The Ordeal | Page 6

danger of awkward silence
or significant pauses was eliminated. He found that Briscoe could
furnish him with some fresh points in comparative philology, to his
surprise and gratification, for he never expected aught bookish of his
host. But like men of his type, Briscoe was a close observer and learned
of the passing phase of life. He took issue again and again with the
deductions of the traveller.
"You think it queer that they use 'you-uns' in the singular number?
Then why do you use 'you' in the singular number? I haven't heard you
'thou-ing' around here this evening. Just as grammatical in that respect
as you are! And on the same principle, why do you say 'you were' to me
instead of 'you was,' which would be more singular--ha! ha! ha!"
"What I think so curious is the double-barrelled pronouns themselves,
'you-uns' and 'we-uns.'" Mrs. Royston forced herself to take part in the
colloquy at the first opportunity.
"Not at all queer," Bayne promptly contended. "The correlatives of that
locution appear in other languages. The French has nous autres, the
Italian, noi altri, the Spanish, nosotros."
"And pray consider our own classical 'we-all,'" Mrs. Briscoe gayly
interposed, surprised that she could pluck up the spirit for this
interruption.
"More interesting to me is the survival in this sequestered region of old
English words and significations, altogether obsolete elsewhere,"
continued Bayne. "Now, when I asked the driver yesterday the name of
a very symmetrical eminence in the midst of the ranges he said it had
no name, that it was no mountain--it was just the 'moniment' of a little
ridge, meaning the image, the simulacrum. This is Spenser's usage."

"Look here, Julian," said Briscoe, rising suddenly, all his wonted bluff
self again, "if you fire off any more of your philologic wisdom at us I'll
throw you over the cliff. We are skilled in the use of words--honest,
straight talk--not their dissection. I want to get at something that we can
all enjoy. Tune this violin and come and play some of those lovely old
things that you and Gladys used to practise together."
"Yes, yes, indeed," exclaimed Mrs. Briscoe cordially, and, rising
promptly, she approached the piano.
Briscoe also started toward the instrument, to open it for her. "Mrs.
Royston and I will be a generous audience and applaud enthusiastically.
But stop--what is that?"
He suddenly paused, the lid of the piano half lifted in his hands, the
scattered sheet music falling in a rustling shower to the floor.
"What is that?" he reiterated, motionless and hearkening.

II.
A voice was calling from out the rising mists, calling again and again,
hailing the house. Briscoe dropped the lid of the piano and strode to the
door, followed by Bayne, the ladies standing irresolute on the hearthrug
and gazing apprehensively after them.
The sudden changes incident to the mountain atmosphere were
evidenced in the opaque density of the fog that had ensued on the
crystalline clearness of the sunset. It hung like a curtain from the zenith
to the depths of the valley, obscuring all the world. It had climbed the
cliffs; it was shifting in and out among the pillars of the veranda; it
even crossed the threshold as the door was opened, then shrank back
ghostly-wise, dissolving at the touch of the warm home radiance. As
the lamp-light flickered out, illuminating its pervasive pallor, the
new-comer urged a very lame horse to the steps of the veranda. The
two friends waiting within looked at each other in uncertainty as to
their policy in admitting the stranger. Then as his rapid footfalls

sounded on the veranda, and a stalwart figure appeared in the doorway,
Briscoe tilted the shade of the lamp on the table to throw its glare full
on the new-comer's face, and broke forth with an acclaim of
recognition and welcome.
To be sure, he was but a casual acquaintance, and Briscoe's cordiality
owed something of its fervor to his relief to find that the visitor was of
no untoward antecedents and intentions. An old school-fellow he had
been long ago in their distant city home, who chanced to be in the
mountains on a flying trip--no belated summer sojourner, no
pleasure-seeker, but concerned with business, and business of the
grimmest monitions. A brisk, breezy presence he had, his cheeks
tingling red from the burning of the wind and sun and the speed of his
ride. He was tall and active, thirty-five years of age perhaps, with a
singularly keen eye and an air intimating much decision of character, of
which he stood in need for he was a deputy collector of the revenue
service, and in the midst of a dangerous moonshining raid his horse had
gone dead lame.
"I hardly expected to find you still here