V + 

There had never been such a June in Eagle County. Usually it was a month of moods, with abrupt alternations of belated frost and midsummer heat; this year, day followed day in a sequence of temperate beauty. Every morning a breeze blew steadily from the hills. Toward noon it built up great canopies of white cloud that threw a cool shadow over fields and woods; then before sunset the clouds dissolved again, and the western light rained its unobstructed brightness on the valley. + 

On such an afternoon Charity Royall lay on a ridge above a sunlit hollow, her face pressed to the earth and the warm currents of the grass running through her. Directly in her line of vision a blackberry branch laid its frail white flowers and blue-green leaves against the sky. Just beyond, a tuft of sweet-fern uncurled between the beaded shoots of the grass, and a small yellow butterfly vibrated over them like a fleck of sunshine. This was all she saw; but she felt, above her and about her, the strong growth of the beeches clothing the ridge, the rounding of pale green cones on countless spruce-branches, the push of myriads of sweet-fern fronds in the cracks of the stony slope below the wood, and the crowding shoots of meadowsweet and yellow flags in the pasture beyond. All this bubbling of sap and slipping of sheaths and bursting of calyxes was carried to her on mingled currents of fragrance. Every leaf and bud and blade seemed to contribute its exhalation to the pervading sweetness in which the pungency of pine-sap prevailed over the spice of thyme and the subtle perfume of fern, and all were merged in a moist earth-smell that was like the breath of some huge sun-warmed animal. + 

Charity had lain there a long time, passive and sun-warmed as the slope on which she lay, when there came between her eyes and the dancing butterfly the sight of a manтАЩs foot in a large worn boot covered with red mud. + 

тАЬOh, donтАЩt!тАЭ she exclaimed, raising herself on her elbow and stretching out a warning hand. + 

тАЬDonтАЩt what?тАЭ a hoarse voice asked above her head. + 

тАЬDonтАЩt stamp on those bramble flowers, you dolt!тАЭ she retorted, springing to her knees. The foot paused and then descended clumsily on the frail branch, and raising her eyes she saw above her the bewildered face of a slouching man with a thin sunburnt beard, and white arms showing through his ragged shirt. + 

тАЬDonтАЩt you ever see anything, Liff Hyatt?тАЭ she assailed him, as he stood before her with the look of a man who has stirred up a waspтАЩs nest. + 

He grinned. тАЬI seen you! ThatтАЩs what I come down for.тАЭ + 

тАЬDown from where?тАЭ she questioned, stooping to gather up the petals his foot had scattered. + 

He jerked his thumb toward the heights. тАЬBeen cutting down trees for Dan Targatt.тАЭ + 

Charity sank back on her heels and looked at him musingly. She was not in the least afraid of poor Liff Hyatt, though he тАЬcame from the Mountain,тАЭ and some of the girls ran when they saw him. Among the more reasonable he passed for a harmless creature, a sort of link between the mountain and civilized folk, who occasionally came down and did a little wood cutting for a farmer when hands were short. Besides, she knew the Mountain people would never hurt her: Liff himself had told her so once when she was a little girl, and had met him one day at the edge of lawyer RoyallтАЩs pasture. тАЬThey wonтАЩt any of тАЩem touch you up there, fтАЩever you was to come up.тБатАКтБатАж But I donтАЩt sтАЩpose you will,тАЭ he had added philosophically, looking at her new shoes, and at the red ribbon that Mrs.┬аRoyall had tied in her hair. + 

Charity had, in truth, never felt any desire to visit her birthplace. She did not care to have it known that she was of the Mountain, and was shy of being seen in talk with Liff Hyatt. But today she was not sorry to have him appear. A great many things had happened to her since the day when young Lucius Harney had entered the doors of the Hatchard Memorial, but none, perhaps, so unforeseen as the fact of her suddenly finding it a convenience to be on good terms with Liff Hyatt. She continued to look up curiously at his freckled weather-beaten face, with feverish hollows below the cheekbones and the pale yellow eyes of a harmless animal. тАЬI wonder if heтАЩs related to me?тАЭ she thought, with a shiver of disdain. + 

тАЬIs there any folks living in the brown house by the swamp, up under Porcupine?тАЭ she presently asked in an indifferent tone. + 

Liff Hyatt, for a while, considered her with surprise; then he scratched his head and shifted his weight from one tattered sole to the other. + 

тАЬThereтАЩs always the same folks in the brown house,тАЭ he said with his vague grin. + 

тАЬTheyтАЩre from up your way, ainтАЩt they?тАЭ + 

тАЬTheir nameтАЩs the same as mine,тАЭ he rejoined uncertainly. + 

Charity still held him with resolute eyes. тАЬSee here, I want to go there some day and take a gentleman with me thatтАЩs boarding with us. HeтАЩs up in these parts drawing pictures.тАЭ + 

She did not offer to explain this statement. It was too far beyond Liff HyattтАЩs limitations for the attempt to be worth making. тАЬHe wants to see the brown house, and go all over it,тАЭ she pursued. + 

Liff was still running his fingers perplexedly through his shock of straw-colored hair. тАЬIs it a fellow from the city?тАЭ he asked. + 

тАЬYes. He draws pictures of things. HeтАЩs down there now drawing the Bonner house.тАЭ She pointed to a chimney just visible over the dip of the pasture below the wood. + 

тАЬThe Bonner house?тАЭ Liff echoed incredulously. + 

тАЬYes. You wonтАЩt understandтБатАФand it donтАЩt matter. All I say is: heтАЩs going to the HyattsтАЩ in a day or two.тАЭ + 

Liff looked more and more perplexed. тАЬBash is ugly sometimes in the afternoons.тАЭ + 

She threw her head back, her eyes full on HyattтАЩs. тАЬIтАЩm coming too: you tell him.тАЭ + 

тАЬThey wonтАЩt none of them trouble you, the Hyatts wonтАЩt. What dтАЩyou want a take a stranger with you though?тАЭ + 

тАЬIтАЩve told you, havenтАЩt I? YouтАЩve got to tell Bash Hyatt.тАЭ + 

He looked away at the blue mountains on the horizon; then his gaze dropped to the chimney-top below the pasture. + 

тАЬHeтАЩs down there now?тАЭ + 

тАЬYes.тАЭ + 

He shifted his weight again, crossed his arms, and continued to survey the distant landscape. тАЬWell, so long,тАЭ he said at last, inconclusively; and turning away he shambled up the hillside. From the ledge above her, he paused to call down: тАЬI wouldnтАЩt go there a SundayтАЭ; then he clambered on till the trees closed in on him. Presently, from high overhead, Charity heard the ring of his axe. + 

She lay on the warm ridge, thinking of many things that the woodsmanтАЩs appearance had stirred up in her. She knew nothing of her early life, and had never felt any curiosity about it: only a sullen reluctance to explore the corner of her memory where certain blurred images lingered. But all that had happened to her within the last few weeks had stirred her to the sleeping depths. She had become absorbingly interesting to herself, and everything that had to do with her past was illuminated by this sudden curiosity. + 

She hated more than ever the fact of coming from the Mountain; but it was no longer indifferent to her. Everything that in any way affected her was alive and vivid: even the hateful things had grown interesting because they were a part of herself. + 

тАЬI wonder if Liff Hyatt knows who my mother was?тАЭ she mused; and it filled her with a tremor of surprise to think that some woman who was once young and slight, with quick motions of the blood like hers, had carried her in her breast, and watched her sleeping. She had always thought of her mother as so long dead as to be no more than a nameless pinch of earth; but now it occurred to her that the once-young woman might be alive, and wrinkled and elf-locked like the woman she had sometimes seen in the door of the brown house that Lucius Harney wanted to draw. + 

The thought brought him back to the central point in her mind, and she strayed away from the conjectures roused by Liff HyattтАЩs presence. Speculations concerning the past could not hold her long when the present was so rich, the future so rosy, and when Lucius Harney, a stoneтАЩs throw away, was bending over his sketchbook, frowning, calculating, measuring, and then throwing his head back with the sudden smile that had shed its brightness over everything. + 

She scrambled to her feet, but as she did so she saw him coming up the pasture and dropped down on the grass to wait. When he was drawing and measuring one of тАЬhis houses,тАЭ as she called them, she often strayed away by herself into the woods or up the hillside. It was partly from shyness that she did so: from a sense of inadequacy that came to her most painfully when her companion, absorbed in his job, forgot her ignorance and her inability to follow his least allusion, and plunged into a monologue on art and life. To avoid the awkwardness of listening with a blank face, and also to escape the surprised stare of the inhabitants of the houses before which he would abruptly pull up their horse and open his sketchbook, she slipped away to some spot from which, without being seen, she could watch him at work, or at least look down on the house he was drawing. She had not been displeased, at first, to have it known to North Dormer and the neighborhood that she was driving Miss HatchardтАЩs cousin about the country in the buggy he had hired of lawyer Royall. She had always kept to herself, contemptuously aloof from village lovemaking, without exactly knowing whether her fierce pride was due to the sense of her tainted origin, or whether she was reserving herself for a more brilliant fate. Sometimes she envied the other girls their sentimental preoccupations, their long hours of inarticulate philandering with one of the few youths who still lingered in the village; but when she pictured herself curling her hair or putting a new ribbon on her hat for Ben Fry or one of the Sollas boys the fever dropped and she relapsed into indifference. + 

Now she knew the meaning of her disdains and reluctances. She had learned what she was worth when Lucius Harney, looking at her for the first time, had lost the thread of his speech, and leaned reddening on the edge of her desk. But another kind of shyness had been born in her: a terror of exposing to vulgar perils the sacred treasure of her happiness. She was not sorry to have the neighbors suspect her of тАЬgoing withтАЭ a young man from the city; but she did not want it known to all the countryside how many hours of the long June days she spent with him. What she most feared was that the inevitable comments should reach Mr.┬аRoyall. Charity was instinctively aware that few things concerning her escaped the eyes of the silent man under whose roof she lived; and in spite of the latitude which North Dormer accorded to courting couples she had always felt that, on the day when she showed too open a preference, Mr.┬аRoyall might, as she phrased it, make her тАЬpay for it.тАЭ How, she did not know; and her fear was the greater because it was undefinable. If she had been accepting the attentions of one of the village youths she would have been less apprehensive: Mr.┬аRoyall could not prevent her marrying when she chose to. But everybody knew that тАЬgoing with a city fellowтАЭ was a different and less straightforward affair: almost every village could show a victim of the perilous venture. And her dread of Mr.┬аRoyallтАЩs intervention gave a sharpened joy to the hours she spent with young Harney, and made her, at the same time, shy of being too generally seen with him. + 

As he approached she rose to her knees, stretching her arms above her head with the indolent gesture that was her way of expressing a profound well-being. + 

тАЬIтАЩm going to take you to that house up under Porcupine,тАЭ she announced. + 

тАЬWhat house? Oh, yes; that ramshackle place near the swamp, with the gipsy-looking people hanging about. ItтАЩs curious that a house with traces of real architecture should have been built in such a place. But the people were a sulky-looking lotтБатАФdo you suppose theyтАЩll let us in?тАЭ + 

тАЬTheyтАЩll do whatever I tell them,тАЭ she said with assurance. + 

He threw himself down beside her. тАЬWill they?тАЭ he rejoined with a smile. тАЬWell, I should like to see whatтАЩs left inside the house. And I should like to have a talk with the people. Who was it who was telling me the other day that they had come down from the Mountain?тАЭ + 

Charity shot a sideward look at him. It was the first time he had spoken of the Mountain except as a feature of the landscape. What else did he know about it, and about her relation to it? Her heart began to beat with the fierce impulse of resistance which she instinctively opposed to every imagined slight. + 

тАЬThe Mountain? I ainтАЩt afraid of the Mountain!тАЭ + 

Her tone of defiance seemed to escape him. He lay breast-down on the grass, breaking off sprigs of thyme and pressing them against his lips. Far off, above the folds of the nearer hills, the Mountain thrust itself up menacingly against a yellow sunset. + 

тАЬI must go up there some day: I want to see it,тАЭ he continued. + 

Her heartbeats slackened and she turned again to examine his profile. It was innocent of all unfriendly intention. + 

тАЬWhatтАЩd you want to go up the Mountain for?тАЭ + 

тАЬWhy, it must be rather a curious place. ThereтАЩs a queer colony up there, you know: sort of outlaws, a little independent kingdom. Of course youтАЩve heard them spoken of; but IтАЩm told they have nothing to do with the people in the valleysтБатАФrather look down on them, in fact. I suppose theyтАЩre rough customers; but they must have a good deal of character.тАЭ + 

She did not quite know what he meant by having a good deal of character; but his tone was expressive of admiration, and deepened her dawning curiosity. It struck her now as strange that she knew so little about the Mountain. She had never asked, and no one had ever offered to enlighten her. North Dormer took the Mountain for granted, and implied its disparagement by an intonation rather than by explicit criticism. + 

тАЬItтАЩs queer, you know,тАЭ he continued, тАЬthat, just over there, on top of that hill, there should be a handful of people who donтАЩt give a damn for anybody.тАЭ + 

The words thrilled her. They seemed the clue to her own revolts and defiances, and she longed to have him tell her more. + 

тАЬI donтАЩt know much about them. Have they always been there?тАЭ + 

тАЬNobody seems to know exactly how long. Down at Creston they told me that the first colonists are supposed to have been men who worked on the railway that was built forty or fifty years ago between Springfield and Nettleton. Some of them took to drink, or got into trouble with the police, and went offтБатАФdisappeared into the woods. A year or two later there was a report that they were living up on the Mountain. Then I suppose others joined themтБатАФand children were born. Now they say there are over a hundred people up there. They seem to be quite outside the jurisdiction of the valleys. No school, no churchтБатАФand no sheriff ever goes up to see what theyтАЩre about. But donтАЩt people ever talk of them at North Dormer?тАЭ + 

тАЬI donтАЩt know. They say theyтАЩre bad.тАЭ + 

He laughed. тАЬDo they? WeтАЩll go and see, shall we?тАЭ + 

She flushed at the suggestion, and turned her face to his. тАЬYou never heard, I supposeтБатАФI come from there. They brought me down when I was little.тАЭ + 

тАЬYou?тАЭ He raised himself on his elbow, looking at her with sudden interest. тАЬYouтАЩre from the Mountain? How curious! I suppose thatтАЩs why youтАЩre so different.тБатАКтБатАжтАЭ + 

Her happy blood bathed her to the forehead. He was praising herтБатАФand praising her because she came from the Mountain! + 

тАЬAm IтБатАКтБатАж different?тАЭ she triumphed, with affected wonder. + 

тАЬOh, awfully!тАЭ He picked up her hand and laid a kiss on the sunburnt knuckles. + 

тАЬCome,тАЭ he said, тАЬletтАЩs be off.тАЭ He stood up and shook the grass from his loose grey clothes. тАЬWhat a good day! Where are you going to take me tomorrow?тАЭ + 