The Call of the Cumberlands by Charles Neville Buck

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There rose to the lips of the itinerant preacher a sentiment as to how
much more loyalty availeth a man than genius, but, as he looked at the
slender and valiant figure standing in the deep dust of the road, he
left it unuttered.

The girl spent much time after that at the house of old Spicer South,
and her coming seemed to waken him into a fitful return of spirits. His
strength, which had been like the strength of an ox, had gone from him,
and he spent his hours sitting listlessly in a split-bottomed rocker,
which was moved from place to place, following the sunshine.

"I reckon, Unc' Spicer," suggested the girl, on one of her first
visits, "I'd better send fer Samson. Mebby hit mout do ye good ter see
him."

The old man was weakly leaning back in his chair, and his eyes were
vacantly listless; but, at the suggestion, he straightened, and the
ancient fire came again to his face.

"Don't ye do hit," he exclaimed, almost fiercely. "I knows ye means
hit kindly, Sally, but don't ye meddle in my business."

"I--I didn't 'low ter meddle," faltered the girl.

"No, little gal." His voice softened at once into gentleness. "I knows
ye didn't. I didn't mean ter be short-answered with ye neither, but
thar's jest one thing I won't 'low nobody ter do--an' thet's ter send
fer Samson. He knows the road home, an', when he wants ter come, he'll
find the door open, but we hain't a-goin' ter send atter him."

The girl said nothing, and, after awhile, the old man wait on:

"I wants ye ter understand me, Sally. Hit hain't that I'm mad with
Samson. God knows, I loves the boy.... I hain't a-blamin' him,
neither...."

He was silent for awhile, and his words came with the weariness of dead
hopes when he began again. "Mebby, I oughtn't ter talk about sech things
with a young gal, but I'm an old man, an' thar hain't no harm in hit....
From the time when I used ter watch you two children go a-trapsin' off
in the woods together atter hickory nuts, thar's been jest one thing
thet I've looked forward to and dreamed about: I wanted ter see ye
married. I 'lowed--" A mistiness quenched the sternness of his gray
eyes. "I 'lowed thet, ef I could see yore children playin' round this
here yard, everything thet's ever gone wrong would be paid fer."

Sally stood silently at his side, and her cheeks flushed as the tears
crept into her eyes; but her hand stole through the thick mane of hair,
fast turning from iron-gray to snow-white.

Spicer South watched the fattening hog that rubbed its bristling side
against the rails stacked outside the fence, and then said, with an
imperious tone that did not admit of misconstruction:

"But, Sally, the boy's done started out on his own row. He's got ter
hoe hit. Mebby he'll come back--mebby not! Thet's as the Lord wills.
Hit wouldn't do us no good fer him to come withouten he come willin'ly.
The meanest thing ye could do ter me--an' him--would be ter send fer
him. Ye mustn't do hit. Ye mustn't!"

"All right, Unc' Spicer. I hain't a-goin' ter do hit--leastways, not
yit. But I'm a-goin' ter come over hyar every day ter see ye."

"Ye can't come too often, Sally, gal," declared the old clansman,
heartily.

* * * * *

Wilfred Horton found himself that fall in the position of a man whose
course lies through rapids, and for the first time in his life his
pleasures were giving precedence to business. He knew that his
efficiency would depend on maintaining the physical balance of perfect
health and fitness, and early each morning he went for his gallop in
the park. At so early an hour, he had the bridle path for the most part
to himself. This had its compensations, for, though Wilfred Horton
continued to smile with his old-time good humor, he acknowledged to
himself that it was not pleasant to have men who had previously sought
him out with flatteries avert their faces, and pretend that they had
not seen him.

Horton was the most-hated and most-admired man in New York, but the
men who hated and snubbed him were his own sort, and the men who
admired him were those whom he would never meet, and who knew him only
through the columns of penny papers. Their sympathy was too remote to
bring him explicit pleasure. He was merely attempting, from within,
reforms which the public and the courts had attempted from without.
But, since he operated from within the walls, he was denounced as a
Judas. Powerful enemies had ceased to laugh, and begun to conspire. He
must be silenced! How, was a mooted question. But, in some fashion, he
must be silenced. Society had not cast him out, but Society had shown
him in many subtle ways that he was no longer her favorite. He had
taken a plebeian stand with the masses. Meanwhile, from various
sources, Horton had received warnings of actual personal danger. But at
these he had laughed, and no hint of them had reached Adrienne's ears.

One evening, when business had forced the postponement of a dinner
engagement with Miss Lescott, he begged her over the telephone to ride
with him the following morning.

"I know you are usually asleep when I'm out and galloping," he
laughed, "but you pitched me neck and crop into this hurly-burly, and I
shouldn't have to lose everything. Don't have your horse brought. I
want you to try out a new one of mine."

"I think," she answered, "that early morning is the best time to ride.
I'll meet you at seven at the Plaza entrance."

They had turned the upper end of the reservoir before Horton drew his
mount to a walk, and allowed the reins to hang. They had been galloping
hard, and conversation had been impracticable.

"I suppose experience should have taught me," began Horton, slowly,
"that the most asinine thing in the world is to try to lecture you,
Drennie. But there are times when one must even risk your delight at
one's discomfiture."

"I'm not going to tease you this morning," she answered, docilely. "I
like the horse too well--and, to be frank, I like you too well!"

"Thank you," smiled Horton. "As usual, you disarm me on the verge of
combat. I had nerved myself for ridicule."

"What have I done now?" inquired the girl, with an innocence which
further disarmed him.

"The Queen can do no wrong. But even the Queen, perhaps more
particularly the Queen, must give thought to what people are saying."

"What are people saying?"

"The usual unjust things that are said about women in society. You are
being constantly seen with an uncouth freak who is scarcely a
gentleman, however much he may be a man. And malicious tongues are
wagging."

The girl stiffened.

"I won't spar with you. I know that you are alluding to Samson South,
though the description is a slander. I never thought it would be
necessary to say such a thing to you, Wilfred, but you are talking like
a cad."

The young man flushed.

"I laid myself open to that," he said, slowly, "and I suppose I should
have expected it."

He knew her well enough to dread the calmness of her more serious
anger, and just now the tilt of her chin, the ominous light of her deep
eyes and the quality of her voice told him that he had incurred it.

"May I ask," Adrienne inquired, "what you fancy constitutes your right
to assume this censorship of my conduct?"

"I have no censorship, of course. I have only the interest of loving
you, and meaning to marry you."

"And I may remark in passing, that you are making no progress to that
end by slandering my friends."

"Adrienne, I'm not slandering. God knows I hate cads and snobs. Mr.
South is simply, as yet, uncivilized. Otherwise, he would hardly take
you, unchaperoned, to--well, let us say to ultra-bohemian resorts,
where you are seen by such gossip-mongers as William Farbish."

"So, that's the specific charge, is it?"

"Yes, that's the specific charge. Mr. South may be a man of unusual
talent and strength. But--he has done what no other man has done--with
you. He has caused club gossip, which may easily be twisted and
misconstrued."

"Do you fancy that Samson South could have taken me to the Wigwam Road-
house if I had not cared to go with him?"

The man shook his head.

"Certainly not! But the fact that you did care to go with him
indicates an influence over you which is new. You have not sought the
bohemian and unconventional phases of life with your other friends."

Adrienne glanced at the athletic figure riding at her side, just now
rather rigid with restraint and indignation, as though his vertebrae
were threaded on a ramrod, and her eyes darkened a little.

"Now, let it be thoroughly understood between us, Wilfred," she said
very quietly, "that if you see any danger in my unconventionalities, I
don't care to discuss this, or any other matter, with you now or at any
time." She paused, then added in a more friendly voice: "It would be
rather a pity for us to quarrel about a thing like this."

The young man was still looking into her eyes, and he read there an
ultimatum.

"God knows I was not questioning you," he replied, slowly. "There is
no price under heaven I would not pay for your regard. None the less, I
repeat that, at the present moment, I can see only two definitions for
this mountaineer. Either he is a bounder, or else he is so densely
ignorant and churlish that he is unfit to associate with you."

"I make no apologies for Mr. South," she said, "because none are
needed. He is a stranger in New York, who knows nothing, and cares
nothing about the conventionalities. If I chose to waive them, I think
it was my right and my responsibility."

Horton said nothing, and, in a moment, Adrienne Lescott's manner
changed. She spoke more gently:

"Wilfred, I'm sorry you choose to take this prejudice against the boy.
You could have done a great deal to help him. I wanted you to be
friends."

"Thank you!" His manner was stiff. "I hardly think we'd hit it off
together."

"I don't think you quite understand," she argued. "Samson South is
running a clean, creditable race, weighted down with a burdensome
handicap. As a straight-thinking sportsman, if for no better reason, I
should fancy you'd be glad to help him. He has the stamina and
endurance."

"Those," said Horton, who at heart was the fairest and most generous
of men, "are very admirable qualities. Perhaps, I should be more
enthusiastic, Drennie, if you were a little less so."

For the first time since the talk had so narrowly skirted a quarrel,
her eyes twinkled.

"I believe you are jealous!" she announced.

"Of course, I'm jealous," he replied, without evasion. "Possibly, I
might have saved time in the first place by avowing my jealousy. I
hasten now to make amends. I'm green-eyed."

She laid her gloved fingers lightly on his bridle hand.

"Don't be," she advised; "I'm not in love with him. If I were, it
wouldn't matter. He has,

"'A neater, sweeter maiden,
"'In a greener, cleaner land.'

"He's told me all about her."

Horton shook his head, dubiously.

"I wish to the good Lord, he'd go back to her," he said. "This
Platonic proposition is the doormat over-which two persons walk to
other things. They end by wiping their feet on the Platonic doormat."

"We'll cross that--that imaginary doormat, when we get to it," laughed
the girl. "Meantime, you ought to help me with Samson."

"Thank you, no! I won't help educate my successor. And I won't
abdicate"--his manner of speech grew suddenly tense--"while I can fight
for my foothold."

"I haven't asked you to abdicate. This boy has been here less than a
year. He came absolutely raw--"

"And lit all spraddled out in the police court!" Wilfred prompted.

"And, in less than a year, he has made wonderful advancement; such
advancement as he could not have made but for one thing."

"Which was--that you took him in hand."

"No--which is, that he springs from stock that, despite its hundred
years of lapse into illiteracy, is good stock. Samson South was a
gentleman, Wilfred, two hundred years before he was born."

"That," observed her companion, curtly, "was some time ago."

She tossed her head, impatiently.

"Come," she said, "let's gallop."

"No," protested Wilfred, his face becoming penitent. "Just a moment! I
retract. It is I who am the cad. Please, tell Mr. South just what we
have both said, and make my apologies if he'll accept them. Of course,
if you insist, I'll meet him. I suppose I'll have to meet him some day,
anyhow. But, frankly, Drennie, I hate the man. It will take a Herculean
effort to be decent to him. Still, if you say so--"

"No, Wilfred," she declined, "if you can't do it willingly, I don't
want you to do it at all. It doesn't matter in the least. Let's drop
the subject."

CHAPTER XX

One afternoon, swinging along Fifth Avenue in his down-town walk,
Samson met Mr. Farbish, who fell into step with him, and began to make
conversation.

"By the way, South," he suggested after the commonplaces had been
disposed of, "you'll pardon my little prevarication the other evening
about having met you at the Manhattan Club?"

"Why was it necessary?" inquired Samson, with a glance of disquieting
directness.

"Possibly, it was not necessary, merely politic. Of course," he
laughed, "every man knows two kinds of women. It's just as well not to
discuss the nectarines with the orchids, or the orchids with the
nectarines."

Samson made no response. But Farbish, meeting his eyes, felt as though
he had been contemptuously rebuked. His own eyes clouded with an
impulse of resentment. But it passed, as he remembered that his plans
involved the necessity of winning this boy's confidence. An assumption
of superior virtue, he thought, came rather illogically from Samson,
who had brought to the inn a young woman whom he should not have
exposed to comment. He, himself, could afford to be diplomatic.
Accordingly, he laughed.

"You mustn't take me too literally, South," he explained. "The life
here has a tendency to make us cynical in our speech, even though we
may be quite the reverse in our practices. In point of fact, I fancy we
were both rather out of our element at Collasso's studio."

At the steps of a Fifth Avenue club, Farbish halted.

"Won't you turn in here," he suggested, "and assuage your thirst?"

Samson declined, and walked on. But when, a day or two later, he
dropped into the same club with George Lescott, Farbish joined them in
the grill--without invitation.

"By the way, Lescott," said the interloper, with an easy assurance
upon which the coolness of his reception had no seeming effect, "it
won't be long now until ducks are flying south. Will you get off for
your customary shooting?"

"I'm afraid not." Lescott's voice became more cordial, as a man's will
whose hobby has been touched. "There are several canvases to be
finished for approaching exhibitions. I wish I could go. When the first
cold winds begin to sweep down, I get the fever. The prospects are
good, too, I understand."

"The best in years! Protection in the Canadian breeding fields is
bearing fruit. Do you shoot ducks, Mr. South?" The speaker included
Samson as though merely out of deference to his physical presence.

Samson shook his head. But he was listening eagerly. He, too, knew
that note of the migratory "honk" from high overhead.

"Samson," said Lescott slowly, as he caught the gleam in his friend's
eyes, "you've been working too hard. You'll have to take a week off,
and try your hand. After you've changed your method from rifle to
shotgun, you'll bag your share, and you'll come back fitter for work. I
must arrange it."

"As to that," suggested Farbish, in the manner of one regarding the
civilities, "Mr. South can run down to the Kenmore. I'll have a card
made out for him."

"Don't trouble," demurred Lescott, coolly, "I can fix that up."

"It would be a pleasure," smiled the other. "I sincerely wish I could
be there at the same time, but I'm afraid that, like you, Lescott, I
shall have to give business the right of way. However, when I hear that
the flights are beginning, I'll call Mr. South up, and pass the news to
him."

Samson had thought it rather singular that he had never met Horton at
the Lescott house, though Adrienne spoke of him almost as of a member
of the family. However, Samson's visits were usually in his intervals
between relays of work and Horton was probably at such times in Wall
Street. It did not occur to the mountaineer that the other was
intentionally avoiding him. He knew of Wilfred only through Adrienne's
eulogistic descriptions, and, from hearsay, liked him.

The months of close application to easel and books had begun to tell
on the outdoor man in a softening of muscles and a slight, though
noticeable, pallor. The enthusiasm with which he attacked his daily
schedule carried him far, and made his progress phenomenal, but he was
spending capital of nerve and health, and George Lescott began to fear
a break-down for his protégé. Lescott did not want to advise a visit to
the mountains, because he had secured from the boy a promise that,
unless he was called home, he would give the experiment an unbroken
trial of eighteen months.

If Samson went back, he feared his return would reawaken the sleeping
volcano of the feud--and he could not easily come away again. He
discussed the matter with Adrienne, and the girl began to promote in
the boy an interest in the duck-shooting trip--an interest which had
already awakened, despite the rifleman's inherent contempt for shotguns.

"You will be in your blind," she enthusiastically told him, "before
daybreak, and after a while the wedges will come flying into view,
cutting the fog in hundreds and dropping into the decoys. You'll love
it! I wish I were going myself."

"Do you shoot?" he asked, in some surprise.

She nodded, and added modestly;

"But I don't kill many ducks."

"Is there anything you can't do?" he questioned in admiration, then
demanded, with the touch of homesickness in his voice, "Are there any
mountains down there?"

"I'm afraid we can't provide any mountains," laughed Adrienne. "Just
salt marshes--and beyond them, the sea. But there's moonshine--of the
natural variety--and a tonic in the wind that buffets you."

"I reckon I'd like it, all right," he said, "and I'll bring you back
some ducks, if I'm lucky."

So, Lescott arranged the outfit, and Samson awaited the news of the
coming flights.

That same evening, Farbish dropped into the studio, explaining that he
had been buying a picture at Collasso's, and had taken the opportunity
to stop by and hand Samson a visitor's card to the Kenmore Club.

He found the ground of interest fallow, and artfully sowed it with
well-chosen anecdotes calculated to stimulate enthusiasm.

On leaving the studio, he paused to say:

"I'll let you know when conditions are just right." Then, he added, as
though in afterthought: "And I'll arrange so that you won't run up on
Wilfred Horton."

"What's the matter with Wilfred Horton?" demanded Samson, a shade
curtly.

"Nothing at all," replied Farbish, with entire gravity. "Personally, I
like Horton immensely. I simply thought you might find things more
congenial when he wasn't among those present."

Samson was puzzled, but he did not fancy hearing from this man's lips
criticisms upon friends of his friends.

"Well, I reckon," he said, coolly, "I'd like him, too."

"I beg your pardon," said the other. "I supposed you knew, or I
shouldn't have broached the topic."

"Knew what?"

"You must excuse me," demurred the visitor with dignity. "I shouldn't
have mentioned the subject. I seem to have said too much."

"See here, Mr. Farbish," Samson spoke quietly, but imperatively; "if
you know any reason why I shouldn't meet Mr. Wilfred Horton, I want you
to tell me what it is. He is a friend of my friends. You say you've
said too much. I reckon you've either said too much, or too little."

Then, very insidiously and artistically, seeming all the while
reluctant and apologetic, the visitor proceeded to plant in Samson's
mind an exaggerated and untrue picture of Horton's contempt for him and
of Horton's resentment at the favor shown him by the Lescotts.

Samson heard him out with a face enigmatically set, and his voice was
soft, as he said simply at the end:

"I'm obliged to you."

Farbish had hoped for more stress of feeling, but, as he walked home,
he told himself that the sphinx-like features had been a mask, and
that, when these two met, their coming together held potentially for a
clash. He was judge enough of character to know that Samson's morbid
pride would seal his lips as to the interview--until he met Horton.

In point of fact, Samson was at first only deeply wounded. That
through her kindness to him Adrienne was having to fight his battles
with a close friend he had never suspected. Then, slowly, a bitterness
began to rankle, quite distinct from the hurt to his sensitiveness. His
birthright of suspicion and tendency to foster hatreds had gradually
been falling asleep under the disarming kindness of these persons. Now,
they began to stir in him again vaguely, but forcibly, and to trouble
him.

Samson did not appear at the Lescott house for two weeks after that.
He had begun to think that, if his going there gave embarrassment to
the girl who had been kind to him, it were better to remain away.

"I don't belong here," he told himself, bitterly. "I reckon everybody
that knows me in New York, except the Lescotts, is laughing at me
behind my back."

He worked fiercely, and threw into his work such fire and energy that
it came out again converted into a boldness of stroke and an almost
savage vigor of drawing. The instructor nodded his head over the easel,
and passed on to the next student without having left the defacing mark
of his relentless crayon. To the next pupil, he said:

"Watch the way that man South draws. He's not clever. He's elementally
sincere, and, if he goes on, the first thing you know he will be a
portrait painter. He won't merely draw eyes and lips and noses, but
character and virtues and vices showing out through them."

And Samson met every gaze with smoldering savagery, searching for some
one who might be laughing at him openly, or even covertly; instead of
behind his back. The long-suffering fighting lust in him craved
opportunity to break out and relieve the pressure on his soul. But no
one laughed.

One afternoon late in November, a hint of blizzards swept snarling
down the Atlantic seaboard from the polar floes, with wet flurries of
snow and rain. Off on the marshes where the Kenmore Club had its lodge,
the live decoys stretched their clipped wings, and raised their green
necks restively into the salt wind, and listened. With dawn, they had
heard, faint and far away, the first notes of that wild chorus with
which the skies would ring until the southerly migrations ended--the
horizon-distant honking of high-flying water fowl.

Then it was that Farbish dropped in with marching orders, and Samson,
yearning to be away where there were open skies, packed George
Lescott's borrowed paraphernalia, and prepared to leave that same night.

While he was packing, the telephone rang, and Samson heard Adrienne's
voice at the other end of the wire.

"Where have you been hiding?" she demanded. "I'll have to send a
truant officer after you."

"I've been very busy," said the man, "and I reckon, after all, you
can't civilize a wolf. I'm afraid I've been wasting your time."

Possibly, the miserable tone of the voice told the girl more than the
words.

"You are having a season with the blue devils," she announced. "You've
been cooped up too much. This wind ought to bring the ducks, and----"

"I'm leaving to-night," Samson told her.

"It would have been very nice of you to have run up to say good-bye,"
she reproved. "But I'll forgive you, if you call me up by long
distance. You will get there early in the morning. To-morrow, I'm going
to Philadelphia over night. The next night, I shall be at the theater.
Call me up after the theater, and tell me how you like it."

It was the same old frankness and friendliness of voice, and the same
old note like the music of a reed instrument. Samson felt so comforted
and reassured that he laughed through the telephone.

"I've been keeping away from you," he volunteered, "because I've had a
relapse into savagery, and haven't been fit to talk to you. When I get
back, I'm coming up to explain. And, in the meantime, I'll telephone."

On the train Samson was surprised to discover that, after all, he had
Mr. William Farbish for a traveling companion. That gentleman explained
that he had found an opportunity to play truant from business for a day
or two, and wished to see Samson comfortably ensconced and introduced.

The first day Farbish and Samson had the place to themselves, but the
next morning would bring others. Samson's ideas of a millionaires'
shooting-box had been vague, but he had looked forward to getting into
the wilds. The marshes were certainly desolate enough, and the pine
woods through which the buckboard brought them. But, inside the club
itself, the Kentuckian found himself in such luxurious comfort as he
could not, in his own mind, reconcile with the idea of "going hunting."
He would be glad when the cushioned chairs of the raftered lounging-
room and the tinkle of high-ball ice and gossip were exchanged for the
salt air and the blinds.

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