15 The Intruder

Cynthia Braxton, the morning after Harry’s ride into the woods, received a letter. She received many letters, but this was most unusual. When the colored girl brought it to her she was sitting before a fire in the small parlor, a room which combined the cheerfulness and comfort of old and new fashions. Judge Braxton had shared, to some extent, in the new prosperity that had flowed down upon Groveton from the mountains, but he had made no changes in his big red brick house. It was still the best place in which to live in all Groveton.

Cynthia took the letter, and looked at it curiously before opening it. It was a large blue envelope, and the handwriting was a heavy scrawl, almost like that of a child, the letters, very large, uneven, and, obviously, made with a painful effort. Yet a handwriting expert would have said that the writing was not devoid of strength. She looked at the postmark in the corner, but it was so blurred that she could make nothing of it.

Cynthia tore open the letter, and, as she read, her face turned red, then white, then red again. The writer asked permission to come and see her. He said he knew that he was a rough man, a mountain man, that he had not had the advantages enjoyed by the people of Groveton, but he had made money in oil too, and he was rising in the world.

It was an extraordinary letter, a mixture of crudity and bravado, yet a tone of confidence ran through it. Words were misspelled, and punctuation was mostly absent, but, in a case like this, it did not appear to matter. It seemed to Cynthia that the letter was like the man, savage, strong, and bold, and yet not without a certain evil fascination. But she recognised the fascination only for a moment. Then she became indignant.

What should she do? She could not speak of it to her father. She knew how fastidious Judge Braxton was in anything pertaining to his daughter, and his law business moreover often took him into the mountains. And she must hide all knowledge of it from Harry Beauchamp—she must hide it from him of all men!

She read the letter again, and through every scrawled heavy line she saw daring and presumption. There was no mistaking this man. He was not only Harry Beauchamp’s evil genius, he was hers as well. She rested her head upon the palm of one hand, and stared into the fire. The light flickered over the wonderful black hair and cast a warm glow upon the smooth round cheeks, but Cynthia Braxton still wondered what she ought to do. At last she crumpled the letter and envelope in her hand and threw them into the fire. There she watched them as they fell into ashes.

Judge Braxton returned the same afternoon from a term of the Circuit Court in Randolph County, and at supper he had an abundance of gossip.

“They’ve opened four new oil wells further up the creek at Pleasantville,” he said “and they are gushers. All the experts say that the country back of there for a long distance has both oil and coal to burn. Pleasantville looks like a mining camp, and the mountaineers, who fought the railroad so hard, have more money than they thought there was in the whole world.

“What has become of that wild Cad Burke?” asked Cynthia in an apparently casual tone.

Judge Braxton glanced sharply at her, but he read nothing in either tone or manner.

“He’s staying out in the hills,” he replied. “His mother died two or three weeks ago of pneumonia, and there’s been a lot of talk about Burke leading the tobacco raiders. He’s taken advantage of the thing to gratify his naturally wild and lawless instinct. The Governor is waking up, and the militia is already going into parts of the Dark Tobacco region. I hear that either there’s a warrant for Burke or there’s going to be one.”

“Will they catch him—if they want him?”

“I don’t know. He’s among his own people when he’s in the hills, and when he comes down in the lowlands he’s with those who sympathise with the raiders. But Burke’s a dangerous man, Cynthia.”

“I think so too,” she said. She was glad now that she had burned the letter. She wished to feel that it had gone out of existence, and she would say nothing of it to anyone. A week later she and Rose Compton went to visit an aunt of Rose’s at Elmwood, a station on the new line, about midway between Groveton and Pleasantville.

Elmwood lay in the high hills, which had not yet grown into mountains, a snug hamlet, well-sheltered from the winter winds and abounding in picturesqueness. Here she was going to rest. It had been a lively winter in Groveton, that self-contained little capital lying just within the eastern edge of the Dark Tobacoo region. Besides the excitement of the raid and the possibility of another, Groveton had achieved fresh heights as a social and business centre. A new musical and a new literary society had been formed, and Cynthia had taken a part in each. Bridge had been introduced with great success, dancing had kept all its vogue, and a beautiful young woman, belonging to an established family like the Braxtons found few idle moments.

There was too a glamor about Cynthia for girls of her own age. It was told often that she could have married a great steel millionaire, and that then she might have wasted as much money as she pleased on an old castle in Europe, had she so chosen, but she did not so choose. It was said that he still wrote to her, entreating her to offer him a little hope, and ready to return to Groveton as fast as a limited express could bring him, if she would only write a single favorable word. But she would not write it.

The stir of commercial life in Groveton had also been great. Two new banks were established. Building went steadily on, despite the winter. New people from the mountains, enriched by oil and coal were coming down to Groveton, where they might spend their money to advantage and achieve culture. The stir of life was that of a capital, the only capital for which Cynthia cared, and after many diligent weeks she looked forward to the stay at Elmwood, where one might sit quietly and think about something or nothing, as one pleased. All things too favored the trip, snow being absent, and the weather, though cold, brilliantly clear.

They were received with great hospitality by Rose’s aunt, Mrs. Turner. The Turner homestead, a large brick house with a white pillared portico, had been built many years before the coming of the railroad, and it combined, with its pleasant roominess, the easy air of having long since settled into its place. Here Cynthia spent two or three soothing and happy days. Rose did not bother her too much, and Mrs. Turner was content for her to wander about as she pleased.

A creek, which would have been called in other countries a little river—all this country was cut by many creeks—ran through Elmwood, and, on either side of it, the high hills were densely clothed with forest. Cynthia liked to walk in those woods, where one was left alone and the view was splendid.

On the morning of the fourth day she received a note from Harry Beauchamp stating that he expected to run up to Pleasantville soon, and that if she did not write him not to do so he would stop off at Elmwood to see her. Cynthia read the letter over two or three times, and she did not throw it into the fire as she had done that of another man. It seemed to her that Harry had grown greatly that winter.

After breakfast she proposed a long walk to Rose, but Rose declined, owing to a desperate determination to finish some sewing, already delayed too long. Cynthia went, not unwillingly, alone. It was another cold day, flooded with brilliant sunshine, and, crossing the creek on a footbridge, she walked up the wooded slope to the north of the town.

Cynthia was a good walker, and walking was coming back into use in Kentucky. It had been the fashion with a former generation in the state to appear weak and anaemic. A tiny foot and a poor appetite were considered the mark of a lady, but that day was passing, and Cynthia, yielding to the natural impulse of her strong young body and vigorous mind, walked steadily, breathing freely and feeling the mental exhilaration that comes of healthy exercise.

The trees were leafless. As far as she could see the hills were gray and brown in the brilliant sunshine, but Cynthia knew that the dawn of spring was not far away. Soon the warm waves would roll up from the South, and the winter would flee, like the night before the upspringing sun.

From her position on the slope Cynthia could see into the lowlands, where the Dark Tobacco region swept away in gentle swells half across the state. She could even imagine the very curve in the swells, where her beloved Groveton lay, and it required no very strong imagination to say that the vivid spot under the horizon was made by its roofs of slate or shingle. In order to obtain a better view she walked to the top of the hill, and then she became conscious of a presence.

She was not sure that she had heard any sound, she was sure that she had seen nothing, but she had no doubt that someone was near, someone bold and strong. Then Cad Burke came striding among the trees, a Burke who swaggered not one whit less because he was now a man who might quickly become an outlaw with a price upon his head. Perhaps in his savage and splendidly barbarous soul that fact was an additional cause for pride and pleasure.

Burke wore a fur cap, set jauntily upon his thick black hair, and a long black overcoat enveloped his body down to his boot tops. His hands were encased in heavy furred gloves. To Cynthia he seemed some savage chief, in panoply of state, and, despite her brave heart, she was afraid. Yet she would not show it.

“Miss Cynthia, ” he said, “I heard you wuz in Elmwood, an’ I wuz hopin’ I would see you here, learnin’ that you wuz takin’ walks about the place.”

“Yes,” said Cynthia.

“I wrote you a letter to Groveton,” he continued not at all abashed, “an’ as I haven’t had no answer I thought maybe you didn’t get it.”

“I received it,” said Cynthia.

“I ’lowed you did. ”An’ you didn’t think it wuth while to answer. But you wuz wrong. I’m a man, Miss Cynthia, an’ this is a free country. I put it to you fa’r an’ squar’ when I writ to say that I wanted to come to see you. Many a gal would be glad fur me to come. I’ve got money now, and I ain’t afraid of nobody.”

He seemed to Cynthia more than ever the savage, a man, conscious of strength and courage, but unconscious of such things as delicacy and refinement. In the south, the feeling of difference, not a difference of class or caste, but a difference of association, education and instinct, is still very powerful, and to Cynthia this strong, barbarous man seemed to belong to another world than hers. She was still afraid, and yet she would not show it.

“It was useless, Mr. Burke,” she replied, keeping her voice firm. “I couldn’t let you come. We are not—not the same. You belong up there”—she nodded toward the mountains—“and I belong down there.”—she nodded toward the lowlands—“I do not know which is the better, but it would be wiser if you did not speak to me again, Mr. Burke.”

He came closer to her, looking at her from bold eyes.

“I could come down an’ live in Groveton,” he said.

Cynthia sought to turn away, but his eyes held her for the moment.

“You don’t like me now, Miss Cynthia,” he continued. “I know you think you hate me, but it’ll change. Gals kin learn to like me.”

“I’d rather you wouldn’t say anything more!” said Cynthia, “Never speak of such a thing again!”

She did turn away now, but suddenly he put out his hand, and caught her by the wrist.

“I’m sorry I can’t oblige you,” he said, “an’ mebbe you’ll be glad some day that I don’t. As I told you, gals learn to like me, an’ you will too. Oh, I kin make you! I’ve got the eye an’ the ways!”

Cynthia felt a sudden thrill of repulsion, even horror. She wrenched her wrist from his hand and trembled all over.

“Don’t you ever dare to touch me again!” she cried passionately.

Burke looked at her, not angry not disturbed, but smiling maliciously. It seemed that he was still confident. Thus the two stood there for a few moments, gazing at each other, and then up the slope floated the cheerful sound of someone whistling a gay tune. It was as welcome to Cynthia as a hand to the drowning, but she saw a savage frown pass over the face of Cad Burke. She looked down the slope, and the whistler was Harry Beauchamp. She uttered a little cry of relief and pleasure that changed to apprehension on its last note. She glanced at Burke. He too, of course, had seen the whistler.

“There must be no trouble between you two,” she said.

The mountaineer’s look expressed derision.

“I went away once to keep from meetin’ him,” he said, “an’ it was to oblige you—went away from my own house, an’ I ain’t ever been paid fur it yet. I ain’t goin’ to run away now.”

“There must be no trouble,” she said. “Not on my account, nor on any other.”

“Ef thar’ ain’t trouble now thar will be another time,” said Burke. “Him an’ me are goin’ to come together some day.

He spoke with the utmost confidence in the result of a conflict that he deemed certain. He was the savage, strong cunning, living in the wilderness and belonging there. His whole manner now was instinct with defiance, as Harry came upon them.

Harry Beauchamp, according to promise, had stopped off at Elmwood to see Cynthia Braxton. At the house of Mrs. Turner, Rose’s aunt, they had told him that she had gone for a walk up the mountain slope, and he had followed. Now as he passed through a clump of trees he suddenly saw her and Burke. His surprise was intense, but Harry Beauchamp was acute of perception. He could not mistake Cynthia’s attitude. It showed repulsion, fear; she looked at Burke as the frontier woman would have looked at the Indian warrior. Had he spoken insulting words to her? The Mason blood became fire in him, and he went quickly forward.

Cynthia, afraid of a conflict between an armed savage—she knew that Burke carried a revolver—and an unarmed man–she knew that Harry carried none—became at once diplomatic.

“Oh Harry,” she said gladly, and there was no assumption in her tone. “You have come! I was so afraid that you would not!”

She stepped forward eagerly and put her hand in his, in greeting. Harry’s closed upon it, and he could feel it tremble. He saw that his coming was indeed welcome to her, but she did not give him a chance to speak.

“I met Mr. Burke only this moment,” she exclaimed, “and he was pointing out to me the easiest path back to Elmwood, as you came.”

Harry glanced at Burke. It was as she said, he could not doubt, and yet something else had passed. He could read it in the manner of both. But Burke neither denied, nor added anything to her words. He had a light, careless look, as if he were indifferent to the presence of Harry Beauchamp on the face of the earth, that was highly irritating. Harry’s smoldering resentment and hate were fast burning into a blaze, but Cynthia put her hand upon his arm.

“Come, Harry,” she said. “It’s time that I was going back to Rose’s aunt, and I know you will see me down the mountain.”

Harry yielded to the touch of her hand and the tone in her voice, and turned away with her. Burke was still silent—upright, lithe and powerful. It appeared to Cynthia, so far as his dark, bearded face could be read, that he sneered. He seemed to say that he was content to wait his own time. Back to her came those old words of hers, said in childhood: “Harry Beauchanp will grow up and kill Cad Burke.” Had she read the prophecy, reversed? A horrible fear seized her, and she began to tremble again. She could not resist the temptation to look back. Cad Burke just stood there, motionless. He had not changed his position an inch. To Cynthia’s fancy he was laughing silently, and at them. But the trees and the swell of the slope presently shut him from view. Then she could not remain silent any longer.

“Harry,” she exclaimed, “that is an awful man! It was only by the merest chance that I met him there, but I cannot bear his presence!”

“What did he say to you? Anything that was wrong?”

“Oh no. But it is his look, his manner that I cannot stand. I was never so glad to see you before in my life.”

Harry looked at her. Cynthia was not of the demonstrative kind. He knew that she was deeply agitated. And his coming had protected her from something.

“Cynthia,” he said, “would you have been as glad, had it been any other man?”

She did not reply. She had noticed the sudden, new note in his voice and she knew its meaning. Her heart instantly responded.

“Let me think that you would not,” he said. “Cynthia, we’ve been boy and girl together, playmates, but we’re not boy and girl together now, we’re not playmates any more. I, at least, want something greater. Cynthia, I love you! You know it! You cannot keep from knowing it. Cynthia, won’t you marry me?”

Cynthia heard the words as one in a dream. They seemed to come from a point far away, but she had long known her heart.

“Yes, Harry,” she said very simply, but with all her soul in her words, “I will marry you.”

Harry bent his head a little, and kissed her on the lips, a kiss full of fire and passion, but pure and noble. She started—almost sought to resist—it was her first kiss from a man—and then almost wished that he would kiss her again.

“Cynthia,” said he, “I think it was intended that we should belong to each other.”

“I think so, too, Harry,” she said.

The two paused at the steepest point in the path, and looked down in the valley at Elmwood, the little village hid almost among the trees, and at the farther slopes beneath their brown carpet of forest. To the East rose the line of low, blue mountains and to the West were the rolling hills of the lowlands. It was their country, neither had wished for any other, and now it was theirs together. Although in the brown of winter, it had never before seemed so beautiful to them. And yet the spring that was in their hearts was not so far away in reality. A bird, in brilliant plumage, early invader from the South, alighted on a bough over their heads, and poured forth a flood of song. A wave of warmth came up from the same South and in the softening earth seeds began to germinate.

“Cynthia,” said Harry reverently, “I think God has been very good to me. He has given me fortune, the opportunity to do the kind of work I want to do, and then His goodness has gone so far as to give me you.”

She did not speak, there was no need that she should, but she felt that God had been good to her, too. Unconsciously he took her hand in his, and she let it lie there, no longer trembling.

Up from the South the warm winds began to blow, and the dazzling heavens bent over a bright world. The two were still silent, the presence of each other sufficient. They were products of a little world, primitive in some respects, but pure, in both act and thought, in the great things in which purity counts. Theirs was a joy wholly of the spirit now, and both felt uplifted and glorified.

“I think I’ve loved you since you were a little girl, Cynthia,” said Harry.

“And I’ve loved you a long time, Harry,” said Cynthia.

Each said little at this great crisis in their lives. Harry and Cynthia never talked much of the things that lay nearest to their hearts, but each understood what the other felt, and both felt stronger and better than ever before. There was a note of solemnity too in this joy, because such a wonderful light had been permitted to come into their lives.

The blue heavens became more dazzlingly blue. The first of the warm waves coming up from the south reached the slope, and bore upon its crest the faint odor of new buds. Spring was certainly not far away. Yet there was a discordant, a dangerous note in the air, but neither Cynthia nor Harry knew of it or felt its presence. A man had slipped along among the tree trunks. He had seen their single kiss, and he knew what it meant. He was enraged in his savage soul, as a panther or tiger would have been when robbed of prey. That which had seemed daring and presumption to everybody else had not seemed daring and presumption to him.

As he watched, his wild and primitive nature became supreme. He had never had more than a slight veneer of civilization, but the whole of it now slipped away. He took on not only the nature of a wild animal, but the manner and appearance also. His footsteps made no sound as he slipped from tree to tree; the bushes did not rustle as he passed. He was bent over a little in the attitude of one who listens and looks intently, his huge chest and shoulders bunched together. Twice his eager hand stole to the handle of the revolver in his pocket, but his cunning told him that a better time would come, and he restrained himself. He watched them, as long as they stood together looking down into the valley, and, when they started on, he followed them a little way, but soon he turned back and went deep into the mountains.

Harry and Cynthia walked slowly down the slope, not towards Mrs. Turner’s house but to the station. Harry was only to stop over two or three hours in Elmwood while waiting for the next train, and Cynthia was glad that it was so. She wished to keep her great secret to herself for a day at least, and she alone saw Harry go.

Harry Beauchamp walked into the office of Judge Braxton a week later. The warm waves had been coming up from the south throughout that time in an unbroken succession, and the world had lost its dominant tint of grayness. The trees bore tiny buds, and a faint delicate tinge of green was appearing in the grass. Harry had noticed it all as he passed through the courthouse yard, and it harmonized with his spirit.

Judge Braxton was alone in his office and he had opened a window the full width in order to let in what he called God’s out-of-doors. He was a man who loved nature, and the warm earth and the growing time of spring, and his heart, at this moment, was away from the law, out among his fields, now turning green.

“Come in, Harry,” he said heartily. “How’s the new building doing?”

“We’ve broken ground, and the contracts are all let. It will he ready by next winter.”

But Harry Beauchamp had not come to discuss his new building. He closed the door “behind him with great care, and took a chair on the other side of the open window, facing the Judge. He did not know just how to begin, and, to mark time, he spoke casually of the early approach of spring. This was a favorite topic with Judge Braxton, who, thinking little of the fact that he was the best lawyer in all that region, craved notice as a farmer.

“It’s going to be a great crop year,” he said. “I feel it all through me, but I plant no tobacco, Harry, no tobacco. They say there’s going to be a compromise on the tobacco question. The Trust and some of the allied manufacturers are going to buy all of last year’s crop at a heavy advance over the prices prevailing in the autumn. So the Band of Justice, in a way, has won, although the poor fools who did the violence are now mostly in jail, and will have to suffer. That settles this year, but about the future I don’t know. I don’t think it ever will be settled until our farmers quit raising tobacco as fast as they can.”

“Still, organization will help them greatly,” said Harry, who was only remotely interested in a subject which, at other times, was a burning one to him.

Judge Braxton detected the lack of earnestness in his tone and glanced at him inquiringly.

“The fact is, Judge,” said Harry, “I came here to ask you an important question.”

’“What is it, Harry? Go ahead.”

“How would you like to have me as a son-in-law?”

Judge Braxton’s chair was tilted back, but he brought it down with a jerk. He gazed directly at Harry, and then his lips curved slowly into a smile.

“Have you passed the first barrier?” he asked.

“Cynthia says she’ll take me,” replied Harry with an answering smile. “But we’d like to have your consent.”

“And you’d probably take her whether you had it or no?”

“I might, but I’d much rather take her with it.”

“Then you can have it. God bless you, son. Since a girl must marry, you’re the very lad I’d have picked out for Cynthia. And you won’t take her away from me? You’ll stay right here?”

“Yes, Judge, both of us want to live right here in Groveton all our lives.”

The hand of the old man and the hand of the young man met in a strong clasp, the clasp of mutual regard and esteem.

“I think I can trust Cynthia to you, Harry,” said the Judge.

“I’ll try to make her happy,” said Harry, simply.

When Harry went out the Judge sat by the window a little while. He was not a man given to the display of emotion, but there was a mist on the lashes over his blue eyes. Presently he arose and walked to the Beauchamp home.

“Good morning, Judge,” said Mr. Beauchamp. “Any news?”

“Yes, about ten minutes ago, your son asked me for my daughter.”

Mr. Beauchamp’s white head was lifted a little.

“What did you say, Judge?”

“I said yes, and I added that I would rather give her to him than to any other man.”

“I thank you for my son, Judge.”

Then the hands of two old men met in a warm clasp, the clasp of a friendship that had endured for many years, that would endure to the grave—and beyond, perhaps. Who knows?

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