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A man stood on the jutting shoulder of a mountain overlooking a long, narrow valley, whose scattering houses and irregular farm-plats, seen through the clear air of that high region, appeared scarcely a gun-shot distant, when in fact they were miles away. It was early morning; the sun had barely cleared the highest peaks in the east, and the landscape, albeit a mid-winter one, was wonderfully rich in colors. On the oak trees the leaves still clung in heavy brown, green and russet masses; the hickory forests, though leafless, made bits of tender gray along the lower valley-slopes, whilst high up toward the mountain tops, the billowy wilderness of pines, cedars and chestnut trees added their variegated patch-work that gradually rose and shaded off into the blue of distance. In some places where storms, or the needs of man, had removed the oak woods, a dense, frondous mass of young pines had leaped up with a greenness full of a soft yellow glow. The sunshine and the wind of the South were flowing over this scene, and there were fragrant odors and balsamic pungency in every wave.

The man, a tall, shapely fellow, was a young Englishman who had lately come to the iron and coal region of Alabama to take charge of extensive manufacturing and mining interests belonging to his family. Just at present, with a true English faith in the value of outdoor sports, he was hunting wild turkeys, or, for that matter, whatever other wild game might chance to let him get within gun-shot of it. He had left his hotel at Birmingham with the first hint of dawn, and had steadily tramped over hills and mountain spurs and through wild ravines and beautiful glades, without a sight of fur or feather. Now he stood on this airy height, flushed with his healthful exercise, a little disappointed and annoyed. But the mountain air of the South has in it a tenderly exhilarating influence which affects the imagination and lulls one into pleasant, though often rather vague dreams. No matter if Edward Moreton was an intensely practical-minded man of affairs, the kind of Englishman who is willing to come to America and superintend iron works and coal mines, he was, nevertheless, not wholly impervious to the poetry—the lulling magnetism of the climate and the scene. For a while he leaned on his gun, a long, heavy double-barreled piece; then he took from his pocket a cigarette and match, seated himself on an old gray stone and began smoking. In the midst of the valley below, ran a rivulet, winding through the woods with a silvery shimmer, and out across the farms and past one little mill, on into a deep gorge of the stony hills.

Moreton had not found his surroundings in Birmingham quite satisfactory, notwithstanding the fact that he had fallen in love, after the old time fervid fashion, with a fair young Northern girl living there. The little mining town, cramped between the hills, full of rough folk, raw and new, could not be very attractive to a man who, no matter how practical and matter of fact in his disposition, had studied art and who still nursed the artist's dreams. As he sat there with his blue-gray eyes slowly sweeping the valley, he was not as blithe-looking as a model sportsman should be. His dog, a small brown spaniel, sat down at his feet and eyed him lazily. No sound, save the rustle of the wind in the trees and a dull distant tapping of a woodpecker, was disturbing the broad silence of the forest. The sky was intensely blue. Suddenly a short puff of dampness came from the southwest, followed by a growl of thunder, a thing not usual in winter, even in that latitude. Moreton arose and saw a heavy line of black cloud overhanging some conical peaks far away on the southwestern horizon.

"Come Nat," he said to his dog, "we must be going back; a nasty squall is coming. We shall get our jackets wet."

Nat answered with divers canine antics and the two turned away from the valley, the man walking with long firm strides and the dog trotting perfunctorily at his side. Their way led among the flanking spurs and foot-hills of the range, now over great fragmentary bowlders, now through yawning clefts and down winding defiles, sometimes on bare ridges of shale, anon under the dark odorous brushes of the pines. The cloud came after them, sending in advance its gusts of moist, fragrant air. A vast wing reached up to the zenith and a few big drops of rain pattered down. A morning shower in the mountains comes at race-horse speed. The swiftest birds are caught by it. A flock of noisy crows went flapping across the valley, striving in vain to outstrip the slanting flood that fell with a broad, washing roar from that rushing cloud.

"We are in for a soaking, Nat," grumbled Moreton, as he plucked up the collar of his shooting jacket; "a deuced bad outcome for our first day's shooting in America!"

Nat's tail was down and so were his ears. He relished the signs of the weather no more than did his stalwart master. A chilliness was creeping into the air, foretelling how disagreeable the rain was sure to be. The very trees shivered as the sunshine was shut off by the overlapping cloud.

It was just as the storm was about to break that certain sharp cries peculiar to the wild turkey reached the quick ears of sportsman and dog. The man stopped short and cocked his gun, as the spaniel darted away to a short distance and then began creeping through the low underbrush, as a setter does when about to come to a point. In the next instant four large birds were flushed, breaking from cover at about forty yards, their wings making the woods resound with their loud flapping. Almost at the same moment, the "bang—pang!" of Moreton's gun, fired right and left, went echoing across the valley and battling amongst the hills. A cock and hen were stopped short and fell heavily. The dog sprang forward to lead his master to the game, and then came a blinding down-gush of rain with a roar like that of a cyclone.

Moreton with great difficulty got the birds, and, after tying them together by the feet, slung them across his shoulder. This additional load and the hindering force of the rain made his further progress quite laborious. Nat resumed his drooping, mechanical jog-trot at his master's side. The young man leaned over and almost shut his eyes as he pressed on, catching quick breaths as the cold streams trickled down his back. His shooting jacket and trowsers were meant to be impervious to water, but the chilling liquid was dashed by the force of the wind against his neck and thence found its way down to his heels. He did not hesitate, under such stress of ill luck, to rush boldly against the door of a low, rambling mountain cabin and demand admission. His knock on the rough planks was heard by the inmates of the place, despite the heavy roar of the rain, and the response was immediate.

"Kem in, kem in," spoke a rather pleasing voice, in the peculiar accent and intonation of the mountaineers of the region, as the door was opened, letting the hunter and his dog in, along with a dash of slanting rain. "Le' me take them birds, strenger, an' ye jest git ther' by the fire. Hit's purty outdacious rainy all of a suddent; purty near drownd a feller." The speaker was a slender, almost slight, man, near fifty years old, flaxen-haired, thin-faced, with a sharp nose and a straggling beard, still lighter than his hair. He took the brace of birds off Moreton's shoulder and threw them aside on the clean white floor. "I'll jest put yer gun up fur ye," he continued, taking the weapon and leaning it against the wall in a corner of the room. Then he quickly fetched a chair. "Set down an' mek yerself at home, I'll punch up the fire, hit's got sorty low; I'll git some light'ood knots."

Moreton found himself in a place whose features at once interested him. Glancing around the room he saw two low beds, a few plain split-bottomed chairs, an old queer "bureau," or chest of drawers, with glass knobs, some rude shelves with ironstone dishes on them, a long flint-lock rifle, hanging in buck-horn forks over the door, one of which forks also held a coon-skin bullet-pouch and curiously carved powder-horn. The fire-place before which he sat was broad and deep, roughly lined with jagged stones picturesquely black with fleecy accumulations of soot from pine smoke; it was crossed by a heavy charred wooden crane and on its broad jambs rested a curious collection of cob-pipes, clay-pipes, wooden pipes and soft-stone pipes, along with sundry ragged twists of brown home-raised tobacco. There was a low, wide window on one side of the room, and beside it Moreton's eyes rested for a moment on a slim girl's form in a half-cowering position. She was so turned from him that he could see no more of her face than a rounded line of one cheek. There was a heavy brush of long, bright, yellowish flaxen hair, a very delicate ear and a glimpse of a brown throat and neck. One hand, rather large but shapely, lay along her lap, on the scant folds of a homespun cotton dress, the skirt of which could not quite hide her coarsely-shod feet. There was something curiously striking in this crumpled little figure that held Moreton's gaze for a time. Through an open door that gave into a smaller room, the intermittent hum of a spinning-wheel made itself heard, distinct from the clash and swash of the storm, and a tall angular woman walked back and forth, drawing out and reeling up the coarse thread she was twisting. The man had soon fetched wood and pine knots for the fire, and presently a liberal flame wavered up to the mouth of the great old chimney. He turned to Moreton and said:

"Lay off yer coat, strenger, an' git yer shirt dry; hit's outdacious onagreeable fur to hev on a wet shirt."

Moreton smiled pleasantly.

"Thank you, I will," he said, rising and stripping off the stiff jacket. "You are very kind. I am covering your floor with water."

"Shaw, that's nothin'," replied the man, in a tone of gentle contempt; "ef ye'd see hit sometimes when I come in ye mought talk. Them little puddles haint nothin' 'tall. The Colonel an' me jest floods the whole house when we gits wet."

"Wonder ef John haint a comin', Pap?"

This sudden inquiry came in a sweet, half-shy voice from the girl at the window.

"She calls him John, I calls him Colonel," explained the man. Then turning to answer the question:

"Oh, ther's no 'countin' fur him; he's as like to stay out all day and night es any way; hit don't make no differ'nce 'bout rain es to him, do it, Milly?"

The girl had turned her face toward the man when she spoke, but now she averted it again, a little flush gathering on the brown cheek.

"He don't mind no weather, strenger, the Colonel don't, rain er sunshine hit's all the same to him, hain't hit, Milly?" continued the host.

"I wush he'd come on back home," exclaimed the girl, "that's what I wush." Moreton had turned his back to the fire. He was astride of the chair and the steam was rising vigorously from his wet garments. Out of the corners of his eyes he kept glancing at that lithe, plump little figure by the window. He had the taste of an artist, and here was a model for brush or chisel to imitate. He was a genuine man, too, and here was a bit of rare feminine beauty, no matter how coarsely clad or how hopelessly uncultured. She had the grace of outline common to wild things, and there was that half-pathetic, half-glad beam in her face that appeals to a man's love of the innocent and his pity of the weak. Her head was small and well-poised above plump shoulders, her bust was full, yet girlish, giving just a hint of that early ripeness so common in southern countries, and her waist and limbs were perfect. At rare intervals one sees such a girl among the hardy peasants of most mountain regions, but not so often in America as elsewhere.

"Do ye ever smoke a pipe, stranger?" inquired the host, offering Moreton a cob pipe and a twist of tobacco.

"Thank you, yes, I will take some of your tobacco; I have a pipe," said the young man, drawing from his vest pocket a small meerschaum, old and dark as mahogany. He had heard of the excellence of this mountain home-grown tobacco.

"Hit air purty good, ef I do say hit myself. Most of 'em roun' here's glad to git Tom White's 'backer to chaw an' smoke, hain't they, Milly?" Mr. White thus introduced himself and his tobacco at the same time.

At this point Mrs. White quit her wheel and came into the room. She spoke to Moreton pleasantly, as if she had long known him, smiling cordially.

"Ef you menfolks don't care, I'll jest jine ye for a whiff er two," she said, going to the chimney-jamb and selecting a pipe.

They formed a strange group around that cabin fire. Moreton felt the democratic force of the situation and enjoyed it to the full.

"Hain't ye goin' to have a hand in this here gineral smoke, Milly?" said Mr. White, chuckling jocosely and looking, under comically-drawn eyebrows, at the girl.

"Now, Pap, you know I don't smoke at all," she quickly answered, getting up and leaving the room. Her movement was as light and nimble as that of a hare.

"Course she don't smoke, ye know," said White to Moreton, confidentially lowering his voice; "I wus jest a yankin' at her fur greens; she knows when I'm a greenin' of her, an' she gits tiffy at me in a minute. She's es sharp es a darnin'-needle, Milly is."

"Thomas, ye ortn't ter plague Milly so much, ye'll spile her temper. Milly's a mighty good gal," said Mrs. White in a tone half entreaty and half command. It was easy to see that Mrs. White ruled the cabin. After a moment of silence, "She's oneasy 'bout the Colonel, now, but then hit's no use, he's all right, rain er shine," responded the man.

Moreton, whose eyes furtively followed the girl as she left the room, saw that the apartment into which she passed was neatly carpeted and furnished with well-worn easy-chairs, a table and a desk. Between the opening and closing of the door he caught sight, also, of long shelves of books and some pictures. The room appeared quite large and arranged as if for a gentleman's study. The contrast between its almost elegant appointments and the arid blankness of the one in which Moreton sat was so pronounced that, despite his patrician self-control, a wave of surprise passed over his face. The quick eyes of the mountaineer saw this.

"That there air the Colonel's part of the house," he hastily said, a trace of apology and disclaimer in his voice; "hit jest suits him. He's got a outdacious sight o' larnin' an' plenty o' money. He kin buy whatever he wants."

"Yes," said Mrs. White, rather sharply, "an' jest es like es not he's right now a stan'in' under some tree er rock a waitin' fur the rain to quit an' a readin' of a book. Seems powerful quare to me."

Moreton was almost tempted to ask questions, so quick an interest had been generated by this gossip about the Colonel. Certainly this was a strange home for a man of wealth and education. Possibly the Colonel was some sport-loving gentleman from New Orleans, Mobile or Montgomery, who had taken these apartments in the cabin as a sort of shooting-box, he thought, for he had heard much of the peculiarities and extravagances of rich Southerners. But his mental discussion of this subject was cut short by a sudden movement on the part of White, who sprang to his feet and elevated his hands.

"Well, hit's jest too outdacious, Sarah," he cried, as if utterly chagrined; "jest to think, the strenger kem in wet an' soaked an' haint hed no liquor!"

"'Bout like sech as we'ns to furgit what we're 'bout," responded Mrs. White; "ye'll find the dim'jon under the tother bed behind the sack o' 'taters."

White dived under the bed in question and drew forth a large earthen bottle.

"Hit air peach liquor," he said, advancing upon Moreton; "the best they air in these parts. Ye must parding us, strenger, fur we clean furgot hit."

Mrs. White fetched a large, heavy tumbler and handed it to Moreton.

"Le' me pour fur ye, stranger," said White, uncorking the bottle. "Ye'll find 'at hit air liquor wo'th a-drinkin'. Hit ain't pizened with no revenue postage, ye may set thet down solid."

Moreton, with no light inward protest, submitted his lips to the proffered glass. His English taste for excellent drinks was never more deliciously surprised. What began as a formal, carefully guarded sip, crept on into a series of slow quaffs, ending in a final hearty gulp. White grinned delightedly.

"Haint hit good, strenger? Don't hit hev the outdaciousest way o' gittin' to the very marrer of a feller's neck, of any liquor ye ever tasted? Ef hit don't git ther', none don't. The Colonel sez hit's the best liquor 'at he ever tasted! an' he's traveled, he hes. He's been in furren parts, Rome an' France an' them air places."

Moreton was quick to acknowledge that the brandy was surpassingly fine. It had the bouquet of old wine, the body of cognac and the mellow fire of Scotch whisky, along with a faint trace of peach kernels. He thought of a certain London club in which he would like to introduce this Sand Mountain nectar.

White partook sparingly of the precious beverage, and then carefully replaced the bottle in its hiding-place under the bed.

Meantime the heavy throbs of wind and rain shook the cabin to its foundation.

When the mountaineer returned to his chair by the fire, Moreton inquired of him where the brandy was made.

"Oh, I dunno jest wher' hit air made, nohow. We calls hit the mounting jew," said White, glancing furtively at his wife. By "jew" he meant dew. The peach brandy made in the sly little stills, scattered among the mountains from North Carolina to Alabama, is sometimes locally called mountain dew, or rather, "mounting jew." It is not the drink of drunkards. In fact the mountaineers, with now and then an exception, are remarkably temperate in the matter of tippling; but the jug of "jew" is the special implement of their hospitality.