Here they dwell in their
mountain
fastnesses,
distilling illicit whisky with as clear a conscience as they plant the
corn from which they make it, or as the Northern farmer makes
cider from his apples-in their opinion an exact parallel.
distilling illicit whisky with as clear a conscience as they plant the
corn from which they make it, or as the Northern farmer makes
cider from his apples-in their opinion an exact parallel.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v18 - Mom to Old
xciiii.
:
Wher of it is tolde in fablys that a lady uppon a tyme delyvered to
her mayden a galon of mylke to sell at a cite, and by the way, as she
sate and restid her by a dyche side, she began to thinke that with the
money of the mylke she wold bye an henne, the which shulde bringe
forth chekyns, and when they were growyn to hennys she wolde sell
them and by piggis, and eschaunge them in to shepe, and the shepe
in to oxen, and so whan she was come to richesse she sholde be
maried right worshipfully unto some worthy man, and thus she re-
ioycid. And whan she was thus mervelously comfortid and ravisshed
inwardly in her secrete solace, thinkynge with howe greate ioye she
shuld be ledde towarde the chirche with her husbond on horsebacke,
she sayde to her self: 'Goo we, goo we. ' Sodaynlye she smote the
ground with her fote, myndynge to spurre the horse, but her fote
slypped, and she fell in the dyche, and there lay all her mylke, and
so she was farre from her purpose, and never had that she hopid to
have. "
Here we have arrived at the end of our journey. It has been
a long journey across fifteen or twenty centuries, and I am afraid
our following Perrette from country to country, and from lan-
guage to language, may have tired some of my hearers. I shall,
therefore, not attempt to fill the gap that divides the fable of the
thirteenth century from La Fontaine. Suffice it to say, that the
## p. 10441 (#269) ##########################################
FREDERICK MAX MÜLLER
10441
milkmaid, having once taken the place of the Brahman, main-
tained it against all comers. We find her as Doña Truhana in
the famous 'Conde Lucanor,' the work of the Infante Don Juan
Manuel who died in 1347; the grandson of St. Ferdinand, the
nephew of Alfonso the Wise; though himself not a king, yet
more powerful than a king; renowned both by his sword and by.
his pen, and possibly not ignorant of Arabic, the language of
his enemies. We find her again in the 'Contes et Nouvelles' of
Bonaventure des Periers, published in the sixteenth century,— a
book which we know that La Fontaine was well acquainted with.
We find her, after La Fontaine, in all the languages of Europe.
You see now before your eyes the bridge on which our fables
came to us from East to West. The same bridge which brought
us Perrette brought us hundreds of fables, all originally sprung
up in India, many of them carefully collected by Buddhist priests
and preserved in their sacred canon, afterwards handed on to the
Brahmanic writers of a later age, carried by Barzûyeh from India
to the court of Persia, then to the courts of the Khalifs at Bag-
dad and Cordova, and of the Emperors at Constantinople. Some
of them no doubt perished on their journey, others were mixed
up together, others were changed till we should hardly know
them again. Still, if you once know the eventful journey of Per-
rette, you know the journey of all the other fables that belong to
this Indian cycle. Few of them have gone through so many
changes; few of them have found so many friends, whether in
the courts of kings or in the huts of beggars. Few of them
have been to places where Perrette has not also been. This is
why I selected her and her passage through the world as the best
illustration of a subject which otherwise would require a whole
course of lectures to do it justice.
## p. 10442 (#270) ##########################################
10442
WILHELM MÜLLER
(1794-1827)
LOVE no lyric poet excepting Goethe so much as Wilhelm
Müller," wrote Heine; and indeed, as he himself gladly
acknowledged, Heine owed to Müller many a tricksy lyric
charm. Müller was born at Dessau on October 7th, 1794, and there
he died on September 30th, 1827. In this brief space of thirty years
he succeeded in leaving upon the hearts of the German people an
impress of his poetic personality, that seems destined to last while
songs are sung and nature still has charms. He died just as his
genius was maturing. His spirit was pre-
paring for higher flights when it passed
from earth altogether. He is thus a poet
for the young-for those who delight in
"young love and old wine. " The heart of
youth finds in Müller's poems the expres-
sion of its own vague longings and un-
defined emotions; and the heart of the
aged, if it has preserved its freshness, is
quickened by the genial flow of his simple,
passionate verse.
WILHELM MÜLLER
Müller, like thousands of spirits far less
fine than his, was touched to patriotic issues
at the time of the great uprising against
Napoleon. He had begun the study of phi-
lology and history at Berlin when the wars for freedom broke out.
During 1813 and 1814, following the call of the Prussian king, he
served his country as a volunteer, as Kleist and Körner did. He
then quietly resumed the study of Old German at the Berlin Univer-
sity. This taste for old Germanic lore reveals that tendency of mind
which in his son, Professor Max Müller, has reached its scholarly
fruition. In the father's case these studies were placed first of all at
the service of the Muses; through them he acquired that intimate
knowledge of the essential qualities of early German culture, which
enabled him so perfectly to catch the tone of the German folk-song.
In the circle of young Berlin poets, his talent found stimulus and
encouragement. In 1815 this group of friends issued the Bundes-
blätter' (Leaves of Union), and here are to be found the earliest
poems of Wilhelm Müller.
## p. 10443 (#271) ##########################################
WILHELM MÜLLER
10443
In 1817 there came to Müller, as to Geibel later, the ardently
desired opportunity of standing upon classic soil. He went to Italy.
and the literary result of his trip was the graceful book published
in 1820, and entitled 'Rom, Römer, und Römerinnen' (Rome, and
Roman Men and Women). Upon his return in 1819, he was called to
his native city of Dessau as a teacher of ancient languages. At the
same time he held the post of librarian of the newly founded Ducal
Library. His philological works were chiefly contributions to ency-
clopædias and other compilations. He translated Marlowe's 'Faus-
tus,' and Achim von Arnim wrote the preface; Fauriel's collection of
modern Greek folk-songs he also put into German. Perhaps the
most valuable of his scholarly undertakings was the 'Library of Ger-
man Poets of the Seventeenth Century,' in ten volumes.
But it is not upon these things that Müller's fame rests.
He was
first of all a poet; and this became evident to the public at large
when in 1821 he published 'Gedichte aus den Hinterlassenen Papieren
eines Reisenden Waldhornisten' (Poems from the Posthumous Papers
of a Traveling Bugler). In the same year appeared the first of the
famous 'Griechenlieder' (Songs of the Greeks), in which the profound
sympathy of the German people with the Greek struggle for freedom
found stirring expression. With his love for the heroes of ancient
Greece he combined a splendid enthusiasm for Byron, Kanaris, and
Marco Bozzaris. This uprising of Greece appealed to all poets, and
the magic of Byron's name seemed to make it peculiarly their affair.
All the bards of the land of song burst into impassioned verse in
defense of the classic country and Pierian spring which had been
the original source of their own inspiration. The Songs of the
Greeks' aided powerfully in rousing indignation against the Turks;
and just as Greek admirers of Byron had sent marble to be used
for the poet's monument in London, so the Greek Parliament voted
a ship-load of Pentelican marble for the monument which has been
erected to Müller in Dessau.
If the 'Songs of the Greeks' are less well known to the world
at large than two other series of Müller's lyrics, this is primarily due
to Franz Schubert. The two cycles of exquisite lyrics entitled 'Die
Schöne Müllerin' (The Pretty Maid of the Mill) and 'Die Winterreise'
(The Winter Journey) caught the heart and ear of Schubert, and he
wedded them to immortal music. We are made to share the fresh
joy of the wandering miller, who, following the guidance of his
beloved brook, finds the fickle beauty of the mill and loves her;
and we share, too, his sorrow when her heart turns to the hunts-
man, clad in green, and her faithful lover buries his grief and love
in the waters of the still singing brook. There is thus a dramatic
interest that binds together these simple songs. In this cycle, as in
the Winter Journey,' one feels the deep sustaining joy of the poet
<
## p. 10444 (#272) ##########################################
WILHELM MÜLLER
10444
in all outdoor nature: it is symbolized in the loving intimacy
between the miller and the brook, between th wanderer and the
linden-tree. Taken with the music, the two cycles form little lyric
dramas; the words can no longer be recalled without the melody,
and these combined creations of Müller and Schubert are among the
most beautiful and delicate works of art that have sprung from the
lyric genius of Germany. And so, although no poet voice had a
more vigorous ring when it sang in the cause of freedom, it is prob-
able that Müller will be chiefly remembered as the singer of winter
journeys and wanderers' joys, of mill-stream melodies and the lays
of love.
FROM THE PRETTY MAID OF THE MILL'
Translated by Charles Harvey Genung and Edward Breck
WANDERING
O WANDER is the miller's joy,
To wander!
T
He must a wretched miller be
Who would not wander merrily,
And wander!
We learned it from the water brook,
The water!
It takes no rest by night or day,
But ever wends its laughing way,
The water!
We learn it from the mill-wheel too,
The mill-wheel!
That will not stand a moment still,
But tireless turns the mighty mill,
The mill-wheel!
The stones themselves forget their weight,
The millstones!
They join the merry dancing crew,
And try to move much faster too,
The millstones!
To wander, wander is my joy,
To wander!
Good master and good mistress, pray,
Let me in peace now go my way
And wander!
## p. 10445 (#273) ##########################################
WILHELM MÜLLER
WHITHER?
I HEARD a brooklet gushing
From out the rocky spring,
Down through the valley rushing
With clear and laughing ring.
I know not what came o'er me,
What longing filled my breast:
Down to the vale it bore me,
And onward without rest.
Far downward, ever onward,
I followed its dancing gleam,
And louder still and clearer
Sang ever the happy stream.
And this way must I wander?
O brooklet, whither, say?
Thou hast with thy sweet rushing
My reason charmed away.
What, prate I then of rushing?
That can no rushing be!
'Tis the voice of the water-nixies,
That sing their songs to me.
Ah, heed not song nor rushing,
But wander onward still;
There must be merry mill-wheels
In every flashing rill.
HALT !
I SPY a mill forth peeping
By the alder-lined mere;
The rushing and singing
Of mill-wheels I hear.
Hey, welcome, hey, how welcome,
Sweet old song of the mill!
And the house with its windows
Is so cozy and still.
And the sunshine above me
Makes heaven seem gay!
Ah, brooklet, lovely brooklet,
Was it this thou wouldst say?
10445
## p. 10446 (#274) ##########################################
10446
WILHELM MÜLLER
THANKSGIVING TO THE BROOK
WAS it this thou wouldst say,
My friend, by thy lay?
By ringing and singing,
Was it this thou wouldst say?
To the miller's maid go!
Thou meanest it so.
Ah! Have I not guessed it?
To the miller's maid go!
Can her wish it be,
Or foolest thou me?
Oh, this only tell me,
If her wish it be.
Howe'er it was meant,
I'll rest me content;
I have found what I sought for,
Howe'er it was meant.
I sought work, indeed,
I've now all I need;
For my hands, for my heart,
I've all that I need!
CURIOSITY
I'LL ask no pretty flower,
I'll ask no starry sphere;
For none of them can tell me
What I so long to hear.
Besides, I'm not a gardener,
The stars all hang too high;
My brooklet here shall tell me
If my fond heart doth lie.
O brooklet, my beloved,
Why singest thou no more?
I ask for one word only,
One answer o'er and o'er.
"Yes" is the word I long for,
The other word is "no";
In one of these two answers
Is all my weal or woe.
## p. 10447 (#275) ##########################################
WILHELM MÜLLER
10447
O brooklet, my beloved,
Why shouldst thou wayward be?
I'll promise not to tell it-
Say, brooklet, loves she me?
IMPATIENCE
I'D CARVE it deep in every forest tree,
On every stone I'd grave it lastingly;
In every garden plot the words I'd sow,
With seed that soon my sweet device would show,
That she should see my faithful heart's endeavor:
Thine is my heart, and shall be thine forever.
A magpie young and lusty I would teach,
Until he sang aloud that sweetest speech,
And sang it with my voice's counterpart,
With all the yearning of my loving heart;
He'd sing it then to her and cease it never:
Thine is my heart, and shall be thine forever.
I'd fling it forth to every morning breeze,
I'd sigh it softly to the swaying trees;
Oh, that it shone from every blossom fair!
Oh, that she breathed it in the perfumed air!
Are mill-wheels all that thou canst move, O river?
Thine is my heart, and shall be thine forever.
I thought it looked from out my loving eyes,
And burned upon my cheeks in telltale guise;
Imprinted on my speechless lips it were,
And every breath I drew cried out to her;
But she, alas, heeds naught of my endeavor:
Thine is my heart, and shall be thine forever.
GOOD-MORNING
GOOD-MORNING, pretty miller's lass!
Why hide thy head, whene'er I pass,
Behind the curtain yonder?
Dost think my greetings boldness show?
Disturb thee then my glances so?
Then onward I must wander.
## p. 10448 (#276) ##########################################
10448
WILHELM MÜLLER
Oh, let me linger by the brook,
And only at thy window look,
Below there, just below there!
Thou flaxen head, now hide no more!
Come forth from out your oval door,
Ye morning stars that show there!
Ye slumber-laden eyes so blue,
Ye flowers wet with morning dew,
Doth ruddy sunlight blind you?
Were they so sweet, the joys of sleep,
That now you close and droop and weep,
Because they're left behind you?
Now shake ye off the dreamland haze,
And fresh and free your heads upraise,
To greet the shining morrow!
Aloft the lark doth gayly soar,
And at the deep heart's inmost core
Awake love's care and sorrow.
SHOWERS OF TEARS
WE SAT nestled close to each other,
In shady alder nook;
We gazed long and fondly together
Down into the murmuring brook.
The moon uprose in heaven,
The stars began to glow,
And gazed long and fondly together
At the silvery mirror below.
'Twas not the moon that I gazed at,
And not the starry skies:
Her picture was all I gazed at,
And all I saw was her eyes.
I saw them there winking and blinking
Deep down in my brooklet so true;
The flowers on the margin, the blue ones,
Are winking and blinking there too.
And in the waters sunken
The whole wide heaven shone,
And into its glistening bosom
It seemed to lure me on.
## p. 10449 (#277) ##########################################
WILHELM MÜLLER
10449
And over the clouds and the starlight
The brook rippled joyous and free,
And called me, ringing and singing:-
"Come hither, O brother, to me! "
XVIII-654
And blurred were my eyes with hot tear-drops;
Before me the brook seemed to spin;
She said, "A shower is coming:
Good-night I'm going in. "
――――
MINE!
BROOKLET, cease that song of thine!
Mill-wheels, stop your whirr and whine!
All ye merry wood-songsters fine,
Make no sign;
Silent be and close your eyne!
Every line
WITHERED FLOWERS
Ан, ALL уe flowers
I'll design-
It shall but one rhyme enshrine:
For the miller's lovely maid is mine!
Mine!
Springtime, are there then no fairer flowers thine?
Sunlight, canst thou then no brighter shine?
Ah, alone I must repine
With that sweetest of all words, "Mine,»
Understood by none in all this world divine!
That she once gave,
Ye shall be buried
•
With me in the grave.
Why gaze ye sadly
Upon me so,
As if with pity
Ye saw my woe?
-
Ah, all ye flowers
Of pale regret,
Ah, all ye flowers,
How came ye wet?
## p. 10450 (#278) ##########################################
WILHELM MÜLLER
10450
But tears can't freshen
The flowers like rain,
Cannot make dead passion
To bloom again.
The winter's dying,
And spring will appear,
And flowers will blossom
Around me here.
And flowers will cover
My new-made grave,—
Ah, all the flowers,
That she once gave!
And when she wanders
The church-yard through,
And softly murmurs,
"His love was true! "-
Then, all ye flowers,
Oh bloom, oh blow!
For May is coming,
And gone is the snow.
THE MILLER AND THE BROOK
The Miller:
WHEN a heart so constant
Must break and must die,
The lilies all withered
And broken lie.
In clouds then the full moon
Must veil her head,
And hide from all mortals
The tears she doth shed.
In heaven the angels
Their eyes gently close;
They're sobbing and soothing
The soul to repose.
The Brook:
When love has o'ermastered
Its hopes and fears,
## p. 10451 (#279) ##########################################
WILHELM MÜLLER
10451
A new star, bright shining,
In heaven appears.
Then blossom three roses,
Half white, half red,
That never shall wither
In garden bed.
And in heaven the angels
Their pinions will clip,
And earthwards each morning
Will fairily trip.
The Miller:
Ah, brooklet, lovely brooklet,
Thou'rt faithful and true;
Ah, brooklet, but thou know'st not
What love can do.
Ah, down there, far down there,
'Tis cool and deep.
Ah, brooklet, lovely brooklet,
Now sing me to sleep.
CRADLE SONG OF THE BROOK
SWEETLY sleep, sweetly sleep!
I'll thy vigil keep!
Wanderer, so weary, thou'rt now at home.
Securely rest
Asleep on my breast,
Till the brooklets mingle with ocean foam.
Thy bed shall be cool
In moss-lined pool,
In the chamber of sparkling blue crystal clear;
Come, wavelets, wave,
His cradle lave,
Soothe him and rock him, my comrade so dear.
When the sound of horn
From the greenwood's borne,
I will rush and I'll gush, that thou mayst not hear.
Peep ye not through,
Little flow'rets blue!
You make all the dreams of my sleeper so drear.
## p. 10452 (#280) ##########################################
WILHELM MÜLLER
10452
Away, away
From my margin stay,
Wicked maiden, lest from thy shadow he wake!
But throw me down
Thy kerchief brown,
So for his eyes I'll a bandage make!
Now good-night, now good-night!
Till all's made right,
Forget all thy hopes, and forget thy fate!
The moon shines bright,
The mists take flight,
And the heaven above me how wide and how great!
VINETA
F
ROM the sea's deep hollow faintly pealing,
Far-off evening bells come sad and slow;
Faintly rise, the wondrous tale revealing
Of the old enchanted town below.
On the bosom of the flood reclining,
Ruined arch and wall and broken spire,
Down beneath the watery mirror shining,
Gleam and flash in flakes of golden fire.
And the boatman, who at twilight hour,
Once that magic vision shall have seen,
Heedless how the crags may round him lower,
Evermore will haunt the charmèd scene.
From the heart's deep hollow faintly pealing,
Far I hear them, bell-notes sad and slow,
Ah! a wild and wondrous tale revealing
Of the drownèd wreck of love below.
There a world in loveliness decaying
Lingers yet in beauty ere it die;
Phantom forms across my senses playing,
Flash like golden fire-flakes from the sky.
Lights are gleaming, fairy bells are ringing,
And I long to plunge and wander free
Where I hear those angel-voices singing
In those ancient towers below the sea.
Translation of J. A. Froude.
## p. 10453 (#281) ##########################################
10453
-
MARY NOAILLES MURFREE
(CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK)
(1850-)
W
HEN Miss Murfree's first work appeared, not only was her
pseudonym, Charles Egbert Craddock, accepted by her edi-
tors without suspicion as her proper name, but the public
was equally deceived. The firm, quiet touch, the matter wholly free
from subjectiveness, the robust humor, and the understanding of
masculine life, had no trace of femininity.
Her first book, Where the Battle was
Fought, which finally appeared in 1884,
was the effort of a very young writer, con-
taining more of promise than fulfillment,
though the peculiarities of style and char-
acter were prophetic of her later manner.
No publisher desired it until the great favor
accorded to 'In the Tennessee Mountains'
opened the way. In the maturer story was
struck a more confident note. Miss Murfree
had found her field, and henceforth the
Tennessee mountains and their inhabitants
were to occupy her descriptive powers.
These men and women are for the first part
rude people, kept in unlikeness to the outside world not only by their
distance from civilization, but by the mist of tradition in which they
live. Here is a colony of people who have their own ideas of eti-
quette, and as strict a code as that of Versailles in the time of
Louis XIV. ,- their own notions of comfort and wealth, and their own
civil and moral laws.
Here they dwell in their mountain fastnesses,
distilling illicit whisky with as clear a conscience as they plant the
corn from which they make it, or as the Northern farmer makes
cider from his apples-in their opinion an exact parallel. Passion-
ately religious, full of picturesque poetry,-which they learn from
the Bible, their only familiar book,-no wonder the "Prophet of the
Great Smoky Mountain" thrilled his audiences when he described the
scenes enacted in the Old Testament as having been transacted on
the very hillsides where he preached, and that the majestic imagery
of the Book was heightened by the majestic surroundings.
MARY N. MURFREE
## p. 10454 (#282) ##########################################
10454
MARY NOAILLES MURFREE
But good material," in a literary sense, as are the Tennessee
mountaineers, no sort of idealization nor surface acquaintance, how-
ever aided by artistic intuition, could have made them natural to the
outside world. It was the office of one who knew them as Miss Mur-
free knew them, not only from the inside view but the view of a
social superior, which enabled her to give the picture a perspective.
Nowhere is this gift better indicated than in the artistic story 'Drift-
ing down Lost Creek,' in which the elements of interest are thor-
oughly worked up, the motive of the delicate romance touched with
a perfect consciousness of the author's audience; while there is such
a regard for the verities, that the whole story turns on the every-
day feminine loyalty of a mountain girl to her lover. On Big Injin
Mountain is an episode of a sturdier kind, more dramatic both in
matter and in manner than 'Drifting down Lost Creek'; but at its
close, when the rude mountaineers display a tenderness for the man
they have misunderstood, the reader, gentle or simple, is perforce
thrilled into sympathy,- for this is a passage to which the better
part of human nature, wherever found, responds.
In Miss Murfree's writings we are perhaps too often reminded of
the pictorial art which she undoubtedly possesses, by the effect she
evolves from the use of words. She has a clear vision and a dra-
matic temperament; and it is a temptation, not always resisted, to
emphasize physical surroundings in order to heighten situations. The
moment a lull occurs in the action of her personages, the mountain
solitudes come in to play their part, the sylvan glades, the chro-
matic hues, the foaming cataracts, the empurpled shadows. Even the
wild animals assume the functions of dramatis persona, and are an
inarticulate chorus to interpret the emotions of the human actors.
But it is not given to a redundant and enthusiastic nature, a
youthful nature at least in her earlier stories,- for Miss Murfree was
born about 1850 in the township of Murfreesborough, Tennessee, a
town called after her respected and influential family,- always to use
one word when two or three seem to do as well. The normal mind
is more active in the details of human life than in the details of
landscape; but Miss Murfree, although she has not always accepted
this as a fact, has painted scenes where she has perfectly adjusted
her characters and their surroundings. In 'Old Sledge at the Settle-
mint, the picture of the group of card-players throwing their cards.
on the inverted splint basket by the light of the tallow dip and a
pitch-pine fire, while the moon shines without, and the uncanny
echoes ring through the rocks and woods, is as graphic as one of
Spagnoletto's paintings. And she has done a gentler and even more
sympathetic service in depicting the lonely, self-reliant, half mournful
life of the mountain women whom she loves; particularly the young
-
## p. 10455 (#283) ##########################################
MARY NOAILLES MURFREE
10455
women, pure, sweet, naïve, and innocent of all evil. The older women
"hold out wasted hands to the years as they pass,-holding them out
always, and always empty"; but in drawing her old women, Miss
Murfree lightens her somewhat sombre pictures by their shrewd fun
and keen knowledge of human nature. Mrs. Purvine is
genius.
stroke of
Nor could Miss Murfree's stories have won their wide popularity
with an American audience without a sense of humor, which is to her
landscape as the sun to the mist. Her mountaineer who has been
restrained from killing the suspected horse-thief is rather relieved
than otherwise, having still a sense of justice: "The bay filly ain't
such a killin' matter nohow; ef it was the roan three-year-old
'twould be different. "
The novels which have most added to Miss Murfree's reputation,
perhaps, are 'In the Tennessee Mountains,' 'The Prophet of the Great
Smoky Mountain,' and 'In the Clouds,'-all stories of the Tennessee
mountains, told in her vigorous, dramatic manner.
THE DANCIN' PARTY AT HARRISON'S COVE
From 'In the Tennessee Mountains. Copyright 1884, by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
UR ye see, Mis' Darley, them Harrison folks over yander ter
the Cove hev determinated on a dancin' party. "
"FR
The drawling tones fell unheeded on old Mr. Kenyon's
ear, as he sat on the broad hotel piazza of the New Helvetia
Springs, and gazed with meditative eyes at the fair August sky.
An early moon was riding, clear and full, over this wild spur of
the Alleghanies; the stars were few and very faint; even the
great Scorpio lurked vaguely outlined above the wooded ranges;
and the white mist that filled the long, deep, narrow valley be-
tween the parallel lines of mountains, shimmered with opalescent
gleams.
All the world of the watering-place had converged to that
focus the ball-room; and the cool, moonlit piazzas were nearly
deserted. The fell determination of the "Harrison folks" to
give a dancing party made no impression on the preoccupied old
gentleman. Another voice broke his revery, -a soft, clear, well-
modulated voice; and he started and turned his head as his
own name was called, and his niece, Mrs. Darley, came to the
window.
"Uncle Ambrose, are you there? -So glad! I was afraid
you were down at the summer-house, where I hear the children
## p. 10456 (#284) ##########################################
•
MARY NOAILLES MURFREE
10456
singing. Do come here a moment, please. This is Mrs. Johns,
who brings the Indian peaches to sell-you know the Indian
peaches? »
Mr. Kenyon knew the Indian peaches; the dark-crimson fruit
streaked with still darker lines, and full of blood-red juice, which
he had meditatively munched that very afternoon. Mr. Kenyon
knew the Indian peaches right well. He wondered, however,
what had brought Mrs. Johns back in so short a time; for
although the principal industry of the mountain people about the
New Helvetia Springs is selling fruit to the summer sojourners,
it is not customary to come twice on the same day, nor to
appear at all after nightfall.
Mrs. Darley proceeded to explain.
"Mrs. Johns's husband is ill, and wants us to send him some
medicine. "
Mr. Kenyon rose, threw away the stump of his cigar, and
entered the room. "How long has he been ill, Mrs. Johns? "
he asked dismally.
Mr. Kenyon always spoke lugubriously, and he was a dismal-
looking old man. Not more cheerful was Mrs. Johns: she was
tall and lank, and with such a face as one never sees except in
these mountains,- elongated, sallow, thin, with pathetic, deeply
sunken eyes, and high cheek-bones, and so settled an expression
of hopeless melancholy that it must be that naught but care
and suffering had been her lot; holding out wasted hands to the
years as they pass,- holding them out always, and always empty.
She wore a shabby, faded calico, and spoke with the peculiar
expressionless drawl of the mountaineer. She was a wonderful
contrast to Mrs. Darley, all furbelows and flounces, with her
fresh, smooth face and soft hair, and plump, round arms half
revealed by the flowing sleeves of her thin black dress.
Darley was in mourning, and therefore did not affect the ball-
room. At this moment, on benevolent thoughts intent, she was
engaged in uncorking sundry small phials, gazing inquiringly at
their labels, and shaking their contents.
In reply to Mr. Kenyon's question, Mrs. Johns, sitting on the
extreme edge of a chair, and fanning herself with a pink calico
sun-bonnet, talked about her husband, and a misery in his side
and in his back, and how he felt it "a-comin' on nigh on ter a
week ago. " Mr. Kenyon expressed sympathy, and was surprised
by the announcement that Mrs. Johns considered her husband's
## p. 10457 (#285) ##########################################
•
10457
MARY NOAILLES MURFREE
illness "a blessin', 'kase ef he war able ter git out'n his bed,
he 'lowed ter go down ter Harrison's Cove ter the dancin' party,
'kase Rick Pearson war a-goin' ter be thar, an' hed said ez how
none o' the Johnses should come. "
"What, Rick Pearson, that terrible outlaw! " exclaimed Mrs.
Darley, with wide-open blue eyes. She had read in the news-
papers sundry thrilling accounts of a noted horse-thief and out-
law, who with a gang of kindred spirits defied justice and roamed
certain sparsely populated mountainous counties at his own wild
will; and she was not altogether without a feeling of fear as she
heard of his proximity to the New Helvetia Springs,- not fear
for life or limb, because she was practical-minded enough to re-
flect that the sojourners and employés of the watering-place would
far outnumber the outlaw's troop, but fear that a pair of shiny
bay ponies, Castor and Pollux, would fall victims to the crafty
wiles of the expert horse thief.
"I think I have heard something of a difficulty between your
people and Rick Pearson," said old Mr. Kenyon. "Has a peace
never been patched up between them? "
"N-o," drawled Mrs. Johns, "same as it always war. My
old man'll never believe but what Rick Pearson stole that thar
bay filly we lost 'bout five year ago. But I don't believe he done
it: plenty other folks around is ez mean ez Rick, leastways mos'
ez mean; plenty mean enough ter steal a horse, anyhow. Rick
say he never tuk the filly; say he war a-goin' ter shoot off the
nex' man's head ez say so. Rick say he'd ruther give two bay
fillies than hev a man say he tuk a horse ez he never tuk. Rick
say ez how he kin stand up ter what he does do, but it's these
hyar lies on him what kills him out. But ye know, Mis' Darley,
ye know yerself, he never give nobody two bay fillies in this
world, an' what's more he's never goin' ter. My old man an' my
boy Kossute talks on 'bout that thar bay filly like she war stole
yestiddy, an' 'twar five year ago an' better; an' when they hearn
ez how Rick Pearson hed showed that red head o' his'n on this
hyar mounting las' week, they war fightin' mad, an' would hev
lit out fur the gang sure, 'ceptin' they hed been gone down the
mounting fur two days. An' my son Kossute, he sent Rick word
that he had better keep out'n gunshot o' these hyar woods; that
he didn't want no better mark than that red head o' his'n, an'
he could hit it two mile off. An' Rick Pearson, he sent Kossute
word that he would kill him fur his sass the very nex' time he
## p. 10458 (#286) ##########################################
10458
MARY NOAILLES MURFREE
see him, an' ef he don't want a bullet in that pumpkin head o'
his'n he hed better keep away from that dancin' party what the
Harrisons hev laid off ter give, 'kase Rick say he's a-goin' ter it
hisself, an' is a-goin' ter dance too; he ain't been invited, Mis'
Darley, but Rick don't keer fur that. He is a-goin' anyhow; an'
he say ez how he ain't a-goin' ter let Kossute come, 'count o'
Kossute's sass, an' the fuss they've all made 'bout that bay filly
that war stole five year ago-'twar five year an' better. But
Rick say ez how he is goin', fur all he ain't got no invite, an'
is a-goin' ter dance too: 'kase you know, Mis' Darley, it's a-goin'
ter be a dancin' party; the Harrisons hev determinated on that.
Them gals of theirn air mos' crazed 'bout a dancin' party. They
ain't been a bit of account sence they went ter Cheatham's Cross-
Roads ter see thar gran'mother, an' picked up all them queer
new notions. So the Harrisons hev determinated on a dancin'
party; an' Rick say ez how he is goin' ter dance too: but Jule,
she say ez how she know thar ain't a gal on the mounting ez
would dance with him; but I ain't so sure 'bout that, Mis' Dar-
ley: gals air cur'ous critters, ye know yerself; thar's no sort o'
countin' on 'em; they'll do one thing one time, an' another thing
nex' time; ye can't put no dependence in 'em. But Jule say ef
he kin git Mandy Tyler ter dance with him, it's the mos' he
kin do, an' the gang'll be nowhar. Mebbe he kin git Mandy ter
dance with him, 'kase the other boys say ez how none o' them is
a-goin' ter ax her ter dance, 'count of the trick she played on
'em down ter the Wilkins settlemint-las' month, war it? no,
'twar two month ago, an' better; but the boys ain't forgot how
scandalous she done 'em, an' none of 'em is a-goin' ter ax her ter
dance. "
"Why, what did she do? " exclaimed Mrs. Darley, surprised.
"She came here to sell peaches one day, and I thought her such
a nice, pretty, well-behaved girl. "
"Waal, she hev got mighty quiet say-nuthin' sort'n ways, Mis'
Darley, but that thar gal do behave rediculous. Down thar ter
the Wilkins settlemint,-ye know it's 'bout two mile or two
mile'n a half from hyar,-waal, all the gals walked down thar
ter the party an hour by sun; but when the boys went down
they tuk thar horses, ter give the gals a ride home behind 'em.
Waal, every boy axed his gal ter ride while the party war goin'
on, an' when 'twar all over they all set out fur ter come home.
Waal, this hyar Mandy Tyler is a mighty favorite 'mongst the
## p. 10459 (#287) ##########################################
MARY NOAILLES MURFREE
10459
boys,—they ain't got no sense, ye know, Mis' Darley,- an' stid-
dier one of 'em axin' her ter ride home, thar war five of 'em
axed her ter ride, ef ye'll believe me; an' what do ye think she
done, Mis' Darley? She tole all five of 'em yes; an' when the
party war over, she war the last ter go, an' when she started
out'n the door, thar war all five of them boys a-standin' thar
waitin' fur her, an' every one a-holdin' his horse by the bridle,
an' none of 'em knowed who the others war a-waitin' fur. An'
this hyar Mandy Tyler, when she got ter the door an' seen 'em
all a-standin' thar, never said one word, jest walked right through
'mongst 'em, an' set out fur the mounting on foot, with all them
five boys a-followin' an' a-leadin' thar horses, an' a-quarrelin'
enough ter take off each other's heads 'bout which one war
a-goin' ter ride with her; which none of 'em did, Mis' Darley,
fur I hearn ez how the whole layout footed it all the way ter
New Helveshy. An' thar would hev been a fight 'mongst 'em,
'ceptin' her brother, Jacob Tyler, went along with 'em, an' tried
ter keep the peace atwixt 'em. An' Mis' Darley, all them mar-
ried folks down thar at the party-them folks in the Wilkins
settlemint is the biggest fools, sure-when all them married
folks come out ter the door, an' see the way Mandy Tyler hed
treated them boys, they jest hollered and laffed an' thought it
war mighty smart an' funny in Mandy; but she never say a
word till she kem up the mounting, an' I never hearn ez how
she say anything then. An' now the boys all say none of 'em
is a-goin' ter ax her ter dance, ter pay her back fur them fool
airs of hern. But Kossute say he'll dance with her ef none the
rest will. Kossute, he thought 'twar all mighty funny too,—he's
sech a fool 'bout gals, Kossute is, but Jule, she thought ez how
'twar scandalous. "
Mrs. Darley listened in amused surprise: that these mount-
ain wilds could sustain a first-class coquette was an idea that
had not hitherto entered her mind; however, "that thar Mandy»
seemed, in Mrs. Johns's opinion at least, to merit the unenviable
distinction, and the party at the Wilkins settlement and the pro-
spective gayety of Harrison's Cove awakened the same sentiments.
in her heart and mind as do the more ambitious germans and
kettle-drums of the lowland cities in the heart and mind of
Mrs. Grundy. Human nature is the same everywhere, and the
Wilkins settlement is a microcosm. The metropolitan centres,
stripped of the civilization of wealth, fashion, and culture, would
## p. 10460 (#288) ##########################################
10460
MARY NOAILLES MURFREE
present only the bare skeleton of humanity outlined in Mrs.
Johns's talk of Harrison's Cove, the Wilkins settlement, the en-
mities and scandals and sorrows and misfortunes of the mountain
ridge. As the absurd resemblance developed, Mrs. Darley could
not forbear a smile. Mrs. Johns looked up with a momentary
expression of surprise; the story presented no humorous phase
to her perceptions, but she too smiled a little as she repeated,
"Scandalous, ain't it? " and proceeded in the same lack-lustre
tone as before.
"Yes,— Kossute say ez how he'll dance with her ef none the
rest will, fur Kossute say ez how he hev laid off ter dance, Mis'
Darley; an' when I ax him what he thinks will become of his
soul ef he dances, he say the Devil may crack away at it, an' ef
he kin hit it he's welcome; fur soul or no soul he's a-goin' ter
dance. Kossute is a-fixin' of hisself this very minute ter go; but
I am verily afeard the boy'll be slaughtered, Mis' Darley, 'kase
thar is goin' ter be a fight, an' ye never in all yer life hearn
sech sass ez Kossute and Rick Pearson done sent word ter each
other. "
Mr. Kenyon expressed some surprise that she should fear for
so young a fellow as Kossuth. "Surely," he said, "the man is
not brute enough to injure a mere boy: your son is a mere boy. "
"That's so," Mrs. Johns drawled. "Kossute ain't more'n
twenty year old, an' Rick Pearson is double that ef he is a day;
but ye see it's the firearms ez makes Kossute more'n a match
fur him, 'kase Kossute is the best shot on the mounting, an' Rick
knows that in a shootin' fight Kossute's better able ter take keer
of hisself an' hurt somebody else nor anybody. Kossute's more
likely ter hurt Rick nor Rick is ter hurt him in a shootin' fight;
but ef Rick didn't hurt him, an' he war ter shoot Rick, the
gang would tear him ter pieces in a minute; and 'mongst 'em I'm
actially afeard they'll slaughter the boy. "
Mr. Kenyon looked even graver than was his wont upon re-
ceiving this information, but said no more; and after giving Mrs.
Johns the febrifuge she wished for her husband, he returned to
his seat on the piazza.
Mrs. Darley watched him with some little indignation as he
proceeded to light a fresh cigar. "How cold and unsympathetic
Uncle Ambrose is," she said to herself. And after condoling
effusively with Mrs. Johns on her apprehensions for her son's
safety, she returned to the gossips in the hotel parlor; and Mrs.
## p. 10461 (#289) ##########################################
MARY NOAILLES MURFREE
10461
Johns, with her pink calico sun-bonnet on her head, went her way
in the brilliant summer moonlight.
The clear lustre shone white upon all the dark woods and
chasms and flashing waters that lay between the New Helvetia
Springs and the wide, deep ravine called Harrison's Cove; where
from a rude log hut the vibrations of a violin, and the quick
throb of dancing feet, already mingled with the impetuous rush
of a mountain stream close by, and the weird night sounds of
the hills, the cry of birds among the tall trees, the stir of the
wind, the monotonous chanting of frogs at the water-side, the
long, drowsy drone of the nocturnal insects, the sudden faint
blast of a distant hunter's horn, and the far baying of hounds.
___________
Mr. Harrison had four marriageable daughters, and had arrived
at the conclusion that something must be done for the girls; for
strange as it may seem, the prudent father exists even among
the "mounting folks. " Men there realize the importance of pro-
viding suitable homes for their daughters as men do elsewhere,
and the eligible youth is as highly esteemed in those wilds as is
the much scarcer animal at a fashionable watering-place. Thus
it was that Mr. Harrison had "determinated on a dancin' party. "
True, he stood in bodily fear of the Judgment Day and the cir-
cuit-rider: but the dancing party was a rarity eminently calcu-
lated to please the young hunters of the settlements round about;
so he swallowed his qualms, to be indulged at a more convenient
season, and threw himself into the vortex of preparation with an
ardor very gratifying to the four young ladies, who had become
imbued with sophistication at Cheatham's Cross-Roads.
Not so Mrs. Harrison: she almost expected the house to fall
and crush them, as a judgment on the wickedness of a dancing
party; for so heinous a sin, in the estimation of the greater part
of the mountain people, had not been committed among them for
many a day. Such trifles as killing a man in a quarrel, or on
suspicion of stealing a horse or wash-tub or anything that came
handy, of course do not count; but a dancing party! Mrs. Har-
rison could only fold her idle hands, and dread the heavy penalty
that must surely follow so terrible a crime.
It certainly had not the gay and lightsome aspect supposed
to be characteristic of such a scene of sin: the awkward young
mountaineers clogged heavily about in their uncouth clothes and
rough shoes, with the stolid-looking, lack-lustre maids of the
hill, to the violin's monotonous iteration of The Chicken in the
(
## p. 10462 (#290) ##########################################
10462
MARY NOAILLES MURFREE
Bread-Trough,' or 'The Rabbit in the Pea-Patch,'- all their
grave faces as grave as ever. The music now and then changed
suddenly to one of those wild, melancholy strains sometimes heard
in old-fashioned dancing tunes, and the strange pathetic cadences
seemed more attuned to the rhythmical dash of the waters rush-
ing over their stone barricades out in the moonlight yonder, or
to the plaintive sighs of the winds among the great dark arches
of the primeval forests, than to the movement of the heavy,
coarse feet dancing a solemn measure in the little log cabin in
Harrison's Cove. The elders, sitting in rush-bottomed chairs close
to the walls, and looking on at the merriment, well pleased despite
their religious doubts, were somewhat more lively; every now
and then a guffaw mingled with the violin's resonant strains and
the dancers' well-marked pace; the women talked to each other
with somewhat more animation than was their wont, under the
stress of the unusual excitement of a dancing party; and from
out the shed-room adjoining came an anticipative odor of more
substantial sin than the fiddle or the grave jiggling up and down
the rough floor. A little more cider too, and a very bad article
of illegally distilled whisky, were ever and anon circulated among
the pious abstainers from the dance; but the sinful votaries of
Terpsichore could brook no pause nor delay, and jogged up and
down quite intoxicated with the mirthfulness of the plaintive old
airs, and the pleasure of other motion than following the plow or
hoeing the corn.
And the moon smiled right royally on her dominion: on the
long dark ranges of mountains, and mist-filled valleys between;
on the woods and streams, and on all the half-dormant creatures
either amongst the shadow-flecked foliage or under the crystal
waters; on the long white sandy road winding in and out
through the forest; on the frowning crags of the wild ravine;
on the little bridge at the entrance of the gorge, across which a
party of eight men, heavily armed and gallantly mounted, rode
swiftly and disappeared amid the gloom of the shadows.
The sound of the galloping of horses broke suddenly on the
music and the noise of the dancing; a moment's interval, and
the door gently opened, and the gigantic form of Rick Pearson
appeared in the aperture. He was dressed, like the other mount-
aineers, in a coarse suit of brown jeans somewhat the worse for
wear, the trousers stuffed in the legs of his heavy boots; he
wore an old soft felt hat, which he did not remove immediately
## p. 10463 (#291) ##########################################
MARY NOAILLES MURFREE
10463
on entering, and a pair of formidable pistols at his belt conspicu-
ously challenged attention. He had auburn hair, and a long full
beard of a lighter tint reaching almost to his waist; his com-
plexion was much tanned by the sun, and roughened by exposure
to the inclement mountain weather; his eyes were brown, deep-
set, and from under his heavy brows they looked out with quick,
sharp glances, and occasionally with a roguish twinkle; the ex-
pression of his countenance was rather good-humored: a sort of
imperious good-humor, however, the expression of a man accus-
tomed to have his own way and not to be trifled with, but able
to afford some amiability since his power is undisputed.
He stepped slowly into the apartment, placed his gun against
the wall, turned, and solemnly gazed at the dancing, while his
followers trooped in and obeyed his example. As the eight
guns, one by one, rattled against the wall, there was a startled
silence among the pious elders of the assemblage, and a sudden
disappearance of the animation that had characterized their inter-
course during the evening. Mrs. Harrison, who by reason of
flurry, and a housewifely pride in the still unrevealed treasures
of the shed-room, had well-nigh forgotten her fears, felt that the
anticipated judgment had even now descended; and in what
terrible and unexpected guise! The men turned the quids of
tobacco in their cheeks, and looked at each other in uncertainty:
but the dancers bestowed not a glance upon the new-comers; and
the musician in the corner, with his eyes half closed, his head
bent low upon the instrument, his hard, horny hand moving the
bow back and forth over the strings of the crazy old fiddle, was
utterly rapt by his own melody. At the supreme moment when
the great red beard had appeared portentously in the doorway,
and fear had frozen the heart of Mrs. Harrison within her at
the ill-omened apparition, the host was in the shed-room, filling
a broken-nosed pitcher from the cider barrel. When he re-
entered, and caught sight of the grave sunburned face with its
long red beard and sharp brown eyes, he too was dismayed for
an instant, and stood silent at the opposite door with the pitcher
in his hand. The pleasure and the possible profit of the dancing
party, for which he had expended so much of his scanty store
of this world's goods and risked the eternal treasures laid up in
heaven, were a mere phantasm; for with Rick Pearson among
them, in an ill frame of mind and at odds with half the men in
the room, there would certainly be a fight, and in all probability
## p. 10464 (#292) ##########################################
10464
MARY NOAILLES MURFREE
one would be killed, and the dancing party at Harrison's Cove
would be a text for the bloody-minded sermons of the circuit-
rider for all time to come. However, the father of four mar-
riageable daughters is apt to become crafty and worldly-wise:
only for a moment did he stand in indecision; then catching
suddenly the small brown eyes, he held up the pitcher with a
grin of invitation. "Rick! " he called out above the scraping of
the violin and the clatter of the dancing feet, "slip round hyar
ef ye kin, I've got somethin' for ye;" and he shook the pitcher
significantly.
Not that Mr. Harrison would for a moment have thought of
Rick Pearson in a matrimonial point of view, for even the sophis-
tication of the Cross-Roads had not yet brought him to the state
of mind to consider such a half-loaf as this better than no bread;
but he felt it imperative from every point of view to keep that
set of young mountaineers dancing in peace and quiet, and their
guns idle and out of mischief against the wall. The great red
beard disappeared and reappeared at intervals, as Rick Pearson
slipped along the gun-lined wall to join his host and the cider
pitcher; and after he had disposed of the refreshment, in which
the gang shared, he relapsed into silently watching the dancing,
and meditating a participation in that festivity.
Now it so happened that the only young girl unprovided with
a partner was "that thar Mandy Tyler," of Wilkins settlement
renown: the young men had rigidly adhered to their resolution
to ignore her in their invitations to dance, and she had been sit-
ting since the beginning of the festivities, quite neglected, among
the married people, looking on at the amusement which she had
been debarred sharing by that unpopular bit of coquetry at Wil-
kins settlement. Nothing of disappointment or mortification was
expressed in her countenance. She felt the slight, of course,—
even a "mounting" woman is susceptible of the sting of wounded
pride; all her long-anticipated enjoyment had come to naught by
this infliction of penance for her ill-timed jest at the expense of
those five young fellows dancing with their triumphant partners,
and bestowing upon her not even a glance: but she looked the
express image of immobility as she sat in her clean pink cal-
ico, so carefully gotten up for the occasion, her short black hair
curling about her ears, and watched the unending reel with slow
dark eyes.
Rick's glance fell upon her, and without further hesi-
tation he strode over to where she was sitting, and proffered
## p. 10465 (#293) ##########################################
MARY NOAILLES MURFREE
10465
his hand for the dance. She did not reply immediately, but
looked timidly about her at the shocked pious ones on either side,
who were ready but for mortal fear to aver that "dancin' any-
how air bad enough, the Lord knows, but dancin' with a horse
thief air jest scandalous! " Then for there is something of
defiance to established law and prejudice in the born flirt every-
where- with a sudden daring spirit shining in her brightening
eyes, she responded, "Don't keer ef I do," with a dimpling half-
laugh; and the next minute the two outlaws were flying down
the middle together.
While Rick was according grave attention to the intricacies
of the mazy dance, and keeping punctilious time to the scrap-
ing of the old fiddle finding it all a much more difficult feat
than galloping from the Cross-Roads to the "Snake's Mouth" on
some other man's horse with the sheriff hard at his heels,- the
solitary figure of a tall gaunt man had followed the long wind-
ing path leading deep into the woods, and now began the steep
descent to Harrison's Cove. Of what was old Mr. Kenyon think-
ing, as he walked on in the mingled shadow and sheen? Of St.
Augustine and his Forty Monks, probably, and what they found
in Britain. The young men of his acquaintance would gladly
have laid you any odds that he could think of nothing but his
antique hobby, the ancient Church. Mr. Kenyon was the most
prominent man in St.
Wher of it is tolde in fablys that a lady uppon a tyme delyvered to
her mayden a galon of mylke to sell at a cite, and by the way, as she
sate and restid her by a dyche side, she began to thinke that with the
money of the mylke she wold bye an henne, the which shulde bringe
forth chekyns, and when they were growyn to hennys she wolde sell
them and by piggis, and eschaunge them in to shepe, and the shepe
in to oxen, and so whan she was come to richesse she sholde be
maried right worshipfully unto some worthy man, and thus she re-
ioycid. And whan she was thus mervelously comfortid and ravisshed
inwardly in her secrete solace, thinkynge with howe greate ioye she
shuld be ledde towarde the chirche with her husbond on horsebacke,
she sayde to her self: 'Goo we, goo we. ' Sodaynlye she smote the
ground with her fote, myndynge to spurre the horse, but her fote
slypped, and she fell in the dyche, and there lay all her mylke, and
so she was farre from her purpose, and never had that she hopid to
have. "
Here we have arrived at the end of our journey. It has been
a long journey across fifteen or twenty centuries, and I am afraid
our following Perrette from country to country, and from lan-
guage to language, may have tired some of my hearers. I shall,
therefore, not attempt to fill the gap that divides the fable of the
thirteenth century from La Fontaine. Suffice it to say, that the
## p. 10441 (#269) ##########################################
FREDERICK MAX MÜLLER
10441
milkmaid, having once taken the place of the Brahman, main-
tained it against all comers. We find her as Doña Truhana in
the famous 'Conde Lucanor,' the work of the Infante Don Juan
Manuel who died in 1347; the grandson of St. Ferdinand, the
nephew of Alfonso the Wise; though himself not a king, yet
more powerful than a king; renowned both by his sword and by.
his pen, and possibly not ignorant of Arabic, the language of
his enemies. We find her again in the 'Contes et Nouvelles' of
Bonaventure des Periers, published in the sixteenth century,— a
book which we know that La Fontaine was well acquainted with.
We find her, after La Fontaine, in all the languages of Europe.
You see now before your eyes the bridge on which our fables
came to us from East to West. The same bridge which brought
us Perrette brought us hundreds of fables, all originally sprung
up in India, many of them carefully collected by Buddhist priests
and preserved in their sacred canon, afterwards handed on to the
Brahmanic writers of a later age, carried by Barzûyeh from India
to the court of Persia, then to the courts of the Khalifs at Bag-
dad and Cordova, and of the Emperors at Constantinople. Some
of them no doubt perished on their journey, others were mixed
up together, others were changed till we should hardly know
them again. Still, if you once know the eventful journey of Per-
rette, you know the journey of all the other fables that belong to
this Indian cycle. Few of them have gone through so many
changes; few of them have found so many friends, whether in
the courts of kings or in the huts of beggars. Few of them
have been to places where Perrette has not also been. This is
why I selected her and her passage through the world as the best
illustration of a subject which otherwise would require a whole
course of lectures to do it justice.
## p. 10442 (#270) ##########################################
10442
WILHELM MÜLLER
(1794-1827)
LOVE no lyric poet excepting Goethe so much as Wilhelm
Müller," wrote Heine; and indeed, as he himself gladly
acknowledged, Heine owed to Müller many a tricksy lyric
charm. Müller was born at Dessau on October 7th, 1794, and there
he died on September 30th, 1827. In this brief space of thirty years
he succeeded in leaving upon the hearts of the German people an
impress of his poetic personality, that seems destined to last while
songs are sung and nature still has charms. He died just as his
genius was maturing. His spirit was pre-
paring for higher flights when it passed
from earth altogether. He is thus a poet
for the young-for those who delight in
"young love and old wine. " The heart of
youth finds in Müller's poems the expres-
sion of its own vague longings and un-
defined emotions; and the heart of the
aged, if it has preserved its freshness, is
quickened by the genial flow of his simple,
passionate verse.
WILHELM MÜLLER
Müller, like thousands of spirits far less
fine than his, was touched to patriotic issues
at the time of the great uprising against
Napoleon. He had begun the study of phi-
lology and history at Berlin when the wars for freedom broke out.
During 1813 and 1814, following the call of the Prussian king, he
served his country as a volunteer, as Kleist and Körner did. He
then quietly resumed the study of Old German at the Berlin Univer-
sity. This taste for old Germanic lore reveals that tendency of mind
which in his son, Professor Max Müller, has reached its scholarly
fruition. In the father's case these studies were placed first of all at
the service of the Muses; through them he acquired that intimate
knowledge of the essential qualities of early German culture, which
enabled him so perfectly to catch the tone of the German folk-song.
In the circle of young Berlin poets, his talent found stimulus and
encouragement. In 1815 this group of friends issued the Bundes-
blätter' (Leaves of Union), and here are to be found the earliest
poems of Wilhelm Müller.
## p. 10443 (#271) ##########################################
WILHELM MÜLLER
10443
In 1817 there came to Müller, as to Geibel later, the ardently
desired opportunity of standing upon classic soil. He went to Italy.
and the literary result of his trip was the graceful book published
in 1820, and entitled 'Rom, Römer, und Römerinnen' (Rome, and
Roman Men and Women). Upon his return in 1819, he was called to
his native city of Dessau as a teacher of ancient languages. At the
same time he held the post of librarian of the newly founded Ducal
Library. His philological works were chiefly contributions to ency-
clopædias and other compilations. He translated Marlowe's 'Faus-
tus,' and Achim von Arnim wrote the preface; Fauriel's collection of
modern Greek folk-songs he also put into German. Perhaps the
most valuable of his scholarly undertakings was the 'Library of Ger-
man Poets of the Seventeenth Century,' in ten volumes.
But it is not upon these things that Müller's fame rests.
He was
first of all a poet; and this became evident to the public at large
when in 1821 he published 'Gedichte aus den Hinterlassenen Papieren
eines Reisenden Waldhornisten' (Poems from the Posthumous Papers
of a Traveling Bugler). In the same year appeared the first of the
famous 'Griechenlieder' (Songs of the Greeks), in which the profound
sympathy of the German people with the Greek struggle for freedom
found stirring expression. With his love for the heroes of ancient
Greece he combined a splendid enthusiasm for Byron, Kanaris, and
Marco Bozzaris. This uprising of Greece appealed to all poets, and
the magic of Byron's name seemed to make it peculiarly their affair.
All the bards of the land of song burst into impassioned verse in
defense of the classic country and Pierian spring which had been
the original source of their own inspiration. The Songs of the
Greeks' aided powerfully in rousing indignation against the Turks;
and just as Greek admirers of Byron had sent marble to be used
for the poet's monument in London, so the Greek Parliament voted
a ship-load of Pentelican marble for the monument which has been
erected to Müller in Dessau.
If the 'Songs of the Greeks' are less well known to the world
at large than two other series of Müller's lyrics, this is primarily due
to Franz Schubert. The two cycles of exquisite lyrics entitled 'Die
Schöne Müllerin' (The Pretty Maid of the Mill) and 'Die Winterreise'
(The Winter Journey) caught the heart and ear of Schubert, and he
wedded them to immortal music. We are made to share the fresh
joy of the wandering miller, who, following the guidance of his
beloved brook, finds the fickle beauty of the mill and loves her;
and we share, too, his sorrow when her heart turns to the hunts-
man, clad in green, and her faithful lover buries his grief and love
in the waters of the still singing brook. There is thus a dramatic
interest that binds together these simple songs. In this cycle, as in
the Winter Journey,' one feels the deep sustaining joy of the poet
<
## p. 10444 (#272) ##########################################
WILHELM MÜLLER
10444
in all outdoor nature: it is symbolized in the loving intimacy
between the miller and the brook, between th wanderer and the
linden-tree. Taken with the music, the two cycles form little lyric
dramas; the words can no longer be recalled without the melody,
and these combined creations of Müller and Schubert are among the
most beautiful and delicate works of art that have sprung from the
lyric genius of Germany. And so, although no poet voice had a
more vigorous ring when it sang in the cause of freedom, it is prob-
able that Müller will be chiefly remembered as the singer of winter
journeys and wanderers' joys, of mill-stream melodies and the lays
of love.
FROM THE PRETTY MAID OF THE MILL'
Translated by Charles Harvey Genung and Edward Breck
WANDERING
O WANDER is the miller's joy,
To wander!
T
He must a wretched miller be
Who would not wander merrily,
And wander!
We learned it from the water brook,
The water!
It takes no rest by night or day,
But ever wends its laughing way,
The water!
We learn it from the mill-wheel too,
The mill-wheel!
That will not stand a moment still,
But tireless turns the mighty mill,
The mill-wheel!
The stones themselves forget their weight,
The millstones!
They join the merry dancing crew,
And try to move much faster too,
The millstones!
To wander, wander is my joy,
To wander!
Good master and good mistress, pray,
Let me in peace now go my way
And wander!
## p. 10445 (#273) ##########################################
WILHELM MÜLLER
WHITHER?
I HEARD a brooklet gushing
From out the rocky spring,
Down through the valley rushing
With clear and laughing ring.
I know not what came o'er me,
What longing filled my breast:
Down to the vale it bore me,
And onward without rest.
Far downward, ever onward,
I followed its dancing gleam,
And louder still and clearer
Sang ever the happy stream.
And this way must I wander?
O brooklet, whither, say?
Thou hast with thy sweet rushing
My reason charmed away.
What, prate I then of rushing?
That can no rushing be!
'Tis the voice of the water-nixies,
That sing their songs to me.
Ah, heed not song nor rushing,
But wander onward still;
There must be merry mill-wheels
In every flashing rill.
HALT !
I SPY a mill forth peeping
By the alder-lined mere;
The rushing and singing
Of mill-wheels I hear.
Hey, welcome, hey, how welcome,
Sweet old song of the mill!
And the house with its windows
Is so cozy and still.
And the sunshine above me
Makes heaven seem gay!
Ah, brooklet, lovely brooklet,
Was it this thou wouldst say?
10445
## p. 10446 (#274) ##########################################
10446
WILHELM MÜLLER
THANKSGIVING TO THE BROOK
WAS it this thou wouldst say,
My friend, by thy lay?
By ringing and singing,
Was it this thou wouldst say?
To the miller's maid go!
Thou meanest it so.
Ah! Have I not guessed it?
To the miller's maid go!
Can her wish it be,
Or foolest thou me?
Oh, this only tell me,
If her wish it be.
Howe'er it was meant,
I'll rest me content;
I have found what I sought for,
Howe'er it was meant.
I sought work, indeed,
I've now all I need;
For my hands, for my heart,
I've all that I need!
CURIOSITY
I'LL ask no pretty flower,
I'll ask no starry sphere;
For none of them can tell me
What I so long to hear.
Besides, I'm not a gardener,
The stars all hang too high;
My brooklet here shall tell me
If my fond heart doth lie.
O brooklet, my beloved,
Why singest thou no more?
I ask for one word only,
One answer o'er and o'er.
"Yes" is the word I long for,
The other word is "no";
In one of these two answers
Is all my weal or woe.
## p. 10447 (#275) ##########################################
WILHELM MÜLLER
10447
O brooklet, my beloved,
Why shouldst thou wayward be?
I'll promise not to tell it-
Say, brooklet, loves she me?
IMPATIENCE
I'D CARVE it deep in every forest tree,
On every stone I'd grave it lastingly;
In every garden plot the words I'd sow,
With seed that soon my sweet device would show,
That she should see my faithful heart's endeavor:
Thine is my heart, and shall be thine forever.
A magpie young and lusty I would teach,
Until he sang aloud that sweetest speech,
And sang it with my voice's counterpart,
With all the yearning of my loving heart;
He'd sing it then to her and cease it never:
Thine is my heart, and shall be thine forever.
I'd fling it forth to every morning breeze,
I'd sigh it softly to the swaying trees;
Oh, that it shone from every blossom fair!
Oh, that she breathed it in the perfumed air!
Are mill-wheels all that thou canst move, O river?
Thine is my heart, and shall be thine forever.
I thought it looked from out my loving eyes,
And burned upon my cheeks in telltale guise;
Imprinted on my speechless lips it were,
And every breath I drew cried out to her;
But she, alas, heeds naught of my endeavor:
Thine is my heart, and shall be thine forever.
GOOD-MORNING
GOOD-MORNING, pretty miller's lass!
Why hide thy head, whene'er I pass,
Behind the curtain yonder?
Dost think my greetings boldness show?
Disturb thee then my glances so?
Then onward I must wander.
## p. 10448 (#276) ##########################################
10448
WILHELM MÜLLER
Oh, let me linger by the brook,
And only at thy window look,
Below there, just below there!
Thou flaxen head, now hide no more!
Come forth from out your oval door,
Ye morning stars that show there!
Ye slumber-laden eyes so blue,
Ye flowers wet with morning dew,
Doth ruddy sunlight blind you?
Were they so sweet, the joys of sleep,
That now you close and droop and weep,
Because they're left behind you?
Now shake ye off the dreamland haze,
And fresh and free your heads upraise,
To greet the shining morrow!
Aloft the lark doth gayly soar,
And at the deep heart's inmost core
Awake love's care and sorrow.
SHOWERS OF TEARS
WE SAT nestled close to each other,
In shady alder nook;
We gazed long and fondly together
Down into the murmuring brook.
The moon uprose in heaven,
The stars began to glow,
And gazed long and fondly together
At the silvery mirror below.
'Twas not the moon that I gazed at,
And not the starry skies:
Her picture was all I gazed at,
And all I saw was her eyes.
I saw them there winking and blinking
Deep down in my brooklet so true;
The flowers on the margin, the blue ones,
Are winking and blinking there too.
And in the waters sunken
The whole wide heaven shone,
And into its glistening bosom
It seemed to lure me on.
## p. 10449 (#277) ##########################################
WILHELM MÜLLER
10449
And over the clouds and the starlight
The brook rippled joyous and free,
And called me, ringing and singing:-
"Come hither, O brother, to me! "
XVIII-654
And blurred were my eyes with hot tear-drops;
Before me the brook seemed to spin;
She said, "A shower is coming:
Good-night I'm going in. "
――――
MINE!
BROOKLET, cease that song of thine!
Mill-wheels, stop your whirr and whine!
All ye merry wood-songsters fine,
Make no sign;
Silent be and close your eyne!
Every line
WITHERED FLOWERS
Ан, ALL уe flowers
I'll design-
It shall but one rhyme enshrine:
For the miller's lovely maid is mine!
Mine!
Springtime, are there then no fairer flowers thine?
Sunlight, canst thou then no brighter shine?
Ah, alone I must repine
With that sweetest of all words, "Mine,»
Understood by none in all this world divine!
That she once gave,
Ye shall be buried
•
With me in the grave.
Why gaze ye sadly
Upon me so,
As if with pity
Ye saw my woe?
-
Ah, all ye flowers
Of pale regret,
Ah, all ye flowers,
How came ye wet?
## p. 10450 (#278) ##########################################
WILHELM MÜLLER
10450
But tears can't freshen
The flowers like rain,
Cannot make dead passion
To bloom again.
The winter's dying,
And spring will appear,
And flowers will blossom
Around me here.
And flowers will cover
My new-made grave,—
Ah, all the flowers,
That she once gave!
And when she wanders
The church-yard through,
And softly murmurs,
"His love was true! "-
Then, all ye flowers,
Oh bloom, oh blow!
For May is coming,
And gone is the snow.
THE MILLER AND THE BROOK
The Miller:
WHEN a heart so constant
Must break and must die,
The lilies all withered
And broken lie.
In clouds then the full moon
Must veil her head,
And hide from all mortals
The tears she doth shed.
In heaven the angels
Their eyes gently close;
They're sobbing and soothing
The soul to repose.
The Brook:
When love has o'ermastered
Its hopes and fears,
## p. 10451 (#279) ##########################################
WILHELM MÜLLER
10451
A new star, bright shining,
In heaven appears.
Then blossom three roses,
Half white, half red,
That never shall wither
In garden bed.
And in heaven the angels
Their pinions will clip,
And earthwards each morning
Will fairily trip.
The Miller:
Ah, brooklet, lovely brooklet,
Thou'rt faithful and true;
Ah, brooklet, but thou know'st not
What love can do.
Ah, down there, far down there,
'Tis cool and deep.
Ah, brooklet, lovely brooklet,
Now sing me to sleep.
CRADLE SONG OF THE BROOK
SWEETLY sleep, sweetly sleep!
I'll thy vigil keep!
Wanderer, so weary, thou'rt now at home.
Securely rest
Asleep on my breast,
Till the brooklets mingle with ocean foam.
Thy bed shall be cool
In moss-lined pool,
In the chamber of sparkling blue crystal clear;
Come, wavelets, wave,
His cradle lave,
Soothe him and rock him, my comrade so dear.
When the sound of horn
From the greenwood's borne,
I will rush and I'll gush, that thou mayst not hear.
Peep ye not through,
Little flow'rets blue!
You make all the dreams of my sleeper so drear.
## p. 10452 (#280) ##########################################
WILHELM MÜLLER
10452
Away, away
From my margin stay,
Wicked maiden, lest from thy shadow he wake!
But throw me down
Thy kerchief brown,
So for his eyes I'll a bandage make!
Now good-night, now good-night!
Till all's made right,
Forget all thy hopes, and forget thy fate!
The moon shines bright,
The mists take flight,
And the heaven above me how wide and how great!
VINETA
F
ROM the sea's deep hollow faintly pealing,
Far-off evening bells come sad and slow;
Faintly rise, the wondrous tale revealing
Of the old enchanted town below.
On the bosom of the flood reclining,
Ruined arch and wall and broken spire,
Down beneath the watery mirror shining,
Gleam and flash in flakes of golden fire.
And the boatman, who at twilight hour,
Once that magic vision shall have seen,
Heedless how the crags may round him lower,
Evermore will haunt the charmèd scene.
From the heart's deep hollow faintly pealing,
Far I hear them, bell-notes sad and slow,
Ah! a wild and wondrous tale revealing
Of the drownèd wreck of love below.
There a world in loveliness decaying
Lingers yet in beauty ere it die;
Phantom forms across my senses playing,
Flash like golden fire-flakes from the sky.
Lights are gleaming, fairy bells are ringing,
And I long to plunge and wander free
Where I hear those angel-voices singing
In those ancient towers below the sea.
Translation of J. A. Froude.
## p. 10453 (#281) ##########################################
10453
-
MARY NOAILLES MURFREE
(CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK)
(1850-)
W
HEN Miss Murfree's first work appeared, not only was her
pseudonym, Charles Egbert Craddock, accepted by her edi-
tors without suspicion as her proper name, but the public
was equally deceived. The firm, quiet touch, the matter wholly free
from subjectiveness, the robust humor, and the understanding of
masculine life, had no trace of femininity.
Her first book, Where the Battle was
Fought, which finally appeared in 1884,
was the effort of a very young writer, con-
taining more of promise than fulfillment,
though the peculiarities of style and char-
acter were prophetic of her later manner.
No publisher desired it until the great favor
accorded to 'In the Tennessee Mountains'
opened the way. In the maturer story was
struck a more confident note. Miss Murfree
had found her field, and henceforth the
Tennessee mountains and their inhabitants
were to occupy her descriptive powers.
These men and women are for the first part
rude people, kept in unlikeness to the outside world not only by their
distance from civilization, but by the mist of tradition in which they
live. Here is a colony of people who have their own ideas of eti-
quette, and as strict a code as that of Versailles in the time of
Louis XIV. ,- their own notions of comfort and wealth, and their own
civil and moral laws.
Here they dwell in their mountain fastnesses,
distilling illicit whisky with as clear a conscience as they plant the
corn from which they make it, or as the Northern farmer makes
cider from his apples-in their opinion an exact parallel. Passion-
ately religious, full of picturesque poetry,-which they learn from
the Bible, their only familiar book,-no wonder the "Prophet of the
Great Smoky Mountain" thrilled his audiences when he described the
scenes enacted in the Old Testament as having been transacted on
the very hillsides where he preached, and that the majestic imagery
of the Book was heightened by the majestic surroundings.
MARY N. MURFREE
## p. 10454 (#282) ##########################################
10454
MARY NOAILLES MURFREE
But good material," in a literary sense, as are the Tennessee
mountaineers, no sort of idealization nor surface acquaintance, how-
ever aided by artistic intuition, could have made them natural to the
outside world. It was the office of one who knew them as Miss Mur-
free knew them, not only from the inside view but the view of a
social superior, which enabled her to give the picture a perspective.
Nowhere is this gift better indicated than in the artistic story 'Drift-
ing down Lost Creek,' in which the elements of interest are thor-
oughly worked up, the motive of the delicate romance touched with
a perfect consciousness of the author's audience; while there is such
a regard for the verities, that the whole story turns on the every-
day feminine loyalty of a mountain girl to her lover. On Big Injin
Mountain is an episode of a sturdier kind, more dramatic both in
matter and in manner than 'Drifting down Lost Creek'; but at its
close, when the rude mountaineers display a tenderness for the man
they have misunderstood, the reader, gentle or simple, is perforce
thrilled into sympathy,- for this is a passage to which the better
part of human nature, wherever found, responds.
In Miss Murfree's writings we are perhaps too often reminded of
the pictorial art which she undoubtedly possesses, by the effect she
evolves from the use of words. She has a clear vision and a dra-
matic temperament; and it is a temptation, not always resisted, to
emphasize physical surroundings in order to heighten situations. The
moment a lull occurs in the action of her personages, the mountain
solitudes come in to play their part, the sylvan glades, the chro-
matic hues, the foaming cataracts, the empurpled shadows. Even the
wild animals assume the functions of dramatis persona, and are an
inarticulate chorus to interpret the emotions of the human actors.
But it is not given to a redundant and enthusiastic nature, a
youthful nature at least in her earlier stories,- for Miss Murfree was
born about 1850 in the township of Murfreesborough, Tennessee, a
town called after her respected and influential family,- always to use
one word when two or three seem to do as well. The normal mind
is more active in the details of human life than in the details of
landscape; but Miss Murfree, although she has not always accepted
this as a fact, has painted scenes where she has perfectly adjusted
her characters and their surroundings. In 'Old Sledge at the Settle-
mint, the picture of the group of card-players throwing their cards.
on the inverted splint basket by the light of the tallow dip and a
pitch-pine fire, while the moon shines without, and the uncanny
echoes ring through the rocks and woods, is as graphic as one of
Spagnoletto's paintings. And she has done a gentler and even more
sympathetic service in depicting the lonely, self-reliant, half mournful
life of the mountain women whom she loves; particularly the young
-
## p. 10455 (#283) ##########################################
MARY NOAILLES MURFREE
10455
women, pure, sweet, naïve, and innocent of all evil. The older women
"hold out wasted hands to the years as they pass,-holding them out
always, and always empty"; but in drawing her old women, Miss
Murfree lightens her somewhat sombre pictures by their shrewd fun
and keen knowledge of human nature. Mrs. Purvine is
genius.
stroke of
Nor could Miss Murfree's stories have won their wide popularity
with an American audience without a sense of humor, which is to her
landscape as the sun to the mist. Her mountaineer who has been
restrained from killing the suspected horse-thief is rather relieved
than otherwise, having still a sense of justice: "The bay filly ain't
such a killin' matter nohow; ef it was the roan three-year-old
'twould be different. "
The novels which have most added to Miss Murfree's reputation,
perhaps, are 'In the Tennessee Mountains,' 'The Prophet of the Great
Smoky Mountain,' and 'In the Clouds,'-all stories of the Tennessee
mountains, told in her vigorous, dramatic manner.
THE DANCIN' PARTY AT HARRISON'S COVE
From 'In the Tennessee Mountains. Copyright 1884, by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
UR ye see, Mis' Darley, them Harrison folks over yander ter
the Cove hev determinated on a dancin' party. "
"FR
The drawling tones fell unheeded on old Mr. Kenyon's
ear, as he sat on the broad hotel piazza of the New Helvetia
Springs, and gazed with meditative eyes at the fair August sky.
An early moon was riding, clear and full, over this wild spur of
the Alleghanies; the stars were few and very faint; even the
great Scorpio lurked vaguely outlined above the wooded ranges;
and the white mist that filled the long, deep, narrow valley be-
tween the parallel lines of mountains, shimmered with opalescent
gleams.
All the world of the watering-place had converged to that
focus the ball-room; and the cool, moonlit piazzas were nearly
deserted. The fell determination of the "Harrison folks" to
give a dancing party made no impression on the preoccupied old
gentleman. Another voice broke his revery, -a soft, clear, well-
modulated voice; and he started and turned his head as his
own name was called, and his niece, Mrs. Darley, came to the
window.
"Uncle Ambrose, are you there? -So glad! I was afraid
you were down at the summer-house, where I hear the children
## p. 10456 (#284) ##########################################
•
MARY NOAILLES MURFREE
10456
singing. Do come here a moment, please. This is Mrs. Johns,
who brings the Indian peaches to sell-you know the Indian
peaches? »
Mr. Kenyon knew the Indian peaches; the dark-crimson fruit
streaked with still darker lines, and full of blood-red juice, which
he had meditatively munched that very afternoon. Mr. Kenyon
knew the Indian peaches right well. He wondered, however,
what had brought Mrs. Johns back in so short a time; for
although the principal industry of the mountain people about the
New Helvetia Springs is selling fruit to the summer sojourners,
it is not customary to come twice on the same day, nor to
appear at all after nightfall.
Mrs. Darley proceeded to explain.
"Mrs. Johns's husband is ill, and wants us to send him some
medicine. "
Mr. Kenyon rose, threw away the stump of his cigar, and
entered the room. "How long has he been ill, Mrs. Johns? "
he asked dismally.
Mr. Kenyon always spoke lugubriously, and he was a dismal-
looking old man. Not more cheerful was Mrs. Johns: she was
tall and lank, and with such a face as one never sees except in
these mountains,- elongated, sallow, thin, with pathetic, deeply
sunken eyes, and high cheek-bones, and so settled an expression
of hopeless melancholy that it must be that naught but care
and suffering had been her lot; holding out wasted hands to the
years as they pass,- holding them out always, and always empty.
She wore a shabby, faded calico, and spoke with the peculiar
expressionless drawl of the mountaineer. She was a wonderful
contrast to Mrs. Darley, all furbelows and flounces, with her
fresh, smooth face and soft hair, and plump, round arms half
revealed by the flowing sleeves of her thin black dress.
Darley was in mourning, and therefore did not affect the ball-
room. At this moment, on benevolent thoughts intent, she was
engaged in uncorking sundry small phials, gazing inquiringly at
their labels, and shaking their contents.
In reply to Mr. Kenyon's question, Mrs. Johns, sitting on the
extreme edge of a chair, and fanning herself with a pink calico
sun-bonnet, talked about her husband, and a misery in his side
and in his back, and how he felt it "a-comin' on nigh on ter a
week ago. " Mr. Kenyon expressed sympathy, and was surprised
by the announcement that Mrs. Johns considered her husband's
## p. 10457 (#285) ##########################################
•
10457
MARY NOAILLES MURFREE
illness "a blessin', 'kase ef he war able ter git out'n his bed,
he 'lowed ter go down ter Harrison's Cove ter the dancin' party,
'kase Rick Pearson war a-goin' ter be thar, an' hed said ez how
none o' the Johnses should come. "
"What, Rick Pearson, that terrible outlaw! " exclaimed Mrs.
Darley, with wide-open blue eyes. She had read in the news-
papers sundry thrilling accounts of a noted horse-thief and out-
law, who with a gang of kindred spirits defied justice and roamed
certain sparsely populated mountainous counties at his own wild
will; and she was not altogether without a feeling of fear as she
heard of his proximity to the New Helvetia Springs,- not fear
for life or limb, because she was practical-minded enough to re-
flect that the sojourners and employés of the watering-place would
far outnumber the outlaw's troop, but fear that a pair of shiny
bay ponies, Castor and Pollux, would fall victims to the crafty
wiles of the expert horse thief.
"I think I have heard something of a difficulty between your
people and Rick Pearson," said old Mr. Kenyon. "Has a peace
never been patched up between them? "
"N-o," drawled Mrs. Johns, "same as it always war. My
old man'll never believe but what Rick Pearson stole that thar
bay filly we lost 'bout five year ago. But I don't believe he done
it: plenty other folks around is ez mean ez Rick, leastways mos'
ez mean; plenty mean enough ter steal a horse, anyhow. Rick
say he never tuk the filly; say he war a-goin' ter shoot off the
nex' man's head ez say so. Rick say he'd ruther give two bay
fillies than hev a man say he tuk a horse ez he never tuk. Rick
say ez how he kin stand up ter what he does do, but it's these
hyar lies on him what kills him out. But ye know, Mis' Darley,
ye know yerself, he never give nobody two bay fillies in this
world, an' what's more he's never goin' ter. My old man an' my
boy Kossute talks on 'bout that thar bay filly like she war stole
yestiddy, an' 'twar five year ago an' better; an' when they hearn
ez how Rick Pearson hed showed that red head o' his'n on this
hyar mounting las' week, they war fightin' mad, an' would hev
lit out fur the gang sure, 'ceptin' they hed been gone down the
mounting fur two days. An' my son Kossute, he sent Rick word
that he had better keep out'n gunshot o' these hyar woods; that
he didn't want no better mark than that red head o' his'n, an'
he could hit it two mile off. An' Rick Pearson, he sent Kossute
word that he would kill him fur his sass the very nex' time he
## p. 10458 (#286) ##########################################
10458
MARY NOAILLES MURFREE
see him, an' ef he don't want a bullet in that pumpkin head o'
his'n he hed better keep away from that dancin' party what the
Harrisons hev laid off ter give, 'kase Rick say he's a-goin' ter it
hisself, an' is a-goin' ter dance too; he ain't been invited, Mis'
Darley, but Rick don't keer fur that. He is a-goin' anyhow; an'
he say ez how he ain't a-goin' ter let Kossute come, 'count o'
Kossute's sass, an' the fuss they've all made 'bout that bay filly
that war stole five year ago-'twar five year an' better. But
Rick say ez how he is goin', fur all he ain't got no invite, an'
is a-goin' ter dance too: 'kase you know, Mis' Darley, it's a-goin'
ter be a dancin' party; the Harrisons hev determinated on that.
Them gals of theirn air mos' crazed 'bout a dancin' party. They
ain't been a bit of account sence they went ter Cheatham's Cross-
Roads ter see thar gran'mother, an' picked up all them queer
new notions. So the Harrisons hev determinated on a dancin'
party; an' Rick say ez how he is goin' ter dance too: but Jule,
she say ez how she know thar ain't a gal on the mounting ez
would dance with him; but I ain't so sure 'bout that, Mis' Dar-
ley: gals air cur'ous critters, ye know yerself; thar's no sort o'
countin' on 'em; they'll do one thing one time, an' another thing
nex' time; ye can't put no dependence in 'em. But Jule say ef
he kin git Mandy Tyler ter dance with him, it's the mos' he
kin do, an' the gang'll be nowhar. Mebbe he kin git Mandy ter
dance with him, 'kase the other boys say ez how none o' them is
a-goin' ter ax her ter dance, 'count of the trick she played on
'em down ter the Wilkins settlemint-las' month, war it? no,
'twar two month ago, an' better; but the boys ain't forgot how
scandalous she done 'em, an' none of 'em is a-goin' ter ax her ter
dance. "
"Why, what did she do? " exclaimed Mrs. Darley, surprised.
"She came here to sell peaches one day, and I thought her such
a nice, pretty, well-behaved girl. "
"Waal, she hev got mighty quiet say-nuthin' sort'n ways, Mis'
Darley, but that thar gal do behave rediculous. Down thar ter
the Wilkins settlemint,-ye know it's 'bout two mile or two
mile'n a half from hyar,-waal, all the gals walked down thar
ter the party an hour by sun; but when the boys went down
they tuk thar horses, ter give the gals a ride home behind 'em.
Waal, every boy axed his gal ter ride while the party war goin'
on, an' when 'twar all over they all set out fur ter come home.
Waal, this hyar Mandy Tyler is a mighty favorite 'mongst the
## p. 10459 (#287) ##########################################
MARY NOAILLES MURFREE
10459
boys,—they ain't got no sense, ye know, Mis' Darley,- an' stid-
dier one of 'em axin' her ter ride home, thar war five of 'em
axed her ter ride, ef ye'll believe me; an' what do ye think she
done, Mis' Darley? She tole all five of 'em yes; an' when the
party war over, she war the last ter go, an' when she started
out'n the door, thar war all five of them boys a-standin' thar
waitin' fur her, an' every one a-holdin' his horse by the bridle,
an' none of 'em knowed who the others war a-waitin' fur. An'
this hyar Mandy Tyler, when she got ter the door an' seen 'em
all a-standin' thar, never said one word, jest walked right through
'mongst 'em, an' set out fur the mounting on foot, with all them
five boys a-followin' an' a-leadin' thar horses, an' a-quarrelin'
enough ter take off each other's heads 'bout which one war
a-goin' ter ride with her; which none of 'em did, Mis' Darley,
fur I hearn ez how the whole layout footed it all the way ter
New Helveshy. An' thar would hev been a fight 'mongst 'em,
'ceptin' her brother, Jacob Tyler, went along with 'em, an' tried
ter keep the peace atwixt 'em. An' Mis' Darley, all them mar-
ried folks down thar at the party-them folks in the Wilkins
settlemint is the biggest fools, sure-when all them married
folks come out ter the door, an' see the way Mandy Tyler hed
treated them boys, they jest hollered and laffed an' thought it
war mighty smart an' funny in Mandy; but she never say a
word till she kem up the mounting, an' I never hearn ez how
she say anything then. An' now the boys all say none of 'em
is a-goin' ter ax her ter dance, ter pay her back fur them fool
airs of hern. But Kossute say he'll dance with her ef none the
rest will. Kossute, he thought 'twar all mighty funny too,—he's
sech a fool 'bout gals, Kossute is, but Jule, she thought ez how
'twar scandalous. "
Mrs. Darley listened in amused surprise: that these mount-
ain wilds could sustain a first-class coquette was an idea that
had not hitherto entered her mind; however, "that thar Mandy»
seemed, in Mrs. Johns's opinion at least, to merit the unenviable
distinction, and the party at the Wilkins settlement and the pro-
spective gayety of Harrison's Cove awakened the same sentiments.
in her heart and mind as do the more ambitious germans and
kettle-drums of the lowland cities in the heart and mind of
Mrs. Grundy. Human nature is the same everywhere, and the
Wilkins settlement is a microcosm. The metropolitan centres,
stripped of the civilization of wealth, fashion, and culture, would
## p. 10460 (#288) ##########################################
10460
MARY NOAILLES MURFREE
present only the bare skeleton of humanity outlined in Mrs.
Johns's talk of Harrison's Cove, the Wilkins settlement, the en-
mities and scandals and sorrows and misfortunes of the mountain
ridge. As the absurd resemblance developed, Mrs. Darley could
not forbear a smile. Mrs. Johns looked up with a momentary
expression of surprise; the story presented no humorous phase
to her perceptions, but she too smiled a little as she repeated,
"Scandalous, ain't it? " and proceeded in the same lack-lustre
tone as before.
"Yes,— Kossute say ez how he'll dance with her ef none the
rest will, fur Kossute say ez how he hev laid off ter dance, Mis'
Darley; an' when I ax him what he thinks will become of his
soul ef he dances, he say the Devil may crack away at it, an' ef
he kin hit it he's welcome; fur soul or no soul he's a-goin' ter
dance. Kossute is a-fixin' of hisself this very minute ter go; but
I am verily afeard the boy'll be slaughtered, Mis' Darley, 'kase
thar is goin' ter be a fight, an' ye never in all yer life hearn
sech sass ez Kossute and Rick Pearson done sent word ter each
other. "
Mr. Kenyon expressed some surprise that she should fear for
so young a fellow as Kossuth. "Surely," he said, "the man is
not brute enough to injure a mere boy: your son is a mere boy. "
"That's so," Mrs. Johns drawled. "Kossute ain't more'n
twenty year old, an' Rick Pearson is double that ef he is a day;
but ye see it's the firearms ez makes Kossute more'n a match
fur him, 'kase Kossute is the best shot on the mounting, an' Rick
knows that in a shootin' fight Kossute's better able ter take keer
of hisself an' hurt somebody else nor anybody. Kossute's more
likely ter hurt Rick nor Rick is ter hurt him in a shootin' fight;
but ef Rick didn't hurt him, an' he war ter shoot Rick, the
gang would tear him ter pieces in a minute; and 'mongst 'em I'm
actially afeard they'll slaughter the boy. "
Mr. Kenyon looked even graver than was his wont upon re-
ceiving this information, but said no more; and after giving Mrs.
Johns the febrifuge she wished for her husband, he returned to
his seat on the piazza.
Mrs. Darley watched him with some little indignation as he
proceeded to light a fresh cigar. "How cold and unsympathetic
Uncle Ambrose is," she said to herself. And after condoling
effusively with Mrs. Johns on her apprehensions for her son's
safety, she returned to the gossips in the hotel parlor; and Mrs.
## p. 10461 (#289) ##########################################
MARY NOAILLES MURFREE
10461
Johns, with her pink calico sun-bonnet on her head, went her way
in the brilliant summer moonlight.
The clear lustre shone white upon all the dark woods and
chasms and flashing waters that lay between the New Helvetia
Springs and the wide, deep ravine called Harrison's Cove; where
from a rude log hut the vibrations of a violin, and the quick
throb of dancing feet, already mingled with the impetuous rush
of a mountain stream close by, and the weird night sounds of
the hills, the cry of birds among the tall trees, the stir of the
wind, the monotonous chanting of frogs at the water-side, the
long, drowsy drone of the nocturnal insects, the sudden faint
blast of a distant hunter's horn, and the far baying of hounds.
___________
Mr. Harrison had four marriageable daughters, and had arrived
at the conclusion that something must be done for the girls; for
strange as it may seem, the prudent father exists even among
the "mounting folks. " Men there realize the importance of pro-
viding suitable homes for their daughters as men do elsewhere,
and the eligible youth is as highly esteemed in those wilds as is
the much scarcer animal at a fashionable watering-place. Thus
it was that Mr. Harrison had "determinated on a dancin' party. "
True, he stood in bodily fear of the Judgment Day and the cir-
cuit-rider: but the dancing party was a rarity eminently calcu-
lated to please the young hunters of the settlements round about;
so he swallowed his qualms, to be indulged at a more convenient
season, and threw himself into the vortex of preparation with an
ardor very gratifying to the four young ladies, who had become
imbued with sophistication at Cheatham's Cross-Roads.
Not so Mrs. Harrison: she almost expected the house to fall
and crush them, as a judgment on the wickedness of a dancing
party; for so heinous a sin, in the estimation of the greater part
of the mountain people, had not been committed among them for
many a day. Such trifles as killing a man in a quarrel, or on
suspicion of stealing a horse or wash-tub or anything that came
handy, of course do not count; but a dancing party! Mrs. Har-
rison could only fold her idle hands, and dread the heavy penalty
that must surely follow so terrible a crime.
It certainly had not the gay and lightsome aspect supposed
to be characteristic of such a scene of sin: the awkward young
mountaineers clogged heavily about in their uncouth clothes and
rough shoes, with the stolid-looking, lack-lustre maids of the
hill, to the violin's monotonous iteration of The Chicken in the
(
## p. 10462 (#290) ##########################################
10462
MARY NOAILLES MURFREE
Bread-Trough,' or 'The Rabbit in the Pea-Patch,'- all their
grave faces as grave as ever. The music now and then changed
suddenly to one of those wild, melancholy strains sometimes heard
in old-fashioned dancing tunes, and the strange pathetic cadences
seemed more attuned to the rhythmical dash of the waters rush-
ing over their stone barricades out in the moonlight yonder, or
to the plaintive sighs of the winds among the great dark arches
of the primeval forests, than to the movement of the heavy,
coarse feet dancing a solemn measure in the little log cabin in
Harrison's Cove. The elders, sitting in rush-bottomed chairs close
to the walls, and looking on at the merriment, well pleased despite
their religious doubts, were somewhat more lively; every now
and then a guffaw mingled with the violin's resonant strains and
the dancers' well-marked pace; the women talked to each other
with somewhat more animation than was their wont, under the
stress of the unusual excitement of a dancing party; and from
out the shed-room adjoining came an anticipative odor of more
substantial sin than the fiddle or the grave jiggling up and down
the rough floor. A little more cider too, and a very bad article
of illegally distilled whisky, were ever and anon circulated among
the pious abstainers from the dance; but the sinful votaries of
Terpsichore could brook no pause nor delay, and jogged up and
down quite intoxicated with the mirthfulness of the plaintive old
airs, and the pleasure of other motion than following the plow or
hoeing the corn.
And the moon smiled right royally on her dominion: on the
long dark ranges of mountains, and mist-filled valleys between;
on the woods and streams, and on all the half-dormant creatures
either amongst the shadow-flecked foliage or under the crystal
waters; on the long white sandy road winding in and out
through the forest; on the frowning crags of the wild ravine;
on the little bridge at the entrance of the gorge, across which a
party of eight men, heavily armed and gallantly mounted, rode
swiftly and disappeared amid the gloom of the shadows.
The sound of the galloping of horses broke suddenly on the
music and the noise of the dancing; a moment's interval, and
the door gently opened, and the gigantic form of Rick Pearson
appeared in the aperture. He was dressed, like the other mount-
aineers, in a coarse suit of brown jeans somewhat the worse for
wear, the trousers stuffed in the legs of his heavy boots; he
wore an old soft felt hat, which he did not remove immediately
## p. 10463 (#291) ##########################################
MARY NOAILLES MURFREE
10463
on entering, and a pair of formidable pistols at his belt conspicu-
ously challenged attention. He had auburn hair, and a long full
beard of a lighter tint reaching almost to his waist; his com-
plexion was much tanned by the sun, and roughened by exposure
to the inclement mountain weather; his eyes were brown, deep-
set, and from under his heavy brows they looked out with quick,
sharp glances, and occasionally with a roguish twinkle; the ex-
pression of his countenance was rather good-humored: a sort of
imperious good-humor, however, the expression of a man accus-
tomed to have his own way and not to be trifled with, but able
to afford some amiability since his power is undisputed.
He stepped slowly into the apartment, placed his gun against
the wall, turned, and solemnly gazed at the dancing, while his
followers trooped in and obeyed his example. As the eight
guns, one by one, rattled against the wall, there was a startled
silence among the pious elders of the assemblage, and a sudden
disappearance of the animation that had characterized their inter-
course during the evening. Mrs. Harrison, who by reason of
flurry, and a housewifely pride in the still unrevealed treasures
of the shed-room, had well-nigh forgotten her fears, felt that the
anticipated judgment had even now descended; and in what
terrible and unexpected guise! The men turned the quids of
tobacco in their cheeks, and looked at each other in uncertainty:
but the dancers bestowed not a glance upon the new-comers; and
the musician in the corner, with his eyes half closed, his head
bent low upon the instrument, his hard, horny hand moving the
bow back and forth over the strings of the crazy old fiddle, was
utterly rapt by his own melody. At the supreme moment when
the great red beard had appeared portentously in the doorway,
and fear had frozen the heart of Mrs. Harrison within her at
the ill-omened apparition, the host was in the shed-room, filling
a broken-nosed pitcher from the cider barrel. When he re-
entered, and caught sight of the grave sunburned face with its
long red beard and sharp brown eyes, he too was dismayed for
an instant, and stood silent at the opposite door with the pitcher
in his hand. The pleasure and the possible profit of the dancing
party, for which he had expended so much of his scanty store
of this world's goods and risked the eternal treasures laid up in
heaven, were a mere phantasm; for with Rick Pearson among
them, in an ill frame of mind and at odds with half the men in
the room, there would certainly be a fight, and in all probability
## p. 10464 (#292) ##########################################
10464
MARY NOAILLES MURFREE
one would be killed, and the dancing party at Harrison's Cove
would be a text for the bloody-minded sermons of the circuit-
rider for all time to come. However, the father of four mar-
riageable daughters is apt to become crafty and worldly-wise:
only for a moment did he stand in indecision; then catching
suddenly the small brown eyes, he held up the pitcher with a
grin of invitation. "Rick! " he called out above the scraping of
the violin and the clatter of the dancing feet, "slip round hyar
ef ye kin, I've got somethin' for ye;" and he shook the pitcher
significantly.
Not that Mr. Harrison would for a moment have thought of
Rick Pearson in a matrimonial point of view, for even the sophis-
tication of the Cross-Roads had not yet brought him to the state
of mind to consider such a half-loaf as this better than no bread;
but he felt it imperative from every point of view to keep that
set of young mountaineers dancing in peace and quiet, and their
guns idle and out of mischief against the wall. The great red
beard disappeared and reappeared at intervals, as Rick Pearson
slipped along the gun-lined wall to join his host and the cider
pitcher; and after he had disposed of the refreshment, in which
the gang shared, he relapsed into silently watching the dancing,
and meditating a participation in that festivity.
Now it so happened that the only young girl unprovided with
a partner was "that thar Mandy Tyler," of Wilkins settlement
renown: the young men had rigidly adhered to their resolution
to ignore her in their invitations to dance, and she had been sit-
ting since the beginning of the festivities, quite neglected, among
the married people, looking on at the amusement which she had
been debarred sharing by that unpopular bit of coquetry at Wil-
kins settlement. Nothing of disappointment or mortification was
expressed in her countenance. She felt the slight, of course,—
even a "mounting" woman is susceptible of the sting of wounded
pride; all her long-anticipated enjoyment had come to naught by
this infliction of penance for her ill-timed jest at the expense of
those five young fellows dancing with their triumphant partners,
and bestowing upon her not even a glance: but she looked the
express image of immobility as she sat in her clean pink cal-
ico, so carefully gotten up for the occasion, her short black hair
curling about her ears, and watched the unending reel with slow
dark eyes.
Rick's glance fell upon her, and without further hesi-
tation he strode over to where she was sitting, and proffered
## p. 10465 (#293) ##########################################
MARY NOAILLES MURFREE
10465
his hand for the dance. She did not reply immediately, but
looked timidly about her at the shocked pious ones on either side,
who were ready but for mortal fear to aver that "dancin' any-
how air bad enough, the Lord knows, but dancin' with a horse
thief air jest scandalous! " Then for there is something of
defiance to established law and prejudice in the born flirt every-
where- with a sudden daring spirit shining in her brightening
eyes, she responded, "Don't keer ef I do," with a dimpling half-
laugh; and the next minute the two outlaws were flying down
the middle together.
While Rick was according grave attention to the intricacies
of the mazy dance, and keeping punctilious time to the scrap-
ing of the old fiddle finding it all a much more difficult feat
than galloping from the Cross-Roads to the "Snake's Mouth" on
some other man's horse with the sheriff hard at his heels,- the
solitary figure of a tall gaunt man had followed the long wind-
ing path leading deep into the woods, and now began the steep
descent to Harrison's Cove. Of what was old Mr. Kenyon think-
ing, as he walked on in the mingled shadow and sheen? Of St.
Augustine and his Forty Monks, probably, and what they found
in Britain. The young men of his acquaintance would gladly
have laid you any odds that he could think of nothing but his
antique hobby, the ancient Church. Mr. Kenyon was the most
prominent man in St.
