Читать книгу The Summit House Mystery; Or, The Earthly Purgatory - L. Dougall - Страница 8

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Durgan furnished the wooden hut that stood on the ledge of the cliff between the road and the mine. Adam's wife baked his bread and made his bed. Durgan fell into the fanciful habit of calling her "Eve."

"Oh, Marse Neil, honey; Adam an' Eve they was white folks. Thought you'd have known your Bible better 'an us pore niggers, an' we knows that much, sure 'nough—yes, we does, suh."

When Eve spoke her words came in a multitude, soft and quick.

"Wasn't mighty surprised you didn't stop with those Northern ladies. Very nice ladies they is, but they's the mightiest 'ticlar 'bout their house, an' the workin'est folks I ever did see. 'Tain't a sign o' good fam'ly—no, Marse Neil, suh—gettin' up near sun-up in the mornin', and allers a-doin'. 'Tain't like quality, an' you couldn't never have stopped. But they's powerful nice ladies, Miss Hermie an' Miss Birdie, an' I don't go to say a word against them, no, suh."

Durgan watched to see if anyone else had a word to say against these ladies. From the loungers of Deer Cove, from the country folk who ascended Deer to sell their produce at the summit house, from the very children who trooped up the road with field flowers and pet animals, he heard the same testimony. In the whole countryside the sisters had the reputation of being gentle and just. Too methodical and thrifty to appear quite liberal in the eyes of the shiftless, too unconscious of the distinction of color to appear quite genteel, they were yet held in favor, and were to the whole region a source of kindly interest and guileless extortion. No other strangeness was attributed to them than that which "being from the North" implied.

Young Blount, the son of the landowner, soon rode over to see his cousin. The Blounts were one of the few rich Southern families who, owning a line of merchant ships, had not lost the source of their wealth in the war. They spent part of their time in this mountain region, of which a large area was their own.

The old General had not changed with the times, but the new epoch had stamped the son with a sense of responsibility for the humanity at his gates which his slave-owning forefathers had never known. He was twenty years younger than Durgan. Having looked upon a devastated land from his schoolroom windows, he had never acquired the patrician manner. He was affable and serious.

When arrived at Durgan's camp he tied his beautiful horse to a tree, and remained for the night. The two sat on the open rock by a fire of logs. Before darkness fell the visitor had pointed out every village, hamlet, and cabin which lay within the wide prospect which they overlooked.

The inhabitants of this land were, each for his respective station, poor, most of them miserably poor and thriftless. Blount took an interest in each individual. He was a gossip as confirmed as any club-man or idle dowager; but the objects of his interest were not his equals, and their benefit was the end he held in view.

The greenery of the valleys was rising like a tide upon slopes, and merging its verdure in the flush of flowing sap and ruddy buds which colored the upland forest; but, far and near, the highest hills still held up their gray woodlands to the frosty skies.

After listening to a long chronicle of his humbler neighbors, Durgan held out his pipe for a moment, and said casually—

"And the Northern ladies?"

"Ah, yes; despite the Northern flavor, they are a godsend to the place, if you will! Our people come from far and near to see their new-fangled barn, and carriage-house, and kitchen stoves. It's as elevating to our mountaineers"—he gave a laugh—"as the summer hotels they are building in the Tennessee Mountains or at Nashville are to the people of those parts. A new idea, an object-lesson. Most useful for children and fools. Our mountain whites are obstinate as mules. They think they know everything because they have never seen anything to arouse their curiosity. You can talk a new notion into a pig's head sooner than into them; but after they have seen an object, fingered it, and talked it over for a year or two, they imagine that it had its origin in their own minds. It was a good enough day for us when these ladies came here; and then, they put some money into circulation."

Durgan, with little further inquiry, soon heard all that gossip had to tell.

Miss Bertha, he said, had been delicate. After some years of travel in Europe, a high altitude in a mild climate, and quiet, had been prescribed. A chance of travel had brought them to this place, and the invalid's fancy had fixed itself on this site. Miss Smith, he said, was rather niggardly, but she had recognized that it was worth while to humor her sister's fancy by buying the place.

"She is fanciful, then?"

"I did not mean to imply that. You see, there are not many houses in the whole mountain range at this altitude to choose from, and this neighborhood is quiet and safe. The choice was not unnatural, but I spoke of it being 'humored' because the General put on a fancy price. He likes to rook a Northerner, and it was not to his interest to separate the house from the mine."

"You would say, then, that they are not fanciful or—eccentric in any way?"

"I should rather say that they have displayed great sense and moderation, never raising a suggestion of their Northern sympathies. They ride about and administer charity in a judicious way. They have even won over the General. Both he and I have a great respect for them. Their financial affairs are in the hands of an excellent firm of New York lawyers. They have friends who keep up a very regular correspondence. They are both fine women. It is refreshing to come across a little genuine culture in these wilds. I enjoy them every time I call."

In harmony with this last statement, young Blount called at the summit house the next morning, and took his noonday meal with the sisters. When he was riding down the mountain road again he called out, on passing the mine:

"Oh, Neil Durgan—say—why did you leave those quarters? Miss Smith says she gave you leave to stop. Are you anchoriting?"

The unwilling anchorite took comfort in the thought that his discomfort and his silence were offered to, and accepted by, a woman who, for some inscrutable reason, seemed to stand in need of them.

"None so poor but that he has something to give!" he muttered.