escort of the grim but simple tragedy of her feud-darkened childhood.
Before the old man reached this spot he had been traveling with puzzled
caution, for a time, across a slope rough-scarred by some not ancient
landslide which had changed the superficial contour of the
mountain-side. When, suddenly, he debouched upon the rocky crag, hung, a
rustic, natural platform above a gorgeous panorama of the valley, the
view came to him, evidently, as a sharp, a startling, most unpleasant
shock.

That the place was quite familiar to him none who watched him would have
doubted, but no smiles of pleasant memories curved his thin, unpleasant
lips as he surveyed it. He did not pause there, happily, communing with
his memory in smiling reminiscence as he had at other points along the
way. Instead, as the great view burst upon his gaze, he started back as
if the outlook almost terrified him. He had been traveling astoop,
partly because the burden of his years weighed heavy on his shoulders,
partly as if his muscles had unconsciously reverted to the easy,
slouching, climbing-stoop of the Kentucky mountaineer. But at sight of
this especial spot his attitude changed utterly, the whole expression,
not of his face, alone, but of his body, altered. His stoop became a
crouch. His hands flew out before him as if, with them, he strove to
ward away the charming scene. His feet paused in their tracks, as if
struck helpless and immovable by what his eyes revealed to him.

For a full moment, almost without moving, he stood there, fascinated by
some old association, plainly, for there was nothing in the prospect
which, to an actual stranger, would have seemed more notable than
details of a dozen other views which he had peered at through his
half-closed, weather-beaten eyes within the hour. Here, clearly, was the
arena of some great event in his past life--an arena which he gladly