Summer, Edith Wharton [urban books to read .TXT] 📗

on her knee. The evening was cool and still. Beyond the black hills an amber west passed into pale green, and then to a deep blue in which a great star hung. The soft hoot of a little owl came through the dusk, and between its calls the men’s voices rose and fell.

Mr. Royall’s was full of a sonorous satisfaction. It was a long time since he had had anyone of Lucius Harney’s quality to talk to: Charity divined that the young man symbolized all his ruined and unforgotten past. When Miss Hatchard had been called to Springfield by the illness of a widowed sister, and young Harney, by that time seriously embarked on his task of drawing and measuring all the old houses between Nettleton and the New Hampshire border, had suggested the possibility of boarding at the red house in his cousin’s absence, Charity had trembled lest Mr. Royall should refuse. There had been no question of lodging the young man: there was no room for him. But it appeared that he could still live at Miss Hatchard’s if Mr. Royall would let him take his meals at the red house; and after a day’s deliberation Mr. Royall consented.

Charity suspected him of being glad of the chance to make a little money. He had the reputation of being an avaricious man; but she was beginning to think he was probably poorer than people knew. His practice had become little more than a vague legend, revived only at lengthening intervals by a summons to Hepburn or Nettleton; and he appeared to depend for his living mainly on the scant produce of his farm, and on the commissions received from the few insurance agencies that he represented in the neighbourhood. At any rate, he had been prompt in accepting Harney’s offer to hire the buggy at a dollar and a half a day; and his satisfaction with the bargain had manifested itself, unexpectedly enough, at the end of the first week, by his tossing a ten-dollar bill into Charity’s lap as she sat one day retrimming her old hat.

“Here⁠—go get yourself a Sunday bonnet that’ll make all the other girls mad,” he said, looking at her with a sheepish twinkle in his deep-set eyes; and she immediately guessed that the unwonted present⁠—the only gift of money she had ever received from him⁠—represented Harney’s first payment.

But the young man’s coming had brought Mr. Royall other than pecuniary benefit. It gave him, for the first time in years, a man’s companionship. Charity had only a dim understanding of her guardian’s needs; but she knew he felt himself above the people among whom he lived, and she saw that Lucius Harney thought him so. She was surprised to find how well he seemed to talk now that he had a listener who understood him; and she was equally struck by young Harney’s friendly deference.

Their conversation was mostly about politics, and beyond her range; but tonight it had a peculiar interest for her, for they had begun to speak of the Mountain. She drew back a little, lest they should see she was in hearing.

“The Mountain? The Mountain?” she heard Mr. Royall say. “Why, the Mountain’s a blot⁠—that’s what it is, sir, a blot. That scum up there ought to have been run in long ago⁠—and would have, if the people down here hadn’t been clean scared of them. The Mountain belongs to this township, and it’s North Dormer’s fault if there’s a gang of thieves and outlaws living over there, in sight of us, defying the laws of their country. Why, there ain’t a sheriff or a tax-collector or a coroner’d durst go up there. When they hear of trouble on the Mountain the selectmen look the other way, and pass an appropriation to beautify the town pump. The only man that ever goes up is the minister, and he goes because they send down and get him whenever there’s any of them dies. They think a lot of Christian burial on the Mountain⁠—but I never heard of their having the minister up to marry them. And they never trouble the Justice of the Peace either. They just herd together like the heathen.”

He went on, explaining in somewhat technical language how the little colony of squatters had contrived to keep the law at bay, and Charity, with burning eagerness, awaited young Harney’s comment; but the young man seemed more concerned to hear Mr. Royall’s views than to express his own.

“I suppose you’ve never been up there yourself?” he presently asked.

“Yes, I have,” said Mr. Royall with a contemptuous laugh. “The wiseacres down here told me I’d be done for before I got back; but nobody lifted a finger to hurt me. And I’d just had one of their gang sent up for seven years too.”

“You went up after that?”

“Yes, sir: right after it. The fellow came down to Nettleton and ran amuck, the way they sometimes do. After they’ve done a wood-cutting job they come down and blow the money in; and this man ended up with manslaughter. I got him convicted, though they were scared of the Mountain even at Nettleton; and then a queer thing happened. The fellow sent for me to go and see him in gaol. I went, and this is what he says: ‘The fool that defended me is a chicken-livered son of a⁠—and all the rest of it,’ he says. ‘I’ve got a job to be done for me up on the Mountain, and you’re the only man I seen in court that looks as if he’d do it.’ He told me he had a child up there⁠—or thought he had⁠—a little girl; and he wanted her brought down and reared like a Christian. I was sorry for the fellow, so I went up and got the child.” He paused, and Charity listened with a throbbing heart. “That’s the only time I ever went up the Mountain,” he concluded.

There was a moment’s silence; then Harney spoke. “And the child⁠—had she no mother?”

“Oh, yes: there was