"I hain't leavin' all this-hyar 'cause I don't love hit," he declared. "I do love hit, an' I aim to come back by-an-bye--I shore do!"
Forthwith, embarrassed anew by this unmeditated outburst, he hurried off, amid an astonished silence which was broken at last by the storekeeper.
"Thet-thar Zeke Higgins," he ventured, somewhat indistinctly through his matting of whiskers, "I swow if he hain't got right feelin's, fer all he's so durn peart." And his cronies nodded assent.
As he pressed onward, the adventurer quickly regained his poise. The novelty of the situation thrilled him agreeably. His thoughts were crowded with imaginings of the strange things to come. Ambitious vision of himself successful among the city's throngs made his pulses beat faster. He felt that he had within him the power to achieve something worth while in the world. Certainly, he would not fail for lack of striving. But no triumph elsewhere could ever wean him from his love for the Blue Ridge--for his home country. Yes, it was as he had said there in the store: He would come back. He would come back to the cabin in the "cove" under the shadows of Stone Mountain--back to the old mother, back to Plutina. A warmth of exquisite tenderness vibrated through him, as his hope leaped to that homecoming, to the time when once again the girl should rest clinging on his bosom. And a great peace lay under all his joy of anticipation. His love knew no doubt. She had given her heart to him. Through his every wandering, whatever might betide, her love would be with him, to comfort him in sorrow, to crown him in happiness. A bird's song recalled the lilt of her laughter. He saw again the tremulous curving of her mouth, red against the fine warm pallor of her face at parting. Passion welled in him. He halted yet once again, and stood with face suffused, gazing back. It was as if he were swayed by a sudden secret sense that warned him of her misery in this hour of his exaltation--her misery where she lay prone under the tangle of laurel by Garden Creek, sobbing out that anguish which is the penalty woman must pay for love.
Zeke's eyes fastened anew on the rounded bulk of Stone Mountain's cliffs. The immutability of them, and the majesty, relieved the tenseness of his mood. He resumed his way serenely.... But Plutina wept on, unassuaged.
When he drew near to North Wilkesboro', where he proposed to make a first essay in railway journeying, Zeke seated himself under the shade of a grove of persimmon-trees by the wayside, there painfully to encumber his feet with the new shoes. As he laced these, he indulged in soliloquy, after a fashion bred of his lonely life, on a subject born of his immediate surroundings.