PARTY KISSES ON THE D OORSTONE FOEMAN’ S BLUFF A SPY THE WARNING IN THE LION’ S D EN IN THE N IGHT THE R AID C OUNCIL OF WAR A MESSAGE THE OLD C HEROKEE TRAIL BITTER PARTING C AST OUT A C ONVERSION THE BAPTISING EBB-TIDE THE D UMB SUPPER A C ASE OF WALKING TYPHOID A PERILOUS PASSAGE H IS OWN TRAP LOVE’ S GUERDON A PROPHECY 83 99 112 124 135 152 161 181 199 207 221 235 244 261 273 282 302 315 326 340 360 371 382 393 Judith of the Cumberlands 1 Chapter I Spring “Won’t you be jest dressed to kill an’ cripple when you get that on! Don’t it set her off, Jeffy Ann?” The village milliner fell back, hands on hips, thin lips screwed up, and regarded the possible purchaser through narrowed eyes of simulated ecstasy. “I don’t know,” debated the brown beauty, surveying herself in a looking-glass by means of an awkwardly held hand-mirror. “’Pears to me this one’s too little. Hit makes me look like I was sent for and couldn’t come. But I do love red. I think the red on here is mightly sightly.” Instantly the woman of the shop had the hat off the dark young head and in her 2 own hands. “This is a powerful pretty red bow,” she assented promptly. “I can take it out just as easy as not, and tack it onto that big hat you like. I believe you’re right; and red certainly does go with yo’ hair and eyes.” Again she gazed with languishing admiration at her customer. And Judith Barrier was well worth it, tall, justly proportioned, deep-bosomed, long-limbed, with the fine hands and feet of the true mountaineer. The thick dusk hair rose up around her brow in a massive, sculptural line; her dark eyes —the large, heavily fringed eyes of a dryad—glowed with the fires of youth, and with a certain lambent shining which was all their own; the stain on her cheeks was deep, answering to the ripe red of the full lips. In point of fact Mrs. Rhody Staggart the milliner considered her a big, coarse country girl, and thought that a pair of stout corsets well pulled in would improve her crude figure; but she dealt out compliments without ceasing as she exchanged the red bow for the blue, and laboriously pinned the headgear upon the bronze-brown coils, admonishing gravely, “Far over to one side, honey—jest the way they’re a-wearin’ them in New York this minute.” The buyer once more studied her mirror, and its dumb honesty told her that she was beautiful. Then she looked about for some human eyes to make the same communication. “What’s a-goin’ on over yon at the Co’t House?” she inquired with languid interest, looking across the open square. “They’s a political speakin’,” explained the other. “Creed Bonbright he wants to be elected jestice of the peace and go back to the Turkey Tracks and set up a office. Fool boy! You know mighty well an’ good they’ll run him out o’ thar—or kill him, one.” Although the girl had herself ridden down from Turkey Track Mountain that morning, and the old Bonbright farm adjoined her own, the news held no interest for her. She wished the gathering might have been something more to her purpose; but she solemnly paid for the hat, and with the cheap finery on her stately young head, which had been more appropriately crowned with a chaplet of vine leaves, moved to the door. She hoped that standing there, waiting for the boys to bring her horse, she might attract some attention by her recently acquired splendour. She looked up at the Court House steps. The building was humbly in the Greek manner, as are so many of the public structures in the South. Between its great white pillars, flaking paint and half-heartedly confessing their woodland genesis, stood a tall young man, bareheaded. The doubtful sunlight of a March day glinted on his uncovere