Una of the Hill Country | Page 2

large and finely set; his face was fair and bespoke none of the midday toil at the plow-handles that had tanned the complexion of his compeers, for Brent Kayle had little affinity for labor of any sort. He danced with a light firm step, every muscle supplely responsive to the strongly marked pulse of the music, and he had a lithe, erect carriage which imparted a certain picturesque effect to his presence, despite his much creased boots, drawn over his trousers to the knee, and his big black hat which he wore on the back of his head. The face of his partner had a more subtle appeal, and so light and willowy was her figure as she danced that it suggested a degree of slenderness that bordered on attenuation. Her unbonneted hair of a rich blonde hue had a golden lustre in the sun; her complexion was of an exquisite whiteness and with a delicate flush; the chiseling of her features was peculiarly fine, in clear, sharp lines--she was called "hatchet-faced" by her undiscriminating friends. She wore a coarse, flimsy, pink muslin dress which showed a repetitious pattern of vague green leaves, and as she flitted, lissome and swaying, through the throng, with the wind a-flutter in her full draperies, she might have suggested to a spectator the semblance of a pink flower--of the humbler varieties, perhaps, but still a wild rose is a rose.
Even the longest dance must have an end; even the stanchest mountain fiddler will reach at last his limit of endurance and must needs be refreshed and fed. There was a sudden significant flourish of frisky bowing, now up and again down, enlisting every resonant capacity of horsehair and catgut; the violins quavered to a final long-drawn scrape and silence descended. Dullness ensued; the flavor of the day seemed to pall; the dancers scattered and were presently following the crowd that began to slowly gather about the vacated stand of the musicians, from which elevation the speakers of the occasion were about to address their fellow-citizens. One of the disaffected old farmers, gruff and averse, could not refrain from administering a rebuke to Brent Kayle as crossing the expanse of saw-dust on his way to join the audience he encountered the youth in company with Valeria Clee, his recent partner.
"Ai-yi, Brent," the old man said, "the last time I seen you uns I remember well ez ye war a-settin' on the mourner's bench." For there had been a great religious revival the previous year and many had been pricked in conscience. "Ye ain't so tuk up now in contemplatin' the goodness o' God an' yer sins agin same," he pursued caustically.
Brent retorted with obvious acrimony. "I don't see no 'casion ter doubt the goodness o' God--I never war so ongrateful nohow as that comes to." He resented being thus publicly reproached, as if he were individually responsible for the iniquity of the bran dance--the scape-goat for the sins of all this merry company. Many of the whilom dancers had pressed forward, crowding up behind the old mountaineer and facing the flushed Brent and the flowerlike Valeria, the faint green leaves of her muslin dress fluttering about her as her skirts swayed in the wind.
"Ye ain't so powerful afeard of the devil now ez ye uster was on the mourner's bench," the old man argued.
"I never war so mighty afeard of the devil," the goaded Brent broke forth angrily, for the crowd was laughing in great relish of his predicament--they, who had shared all the enormity of "shaking a foot" on this festive day. Brent flinched from the obvious injustice of their ridicule. He felt an eager impulse for reprisal. "I know ez sech dancin' ez I hev done ain't no sin," he blustered. "I ain't afeared o' the devil fur sech ez that. I wouldn't be skeered a mite ef he war ter--ter--ter speak right out now agin it, an' I'll be bound ez all o' you uns would. I--I--look yander--look!"
He had thrown himself into a posture of amazed intentness and was pointing upward at the overhanging boughs of a tree above their heads. A squirrel was poised thereon, gazing down motionless. Then, suddenly--a frightful thing happened. The creature seemed to speak. A strange falsetto voice, such as might befit so eerie a chance, sounded on the air--loud, distinct, heard far up the slope, and electrifying the assemblage near at hand that was gathering about the stand and awaiting the political candidates.
"Quit yer foolin'--quit yer fooling" the strange voice iterated. "I'll larn ye ter be afeared o' the devil. Long legs now is special grace."
So wild a cry broke from the startled group below the tree that the squirrel, with a sudden, alert, about-face movement, turned and swiftly ran along the bough and up the