Viola Gwyn

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Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team.

[Illustration: "I shall get married when and where I please,--and
to whom I please, Mr. Gwynne."]

VIOLA GWYN

BY George Barr McCutcheon

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE--THE BEGINNING

CHAPTER

I SHELTER FOR THE NIGHT
II THE STRANGE YOUNG WOMAN
III SOMETHING ABOUT CLOTHES, AND MEN, AND CATS
IV VIOLA GWYN
V REFLECTIONS AND AN ENCOUNTER
VI BARRY LAPELLE
VII THE END OF THE LONG ROAD
VIII RACHEL CARTER
IX BROTHER AND SISTER
X MOTHER AND DAUGHTER
XI A ROADSIDE MEETING
XII ISAAC STAIN APPEARS BY NIGHT
XIII THE GRACIOUS ENEMY
XIV A MAN FROM DOWN THE RIVER
XV THE LANDING OF THE "PAUL REVERE"
XVI CONCERNING TEMPESTS AND INDIANS
XVII REVELATIONS
XVIII RACHEL DELIVERS A MESSAGE
XIX LAPELLE SHOWS HIS TEETH
XX THE BLOW
XXI THE AFFAIR AT HAWK'S CABIN
XXII THE PRISONERS
XXIII CHALLENGE AND RETORT
XXIV IN AN UPSTAIRS ROOM
XXV MINDA CARTER
XXVI THE FLIGHT OF MARTIN HAWK
XXVII THE TRIAL OF MOLL HAWK
XXVIII THE TRYSTING PLACE OF THOUGHTS
XXIX THE ENDING

PROLOGUE

THE BEGINNING

Kenneth Gwynne was five years old when his father ran away with
Rachel Carter, a widow. This was in the spring of 1812, and in
the fall his mother died. His grandparents brought him up to hate
Rachel Carter, an evil woman.

She was his mother's friend and she had slain her with the viper's
tooth. From the day that his questioning intelligence seized upon
the truth that had been so carefully withheld from him by his
broken-hearted mother and those who spoke behind the hand when
he was near,--from that day he hated Rachel Carter with all his
hot and outraged heart. He came to think of her as the embodiment
of all that was evil,--for those were the days when there was no
middle-ground for sin and women were either white or scarlet.

He rejoiced in the belief that in good time Rachel Carter would come
to roast in the everlasting fires of hell, grovelling and wailing
at the feet of Satan, the while his lovely mother looked down
upon her in pity,--even then he wondered if such a thing were
possible,--from her seat beside God in His Heaven. He had no doubts
about this. Hell and heaven were real to him, and all sinners went
below. On the other hand, his father would be permitted to repent and
would instantly go to heaven. It was inconceivable that his big,
strong, well-beloved father should go to the bad place. But Mrs. Carter
would! Nothing could save her! God would not pay any attention to
her if she tried to repent; He would know it was only "make-believe"
if she got down on her knees and prayed for forgiveness. He was
convinced that Rachel Carter could not fool God. Besides, would
not his mother be there to remind Him in case He could not exactly
remember what Rachel Carter had done? And were there not dozens of
good, honest people in the village who would probably be in Heaven
by that time and ready to stand before the throne and bear witness
that she was a bad woman?

No, Rachel Carter could never get into Heaven. He was glad.
No matter if the Scriptures did say all that about the sinner who
repents, he did not believe that God would let her in. He supported
this belief by the profoundly childish contention that if God let
EVERYBODY in, then there would be no use having a hell at all. What
was the use of being good all your life if the bad people could
get into Heaven at the last minute by telling God they were sorry
and never would do anything bad again as long as they lived? And
was not God the wisest Being in all the world? He knew EVERYTHING!
He knew all about Rachel Carter. She would go to the bad place and
stay there forever, even after the "resurrection" and the end of
the world by fire in 1883, a calamity to which he looked forward
with grave concern and no little trepidation at the thoughtful age
of six.

At first they told him his father had gone off as a soldier to
fight against the Indians and the British. He knew that a war was
going on. Men with guns were drilling in the pasture up beyond
his grandfather's house, and there was talk of Indian "massacrees,"
and Simon Girty's warriors, and British red-coats, and the awful
things that happened to little boys who disobeyed their elders
and went swimming, or berrying, or told even the teeniest kind of
fibs. He overheard his grandfather and the neighbours discussing
a battle on Lake Erie, and rejoiced with them over the report of
a great victory for "our side." Vaguely he had grasped the news of
a horrible battle on the Tippecanoe River, far away in the wilderness
to the north and west, in which millions of Indians were slain,
and he wondered how many of them his father had killed with his
rifle,--a weapon so big and long that he came less than half way
up the barrel when he stood beside it.

His father was a great shot. Everybody said so. He could kill wild
turkeys a million miles away as easy as rolling off a log, and deer,
and catamounts, and squirrels, and herons, and everything. So his
father must have killed heaps of Indians and red-coats and renegades.

He put this daily question to his mother: "How many do you s'pose
Pa has killed by this time, Ma?"

And then, in the fall, his mother went away and left him. They did
not tell him she had gone to the war. He would not have believed
them if they had, for she was too sick to go. She had been in bed
for a long, long time; the doctor came to see her every day, and
finally the preacher. He hated both of them, especially the latter,
who prayed so loudly and so vehemently that his mother must have
been terribly disturbed. Why should every one caution him to be
quiet and not make a noise because it disturbed mother, and yet say
nothing when that old preacher went right into her room and yelled
same as he always did in church? He was very bitter about it,
and longed for his father to come home with his rifle and shoot
everybody, including his grandfather who had "switched" him severely
and unjustly because he threw stones at Parson Hook's saddle horse
while the good man was offering up petitions from the sick room.

He went to the "burying," and was more impressed by the fact that
nearly all of the men who rode or drove to the graveyard down in
the "hollow" carried rifles and pistols than he was by the strange
solemnity of the occasion, for, while he realized in a vague,
mistrustful way that his mother was to be put under the ground,
his trust clung resolutely to God's promise, accepted in its most
literal sense, that the dead shall rise again and that "ye shall
be born again." That was what the preacher said,--and he had cried
a little when the streaming-eyed clergyman took him on his knee
and whispered that all was well with his dear mother and that he
would meet her one day in that beautiful land beyond the River.

He was very lonely after that. His "granny" tucked him in his big
feather bed every night, and listened to his little prayer, but she
was not the same as mother. She did not kiss him in the same way,
nor did her hand feel like mother's when she smoothed his rumpled
hair or buttoned his flannel nightgown about his neck or closed
his eyes playfully with her fingers before she went away with the
candle. Yet he adored her. She was sweet and gentle, she told such
wonderful fairy tales to him, and she always smiled at him. He
wondered a great deal. Why was it that she did not FEEL the same
as mother? He was deeply puzzled. Was it because her hair was grey?

His grandfather lived in the biggest house in town. It
had an "upstairs,"--a real "upstairs,"--not just an attic. And
his grandfather was a very important person. Everybody called him
"Squire"; sometimes they said "your honour"; most people touched
their hats to him. When his father went off to the war, he and his
mother came to live at "grandpa's house." The cabin in which he was
born was at the other end of the street, fully half-a-mile away,
out beyond the grist mill. It had but three rooms and no "upstairs"
at all except the place under the roof where they kept the dried
apples, and the walnuts and hickory nuts, some old saddle-bags and
boxes, and his discarded cradle. You had to climb up a ladder and
through a square hole in the ceiling to get into this place, and
you would have to be very careful not to stand up straight or you
would bump your head,--unless you were exactly in the middle, where
the ridge-pole was.

He remembered that it was a very long walk to "grandpa's house"; he
used to get very tired and his father would lift him up and place
him on his shoulder; from this lofty, even perilous, height he could
look down upon the top of his mother's bonnet,--a most astonishing
view and one that filled him with glee.

His father was the biggest man in all the world, there could be no
doubt about that. Why, he was bigger even than grandpa, or Doctor
Flint, or the parson, or Mr. Carter, who lived in the cabin next door
and was Minda's father. For the matter of that, he was, himself, a
great deal bigger than Minda, who was only two years old and could
not say anywhere near as many words as he could say--and did not
know her ABC's, or the Golden Rule, or who George Washington was.

And his father was ever so much taller than his mother. He was tall
enough to be her father or her grandfather; why, she did not come
up to his shoulder when she walked beside him. He was a million
times bigger than she was. He was bigger than anybody else in all
the world.

The little border town in Kentucky, despite its population of
less than a thousand, was the biggest city in the world. There was
no doubt about that either in Kenneth's loyal little mind. It was
bigger than Philadelphia--(he called it Fil-LEF-ily),--where his
mother used to live when she was a little girl, or Massashooshoo,
where Minda's father and mother comed from.

He was secretly distressed by the superior physical proportions of
his "Auntie" Rachel. There was no denying the fact that she was a
great deal taller than his mother. He had an abiding faith, however,
that some day his mother would grow up and be lots taller than
Minda's mother. He challenged his toddling playmate to deny that
his mother would be as big as hers some day, a lofty taunt that
left Minda quite unmoved.

Nevertheless, he was very fond of "Auntie" Rachel. She was good
to him. She gave him cakes and crullers and spread maple sugar on
many a surreptitious piece of bread and butter, and she had a jolly
way of laughing, and she never told him to wash his hands or face,
no matter how dirty they were. In that one respect, at least, she
was much nicer than his mother. He liked Mr. Carter, too. In fact, he
liked everybody except old Boose, the tin pedlar, who took little
boys out into the woods and left them for the wolves to eat if they
were not very, very good.

He was four when they brought Mr. Carter home in a wagon one day.
Some men carried him into the house, and Aunt Rachel cried, and
his mother went over and stayed a long, long time with her, and
his father got on his horse and rode off as fast as he could go
for Doctor Flint, and he was not allowed to go outside the house
all day,--or old Boose would get him.

Then, one day, he saw "Auntie" Rachel all dressed in black, and he
was frightened. He ran away crying. She looked so tall and scary,---like
the witches Biddy Shay whispered about when his grandma was not
around,--the witches and hags that flew up to the sky on broomsticks
and never came out except at night.

His father did the "chores" for '"Auntie" Rachel for a long time,
because Mr. Carter was not there to attend to them.

There came a day when the buds were fresh on the twigs, and the
grass was very green, and the birds that had been gone for a long
time were singing again in the trees, and it was not raining. So he
went down the road to play in Minda's yard. He called to her, but
she did not appear. No one appeared. The house was silent. "Auntie"
Rachel was not there. Even the dogs were gone, and Mr. Carter's
horses and his wagon. He could not understand. Only yesterday he
had played in the barn with Minda.

Then his grandma came hurrying through the trees from his own home,
where she had been with grandpa and Uncle Fred and Uncle Dan since
breakfast time. She took him up in her arms and told him that Minda
was gone. He had never seen his grandma look so stern and angry.
Biddy Shay had been there all morning too, and several of the
neighbours. He wondered if it could be the Sabbath, and yet that
did not seem possible, because it was only two days since he went
to Sunday school, and yesterday his mother had done the washing.
She always washed on Monday and ironed on Tuesday. This must be
Tuesday, but maybe he was wrong about that. She was not ironing,
so it could not be Tuesday. He was very much bewildered.

His mother was in the bedroom with grandpa and Aunt Hettie, and he
was not allowed to go in to see her. Uncle Fred and Uncle Dan were
very solemn and scowling so terribly that he was afraid to go near
them.

He remembered that his mother had cried while she was cooking
breakfast, and sat down a great many times to rest her head on her
arms. She had cried a good deal lately, because of the headache, she
always said. And right after breakfast she had put on her bonnet
and shawl, telling him to stay in the house till she came back
from grandpa's. Then she had gone away, leaving him all alone until
Biddy Shay came, all out of breath, and began to clear the table
and wash the dishes, all the while talking to herself in a way that
he was sure God would not like, and probably would send her to the
bad place for it when she died.

After a while all of the men went out to the barn-lot, where their
horses were tethered. Uncle Fred and Uncle Dan had their rifles.
He stood at the kitchen window and watched them with wide, excited
eyes. Were they going off to kill Indians, or bears, or cattymunks?
They all talked at once, especially his uncles,--and they swore,
too. Then his grandpa stood in front of them and spoke very loudly,
pointing his finger at them. He heard him say, over and over again:

"Let them go, I say! I tell you, let them go!"

He wondered why his father was not there, if there was any fighting
to be done. His father was a great fighter. He was the bestest shot
in all the world. He could kill an Injin a million miles away, or
a squirrel, or a groundhog. So he asked Biddy Shay.

"Ast me no questions and I'll tell ye no lies," was all the answer
he got from Biddy.

The next day he went up to grandpa's with his mother to stay, and
Uncle Fred told him that his pa had gone off to the war. He believed
this, for were not the rifle, the powder horn and the shot flask
missing from the pegs over the fireplace, and was not Bob, the very
fastest horse in all the world, gone from the barn? He was vastly
thrilled. His father would shoot millions and millions of Injins,
and they would have a house full of scalps and tommyhawks and bows
and arrers.

But he was troubled about Minda. Uncle Fred, driven to corner by
persistent inquiry, finally confessed that Minda also had gone to
the war, and at last report had killed several extremely ferocious
redskins. Despite this very notable achievement, Kenneth was troubled.
In the first place, Minda was a baby, and always screamed when she
heard a gun go off; in the second place, she always fell down when
she tried to run and squalled like everything if he did not wait
for her; in the third place, Injins always beat little girls' heads
off against a tree if they caught 'em.

Moreover, Uncle Dan, upon being consulted, declared that a
good-sized Injin could swaller Minda in one gulp if he happened to
be 'specially hungry,--or in a hurry. Uncle Dan also appeared to
be very much surprised when he heard that she had gone off to the
war. He said that Uncle Fred ought to be ashamed of himself; and
the next time he asked Uncle Fred about Minda he was considerably
relieved to hear that his little playmate had given up fighting
altogether and was living quite peaceably in a house made of a
pumpkin over yonder where the sun went down at night.

It was not until sometime after his mother went away,--after the
long-to-be-remembered "fooneral," with its hymns, and weeping, and
praying,--that he heard the grown-ups talking about the war being
over. The redcoats were thrashed and there was much boasting and
bragging among the men of the settlement. Strange men appeared on
the street, and other men slapped their backs and shook hands with
them and shouted loudly and happily at them. In time, he came to
understand that these were the citizens who had gone off to fight
in the war and were now home again, all safe and sound. He began
to watch for his father. He would know him a million miles off, he
was so big, and he had the biggest rifle in the world.

"Do you s'pose Pa will know how to find me, grandma?" he would
inquire. "'Cause, you see, I don't live where I used to."

And his grandmother, beset with this and similar questions from
one day's end to the other, would become very busy over what she
was doing at the time and tell him not to pester her. He did not
like to ask his grandfather. He was so stern,--even when he was
sitting all alone on the porch and was not busy at all.

Then one day he saw his grandparents talking together on the porch.
Aunt Hettie was with them, but she was not talking. She was just
looking at him as he played down by the watering trough. He distinctly
heard his grandma say:

"I think he ought to be told, Richard. It's a sin to let him go
on thinking---" The rest of the sentence was lost to him when she
suddenly lowered her voice. They were all looking at him.

Presently his grandfather called to him, and beckoned with his
finger. He marched up to the porch with his little bow and arrow.
Grandma turned to go into the house, and Aunt Hettie hurried away.

"Don't be afraid, Granny," he sang out. "I won't shoot you. 'Sides,
I've only got one arrer, Aunt Hettie."

His grandfather took him on his knee, and then and there told him
the truth about his father. He spoke very slowly and did not say
any of those great big words that he always used when he was with
grown-up people, or even with the darkies.

"Now, pay strict attention, Kenneth. You must understand everything I
say to you. Do you hear? Your father is never coming home. We told
you he had gone to the war. We thought it was best to let you think
so. It is time for you to know the truth. You are always asking
questions about him. After this, when you want to know about your
father, you must come to me. I will tell you. Do not bother your
grandma. You make her unhappy when you ask questions. You see, your
Ma was once her little girl and mine. She used to be as little as
you are. Your Pa was her husband. You know what a husband is, don't
you?"

"Yes, sir," said Kenneth, wide-eyed. "It's a boy's father."

"You are nearly six years old. Quite a man, my lad." He paused to
look searchingly into the child's face, his bushy eyebrows meeting
in a frown.

"The devil of it is," he burst out, "you are the living image of
your father. You are going to grow up to look like him." He groaned
audibly, spat viciously over his shoulder, and went on in a strange,
hard voice. "Do you know what it is to steal? It means taking
something that belongs to somebody else."

"Yes, sir. 'Thou shalt not steal.' It's in the Bible."

"Well, you know that Indians and gipsies steal little boys, don't
you? It is the very worst kind of stealing, because it breaks the
boy's mother's heart. It sometimes kills them. Now, suppose that
somebody stole a husband. A husband is a boy's father, as you say.
Your father was a husband. He was your dear mother's husband. You
loved your mother very, very much, didn't you? Don't cry, lad,--there,
there, now! Be a little man. Now, listen. Somebody stole your
mother's husband. She loved him better than anything in the world.
She loved him, I guess, even better than she loved you, Kenneth.
She just couldn't live without him. Do you see? That is why she
died and went away. She is in Heaven now. Now, let me hear you say
this after me: My mother died because somebody stole her husband
away from her."

"'My mother died because somebody stoled her husband away from
her,'" repeated the boy, slowly.

"You will never forget that, will you?"

"No,--sir."

"Say this: My mother's heart was broken and so she died."

"'My mother's heart was broken and she--and so she died.'"

"You will never forget that either, will you, Kenneth?"

"No, sir."

"Now, I am going to tell you who stole your mother's husband away
from her. You know who your mother's husband was, don't you?"

"Yes, sir. My Pa."

"One night,--the night before you came up here to live--your Auntie
Rachel,--that is what you called her, isn't it? Well, she was not
your real aunt. She was your neighbour,--just as Mr. Collins over
there is my neighbour,--and she was your mother's friend. Well,
that night she stole your Pa from your Ma, and took him away with
her,--far, far away, and she never let him come back again. She
took him away in the night, away from your mother and you forever
and forever. She---"

"But Pa was bigger'n she was," interrupted Kenneth, frowning. "Why
didn't he kill her and get away?"

The old Squire was silent for a moment. "It is not fair for me to
put all the blame on Rachel Carter. Your father was willing to go.
He did not kill Rachel Carter. Together he and Rachel Carter killed
your mother. But Rachel Carter was more guilty than he was. She was
a woman and she stole what belonged in the sight of God to another
woman. She was a bad woman. If she had been a good woman she would
not have stolen your father away from your mother. So now you know
that your Pa did not go to the war. He went away with Rachel Carter
and left your mother to die of a broken heart. He went off into
the wilderness with that bad, evil woman. Your mother was unhappy.
She died. She is under the ground up in the graveyard, all alone.
Rachel Carter put her there, Kenneth. I cannot ask you to hate
your father. It would not be right. He is your father in spite of
everything. You know what the Good Book says? 'Honour thy father
and--' how does the rest of it go, my lad?"

"'Honour thy father and thy mother that thou days may be long upon
thou earth,'" murmured Kenneth, bravely.

"When you are a little older you will realize that your father did
not honour his father and mother, and then you may understand more
than you do now. But you may hate Rachel Carter. You MUST hate her.
She killed your mother. She stole your father. She made an orphan
of you. She destroyed the home where you used to live. As you
grow older I will try to tell you how she did all these things.
You would not understand now. There is one of the Ten Commandments
that you do not understand,--I mean one in particular. It is enough
for you to know the meaning of the one that says 'Thou shalt not
steal.' You must not be unhappy over what I have told you. Everything
will be all right with you. You will be safe here with granny and
me. But you must no longer believe that your father went to the
war like other men in the village. If he were MY son, I would---"

"Don't say it, Richard," cried Kenneth's grandma, from the doorway
behind them. "Don't ever say that to him."

CHAPTER I

SHELTER FOR THE NIGHT

Night was falling as two horsemen drew rein in front of a cabin
at the edge of a clearing in the far-reaching sombre forest.
Their approach across the stump-strewn tract had been heralded by
the barking of dogs,--two bristling beasts that came out upon the
muddy, deep-rutted road to greet them with furious inhospitality.
A man stood partially revealed in the doorway. His left arm and
shoulder were screened from view by the jamb, his head was bent
forward as he peered intently through narrowed eyes at the strangers
in the road.

"Who are you, and what do you want?" he called out.

"Friends. How far is it to the tavern at Clark's Point?"

"Clark's Point is three miles back," replied the settler. "I guess
you must have passed it without seein' it," he added drily. "If
it happened to be rainin' when you come through you'd have missed
seein' it fer the raindrops. Where you bound fer?"

"Lafayette. I guess we're off the right road. We took the left turn
four or five miles back."

"You'd ought to have kept straight on. Come 'ere, Shep! You, Pete!
Down with ye!"

The two dogs, still bristling, slunk off in the direction of the
squat log barn. A woman appeared behind the man and stared out
over his shoulder. From the tall stone chimney at the back of the
cabin rose the blue smoke of the kitchen fire, to be whirled away
on the wind that was guiding the storm out of the rumbling north.
There was a dull, wavering glow in the room behind her. At one of
the two small windows gleamed a candle-light.

"What's takin' you to Clark's Point? There ain't no tavern there.
There ain't nothin' there but a hitch-post and a waterin'-trough.
Oh, yes, I forgot. Right behind the hitch-post is Jake Stone's
store and a couple of ash-hoppers and a town-hall, but you wouldn't
notice 'em if you happened to be on the wrong side of the post.
Mebby it's Middleton you're lookin' fer."

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