University of Virginia Library

8. VIII.
DOWN THE MOUNTAIN.

The morning continued fine. The rays of the sun beat down
hotly; but cool breezes played upon the mountain side, shaking
the green foliage of the woods, dancing over the meadows, and
tossing the fields of grain into fantastic waves.

A prospect of Alpine loveliness opened before Hector and Charlotte,
as they emerged from a shady dingle not far from Mr.
Wing's house. The road wound along the brow of a lofty spur,
from which the valley, out-spread below, looked like a vast and
magnificent map. The miniature fences, the spotted farms, the
slender and winding streams, the houses so distant and so small,
formed a picture of exceeding beauty. Still and grand rose the
woody mountains beyond, the forests on their backs appearing like
thick growths of weeds a mower might cut with his scythe. Here
and there, amid clearings, along a dark chasm in the hills, gleamed
the foam and silver of Wild River, rushing to the plain.

Hector pointed out to his companion his father's house, Mr.
Jackwood's, and two or three little villages nestled in green spots
up and down the creek. But, somehow, he could not talk to her
as he had talked to Bertha. He could neither be frivolous nor
sentimental. Something in her character seemed to demand a
tone of remark which a gentleman (Hector considered himself one)
could not, consistently with the views of society, freely address to
a stranger in her position. Thus conscious of awkwardness, he
contented himself with a few commonplace observations, and
remained silent.

Charlotte, on her part, feared to speak, lest her voice should
betray what he had failed to discover in her face; and she feared

to look towards him, lest something in her expression, not before
revealed, should give form and substance to any vague shadow of
recognition that might be flitting through his mind. Thus she
was chiding and torturing herself for having consented to accompany
him, when a catastrophe occurred, which in a moment swept
away every barrier of restraint that divided them.

Mr. Dunbury kept a farm-boy, named Cornelius Boughton. His
familiar appellation was Corny. He was seventeen years of age,
and was distinguished for a meditative disposition, and a stoical
indifference to the ordinary cares of life; qualities which, it must
be confessed, superficial observers were apt, indiscriminately, to
term obtuseness and stupidity. Well, Corny had that morning
harnessed the horse for Hector, and placed him before the buggy.
He had also discovered that the spring which secured the eye of
one of the traces in its hook was loose, and might drop off. It did
not, however, occur to him that a few seasonable strokes of the
hammer might be of service in preventing the dislocation of
necks; nor did he mention the circumstance to Hector.

Hector, accordingly, knew nothing of the danger, until, as he
was driving down a gentle slope, he heard something rattle on the
ground. It was the shafts, which had slid out of their stays, and
fallen down, in consequence of the unhooking of that fatal trace.
The horse jumped; one trace still held; the buggy was brought
violently against his gambrels; a kick — a spring — and in an
instant of time the frightened brute was making wild, irregular
leaps down the declivity.

Hector prided himself on his management of horses. Never,
with the reins in his own hands, had he met with an accident.
He did not lose his presence of mind; yet clear-headed, resolute,
vigilant as he was, he could devise no way of averting a catastrophe.
If he held hard on the reins, he but drew the vehicle
more closely upon the horse's heels; and to attempt to drive into
the fence with the shafts on the ground, would have been certain
destruction. He might, at the outset, have jumped out, and, by
the exercise of superior agility, stopped both horse and wagon;
but Charlotte clung to his arm, and held him fast.

Hector had no fear for himself. His only care was for his

companion. But for the tight clasp on his arm, he would have
known nothing of the terror that froze at her heart. She did
not scream, nor speak one word, from first to last; and when, in a
clear, firm voice, he told her what to do, it seemed the only way,
and the right way, and she obeyed at once.

The feat was difficult and dangerous. Hector could not
assist her; it required all his skill to manage the horse, and keep
the shafts in the track. Not until he had given her ample time
to save herself, did he venture to look around. She had climbed
over the seat, and dropped down behind; and he had a momentary
glimpse of her lying upon her face in the road, quite still, as she
had fallen.

All this happened in scarce more than a minute's time from
the dropping of the shafts. Hector was now travelling at a speed
that could not last long. He approached a curve in the road,
and the track, which had offered little impediment to the shafts thus
far, grew rough and stony. The buggy began to bound and reel;
and, expecting momently to go over, he prepared to throw the reins
clear of everything, and fall in as compact a shape as possible, when
the crisis arrived. Suddenly, looking before, to calculate his ground,
he saw a man, scarce five rods distant, driving lazily up the mountain.
He seemed asleep; his head was sunk upon his breast,
the reins hung loosely in his hands. Hector rose up, bareheaded,
his hair flying, and shouted the alarm. To the man, who started
bewildered from his nap, and saw swift ruin dashing down upon
him in such a form, he looked more like a fiend than anything
human. The poor fellow was horror-struck. It was too late for
him to clear the track, but, with the instinct of terror, he screamed
and shook the reins wildly up and down, and finally threw his
hat, to turn aside the danger. The frantic animal sheered to the
bank; the shafts struck, and flew to splinters; and the buggy,
hurled into the air, doubled together like paste-board, and came
down with a crash, a mass of fragments, throwing up dirt and
turf into the very face of the spectator.

The horse had cleared himself at a spring; but the driver lay
among the ruins. How still everything was! The man sat
shivering in his wagon, and gazing with dumb amazement at the

wreck, when he saw something move. Over went the broken
seat, and up got Hector from under it.

He was a frightful-looking object, covered from head to foot
with dirt, his hair all over his face, and one sleeve of his coat
rent away from the shoulder. At first he looked vacantly around,
knowing not at all where he was or what had happened; but
presently, spitting out a mouthful of earth, and putting his hair
from his eyes, he stared at the heap which had been a buggy, and
began to remember.

“My — everlasting!” said the ghastly countryman, without stirring
from his wagon, “I never thought o' seein' you git up ag'in,
I vow!”

“I 'm not hurt!” cried Hector, still a little wild. “Where is
she?”— meaning Charlotte.

“She 's over the crick, by this time! Lightning! how she
sprung! — She jest grazed my wheels! Lucky you smashed up
jest as you did, or you 'd a' tore me to flinders. What a narrer
'scape I had!”

Hector hastened up the road to find Charlotte. The man sat
a few minutes longer in the wagon, contemplating the catastrophe
and his own “narrer 'scape,” when the unaccountable
whim took him to get out. He walked around the wreck;
touched it with his foot; lifted a cushion with his shaking hand;
dropped it; drew a long breath, and said, “My jingoes!” with a
depth of expression which seemed to afford him great relief.

Stunned by the fall, Charlotte lay for some seconds in the
road; then got upon her feet and began to walk very fast up the
hill, in pursuit of Hector's hat. Reflecting, suddenly, however,
that she ought rather to look after the head it belonged to, she
turned, and, now fully awake, ran, in great trepidation, to learn
what had become of Hector. She met him coming up the road.

“You are hurt!” she cried out, at sight of him.

“Not a bit!” Hector declared, stoutly. “I fell like a football,
and up again at a bound!”

“But your face is covered with blood!”

“Indeed? I 've been wiping my mouth for something — I
did n't know what!”

Charlotte stanched the blood with her handkerchief.

“You 're a brave girl! I feared you were hurt! It is worth
a kingdom to see you on your feet again! There, that will do,
— thank you!”

“Your lip is cut!”

“That 's nothing! If you are safe, it 's all I care for. I tell
you,” said Hector, “after running such a rig, it 's rather exhilarating
to think there 's no damage done which money and a little
salve won't repair!”

“Where is your buggy?”

“It lies just below here, around those bushes. It looks like an
Irishman's shanty run into by a locomotive.”

“And the horse?”

“Gone down the mountain! Poor fellow! I hope he won't
kill himself! But see, the people in that house are staring at
us. How some people will stare, and keep at a safe distance,
when others are in trouble! These are priests and Levites, with
a spice of curiosity added to their composition. Let 's make
Good Samaritans of them, against their will, and levy contributions
of brushes, water, and towels.”

Hector misjudged the people in question, and afterwards asked
their forgiveness in his heart. They were poor women, very
much frightened, but willing enough to do, when they knew what
to do. Hector washed himself, combed his hair, and brushed
his clothes, while one of them pinned up his sleeve, and prepared
a plaster for his lip. Then, leaving Charlotte in their care, he
returned to the wreck.

“I swanny!” said the countryman, rubbing his hands, “I
never see anything chawed up like that 'ere buggy! Both exes,
springs, fils, box, seat — everything smashed! The wheels, I
guess, are sound, and that 's all.”

“And our necks,” suggested Hector.

“Did n't I have a narrer 'scape? I can't help thinkin' on 't.”
And the man walked about the wreck again, chuckling nervously,
and looking very pale.

“Is n't your name Crumlett?”

“That 's my name — ya-a-s!” — Mr. Crumlett stared. —

“Wal! I did n't know ye before! You begin to look like,
washed up! How d'e dew? When d' ye come to town?”

Answering these questions briefly, Hector proposed to Mr.
Crumlett to carry him home.

“I declare,” said that individual, regretfully, “I don't see
how I can, any way in the world! I 'm in a desprit hurry!”

“O,” replied Hector with a quiet smile, “you are in a hurry?
But I should expect, of course, to pay you for your trouble.”

Mr. Crumlett, on reflection: “Wal, I d' know — an old
acquaintance, so — p'r'aps I might.”

Accordingly Mr. Crumlett took on board the buggy-cushions,
with a few other fragments of the wreck; assisted his “old
acquaintance” to make a compact heap of the remainder on the
road-side; and, finally, with Hector and Charlotte as passengers,
turned his horses' heads down the mountain.

Mr. Crumlett, as it proved, not only had time to carry them
to their destination, but to drive tediously slow, at that. Gloating
over the accident, and chuckling repeatedly at his own
“narrer 'scape,” he seemed entirely to have forgotten that he
was in a hurry. Occasionally, at Hector's instigation, he flourished
his whip, and clucked a little to his horses; but those grave
animals were not to be urged out of their comfortable pace by
any such gentle means. Meanwhile, anxious to learn the fate
of his own horse, Hector inquired for him on the way. He had
been seen by several persons, who described him as going very
fast, with the reins streaming from his back, and “one tug whipping
his side to make him go faster.” But presently there came
a pedler, who had passed by Mr. Dunbury's house.

“I have n't seen any horse running,” said the itinerant tradesman;
“but I saw a woman unharnessing a horse, in a yard, back
here.”

Hector's spirits rose. The woman was Bridget, and the horse
was the runaway.

“Blessed pedler,” said he in his heart, “go thy way, and be
happy. — Drive on, friend Crumlett!”

Mr. Crumlett cracked his whip and clucked again, but to
little purpose. In the course of time, however, the party came

in sight of Mr. Dunbury's house. Bridget stood in the road,
her broad, red face turned with an expression of wonder towards
Mr. Crumlett's establishment. Hector swung his hat.

“It 's him!” screamed Bridget, dancing and clapping her
hands, — “Mrs. Dunbury! it 's him, with a good head yit to wear
a hat on!”

Then straightway out ran Mrs. Dunbury, her face white and
wild, hair dishevelled, cape falling from her shoulders, and threw
herself upon Hector's neck, as he jumped from the wagon. A
few stifled words, a few choking sobs and tears, and, her excited
strength relaxing, she sank fainting in his arms.

With Charlotte's ready assistance Hector bore her into the
house. Presently her eyes opened languidly, and her grateful
look wandered from Hector to his companion.

Danger, like death, is a leveller. It brings king and beggar
upon the same human ground. From the moment of peril, when
Hector felt Charlotte's womanly clasp upon his arm, they had
ceased to be strangers; and, still glowing with the generous heat
with which her sympathy inspired him, he introduced her to his
mother. The latter extended her feeble hand, with a smile of
welcome. A tender chord was touched in Charlotte's breast, and
she knelt humble and happy at the invalid's feet.

“God bless you, my child!” said Mrs. Dunbury, fervently.

Hector inquired for his father.

“I blowed the harn fur 'im,” cried Bridget, “but he did n't
coom yet! It 's over the creek I 'll go an' cahl 'im!”

She ran out, and met Mr. Dunbury in the yard, who presently
entered, with Corny at his heels. He was an excitable and
impetuous man, and the girl had told him just enough of the
catastrophe to make him fume. Hector hastened to explain.

“I might told ye how 't would be!” said Corny, notching a
stick with his knife.

Mr. Dunbury, gruffly: “What do you mean?”

Corny, drawling his words: “Wal, the spring was loose that
held the tug in — and I know'd 't would be all the time unhookin'
if ye did n't look out.”

Mr. Dunbury: “Did you know no better than to leave such a
trap for breaking people's necks?”

Corny, phlegmatic: “'T wan't my trap! You told me to
harness Jerry to the buggy.”

Hector: “Why did n't you tell me the spring was loose?”

Corny: “'Cause I did n't think on 't, I s'pose.”

Bridget: “That 's jist one o' Carny's tricks! He 'd know
nothin' at ahl, if 't wan't knocked out of 'im.” — Punching him
with the broom. “Out o' the house wid yer whittlin's, noo!”

Corny, pugnaciously: “Come, stop!”

Mr. Dunbury: “What are you here for? Why don't you go
and take care of that horse?”

Corny: “You did n't tell me to!”

Mr. Dunbury, recognizing Charlotte, uttered a sort of half apology,
and welcomed her with high good-breeding. But a consciousness
of being somewhat carelessly dressed appeared to
trouble him just at this time, and, the moment her attention was
withdrawn, he took occasion to pull up his limp dickey, and
smooth down his rumpled shirt under the worn lapels of his faded
plush waistcoat.

“Where are you going?” asked the invalid, clinging to Hector's
hand.

“I am reminded that I have left our friend Crumlett waiting,
— and he is in a terrific hurry!”

“But you must not let him go till after dinner. How kind it
was in him to bring you down!”

Hector found Mr. Crumlett sitting patiently in his wagon,
whipping the gate-post.

“How much do I owe you for your trouble, sir?”

“Wal, I d'n' know, — guess fifty cents 'll be 'bout right, —
won't it, hey?”

Hector paid him, and asked if he would stop to dinner.

“Wal, — it 's unexpected, naow,” replied Mr. Crumlett, pocketing
the change, — “like enough I will! You can give my team a
bite, I s'pose?”

“Put your horses in the barn, and cut as much grass for them
as you choose,” said Hector. “There 's the barn; there 's the

grass; and there 's the scythe, hanging in the apple-tree. You
have plenty of time: Bridget's dinner will be ready in half an
hour.”

“Wal, I don't mind waitin' — only git the team a chawin' on to
suthin'! Guess I 'll back 'em round a little, and feed 'em here in
the shade, — may as well.”

Mr. Crumlett accordingly staid to dinner; ate prodigiously;
told all about the way that buggy went to pieces; recurred some
twenty times to his own “narrer 'scape;” and, on going away,
asked permission to throw that “little han'ful o' grass” into his
wagon, — having cut considerably more than his team had had
time to eat. The permission granted, he set out, well satisfied
with his fortunes generally, and his dinner in particular, and drove
leisurely up the mountain, rehearsing to himself a new and more
startling version of his adventures, designed to astonish his friends
at home.