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THE MOUNTAIN GIRL

[Illustration: _"We will go home--to my home--just like this,
together."_

FRONTISPIECE. _See Page 311._]


The Mountain Girl

By PAYNE ERSKINE

Author of "When the Gates Lift Up Their Heads."

[Illustration]

WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. DUNCAN GLEASON

A. L. BURT COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK


COPYRIGHT, 1911, 1912, BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.

_All rights reserved._




CONTENTS


CHAPTER                                                            PAGE

     I. In which David Thryng arrives at Carew's Crossing             1

    II. In which David Thryng experiences the Hospitality of
          the Mountain People                                        10

   III. In which Aunt Sally takes her Departure and meets Frale      25

    IV. David spends his First Day at his Cabin, and Frale makes
          his Confession                                             35

     V. In which Cassandra goes to David with her Trouble, and
          gives Frale her Promise                                    47

    VI. In which David aids Frale to make his Escape                 59

   VII. In which Frale goes down to Farington in his own Way         68

  VIII. In which David Thryng makes a Discovery                      76

    IX. In which David accompanies Cassandra on an Errand of Mercy   86

     X. In which Cassandra and David visit the Home of Decatur
          Irwin                                                      94

    XI. In which Spring comes to the Mountains, and Cassandra
          tells David of her Father                                 103

   XII. In which Cassandra hears the Voices, and David leases
          a Farm                                                    111

  XIII. In which David discovers Cassandra's Trouble                120

   XIV. In which David visits the Bishop, and Frale sees his Enemy  131

    XV. In which Jerry Carew gives David his Views on Future
          Punishment, and Little Hoyle pays him a Visit and is
          made Happy                                                144

   XVI. In which Frale returns and listens to the Complaints of
          Decatur Irwin's Wife                                      152

  XVII. In which David Thryng meets an Enemy                        164

 XVIII. In which David Thryng Awakes                                172

   XIX. In which David sends Hoke Belew on a Commission, and
          Cassandra makes a Confession                              180

    XX. In which the Bishop and his Wife pass an Eventful Day at
          the Fall Place                                            189

   XXI. In which the Summer Passes                                  198

  XXII. In which David takes little Hoyle to Canada                 207

 XXIII. In which Doctor Hoyle speaks his Mind                       212

  XXIV. In which David Thryng has News from England                 218

   XXV. In which David Thryng visits his Mother                     224

  XXVI. In which David Thryng adjusts his Life to New Conditions    234

 XXVII. In which the Old Doctor and Little Hoyle come back to
          the Mountains                                             244

XXVIII. In which Frale returns to the Mountains                     253

  XXIX. In which Cassandra visits David Thryng's Ancestors          265

   XXX. In which Cassandra goes to Queensderry and takes a Drive
          in a Pony Carriage                                        276

  XXXI. In which David and his Mother do not Agree                  288

 XXXII. In which Cassandra brings the Heir of Daneshead Castle
          back to her Hilltop, and the Shadow Lifts                 300




THE MOUNTAIN GIRL




CHAPTER I

IN WHICH DAVID THRYNG ARRIVES AT CAREW'S CROSSING


The snow had ceased falling. No wind stirred among the trees that
covered the hillsides, and every shrub, every leaf and twig, still bore
its feathery, white load. Slowly the train labored upward, with two
engines to take it the steepest part of the climb from the valley below.
David Thryng gazed out into the quiet, white wilderness and was glad. He
hoped Carew's Crossing was not beyond all this, where the ragged edge of
civilization, out of which the toiling train had so lately lifted them,
would begin again.

He glanced from time to time at the young woman near the door who sat as
the bishop had left her, one slight hand grasping the handle of her
basket, and with an expression on her face as placid and fraught with
mystery as the scene without. The train began to crawl more heavily,
and, looking down, Thryng saw that they were crossing a trestle over a
deep gorge before skirting the mountain on the other side. Suddenly it
occurred to him that he might be carried beyond his station. He stopped
the smiling young brakeman who was passing with his flag.

"Let me know when we come to Carew's Crossing, will you?"

"Next stop, suh. Are you foh there, suh?"

"Yes. How soon?"

"Half an houh mo', suh. I'll be back d'rectly and help you off, suh.
It's a flag station. We don't stop there in winter 'thout we're called
to, suh. Hotel's closed now."

"Hotel? Is there a hotel?" Thryng's voice betokened dismay.

"Yes, suh. It's a right gay little place in summah, suh." He passed on,
and Thryng gathered his scattered effects. Ill and weary, he was glad
to find his long journey so nearly at an end.

On either side of the track, as far as eye could see, was a
snow-whitened wilderness, seemingly untouched by the hand of man, and he
felt as if he had been carried back two hundred years. The only hint
that these fastnesses had been invaded by human beings was an occasional
rough, deeply red wagon road, winding off among the hills.

The long trestle crossed, the engines labored slowly upward for a time,
then, turning a sharp curve, began to descend, tearing along the narrow
track with a speed that caused the coaches to rock and sway; and thus
they reached Carew's Crossing, dropping down to it like a rushing
torrent.

Immediately Thryng found himself deposited in the melting snow some
distance from the station platform, and at the same instant, above the
noise of the retreating train, he heard a cry: "Oh, suh, help him, help
him! It's poor little Hoyle!" The girl whom he had watched, and about
whom he had been wondering, flashed by him and caught at the bridle of a
fractious colt, that was rearing and plunging near the corner of the
station.

"Poor little Hoyle! Help him, suh, help him!" she cried, clinging
desperately, while the frantic animal swung her off her feet, close to
the flying heels of the kicking mule at his side.

Under the heavy vehicle to which the ill-assorted animals were attached,
a child lay unconscious, and David sprang forward, his weakness
forgotten in the demand for action. In an instant he had drawn the
little chap from his perilous position and, seizing the mule, succeeded
in backing him to his place. The cause of its fright having by this time
disappeared, the colt became tractable and stood quivering and snorting,
as David took the bridle from the girl's hand.

"I'll quiet them now," he said, and she ran to the boy, who had
recovered sufficiently to sit up and gaze in a dazed way about him. As
she bent over him, murmuring soothing words, he threw his arms around
her neck and burst into wild sobbing.

"There, honey, there! No one is hurt. You are not, are you, honey son?"

"I couldn't keep a holt of 'em," he sobbed.

"You shouldn't have done it, honey. You should have let me get home as
best I could." Her face was one which could express much, passive as it
had been before. "Where was Frale?"

"He took the othah ho'se and lit out. They was aftah him. They--"

"S-sh. There, hush! You can stand now; try, Hoyle. You are a man now."

The little fellow rose, and, perceiving Thryng for the first time,
stepped shyly behind his sister. David noticed that he had a deformity
which caused him to carry his head twisted stiffly to one side, and also
that he had great, beautiful brown eyes, so like those of a hunted fawn
as he turned them upon the stranger with wide appeal, that he seemed a
veritable creature of the wilderness by which they were surrounded.

Then the girl stepped forward and thanked him with voice and eyes; but
he scarcely understood the words she said, as her tones trailed
lingeringly over the vowels, and almost eliminated the "r," so lightly
was it touched, while her accent fell utterly strange upon his English
ear. She looked to the harness with practised eye, and then laid her
hand beside Thryng's, on the bridle. It was a strong, shapely hand and
wrist.

"I can manage now," she said. "Hoyle, get my basket foh me."

But Thryng suggested that she climb in and take the reins first,
although the animals stood quietly enough now; the mule looked even
dejected, with hanging head and forward-drooping ears.

The girl spoke gently to