Only the fish continued to treat Cleav as they always had. He began to wonder if they had just not heard the gossip yet.
Slipping on the steep narrow slope, Cleav grasped a rhododendron vine as if it were a lifeline and managed to keep upright, but only just. He gave a smile that was devoid of humor.
"That's what I should do," he suggested sarcastically. "Falling face down in the mud would definitely make my new life as the local scoundrel absolutely complete."
In a normal week, Friday afternoon was certainly not the time for Cleav to be making a trip up the mountain, but he'd closed up the store. There was no reason to open it. Even Denny and Tyree set up their checker game under the oak tree across the road.
"You've got to own up to your responsibilities," Reverend Tewksbury had advised him. "You've danced to the tune, now you must pay the fiddler."
"I haven't danced . . . or anything else, for that matter, with Esme Crabb."
The preacher shook his head. "That's not the way it looks to this town." The older man folded his arms obstinately across his chest. "A decent girl must be treated decently. Giving a girl fancy drawers just ain't decent."
"Fancy drawers!" Cleav was incredulous. "I gave her a cheap pair of garters."
Reverend Tewksbury's expression was livid. "It's bad enough that you ruin the girl's reputation. Must you brag about how little it cost you!"
"I didn't ruin her reputation," Cleav insisted.
"It's ruined," the preacher said flatly. "Are you suggesting you didn't do it?"
"It's not me that ruined her," Cleav told him obstinately. "It's Pearly Beachum and you and the rest of this town who have jumped to conclusions, conclusions that are completely untrue."
The reverend looked somewhat pacified. "I believe you are sincere when you say that, Cleav," the older man told him. "And I'm glad to think that you haven't taken advantage of the young girl's foolish infatuation for you."
For an instant Cleav thought he might win the preacher over, but Reverend Tewksbury quickly quashed that hope. "Be that as it may, Esme Crabb has lost her good name. It's only decent that you, as a gentleman, do the right thing."
Cleavis Rhy knew defeat when he faced it eyeball to eyeball. That's why he was slipping and sliding through the mushy damp woods on his way to the Crabb residence. He was going todo the right thing.
He heard the Crabbs before he saw them. The giggly lilt of girlish voices reached him, and he hurried his pace. Stepping into the clearing, he spied the twins, who were laughing and talking as they gathered water from the rain barrel. When they spotted him, the smiles faded from their faces, and they stared in undisguised distaste.
Cleav stared them down, unwilling to allow the two hill princesses to look down their noses at him.
"Tell Esme I've come to talk to her," he said arrogantly.
Without a word, Adelaide and Agrippa took their buckets into their shack and closed the door behind them.
Alone, Cleav studied his surroundings. He'd never been on this part of the mountain, and he'd certainly never seen the place the Crabbs called home.
"It's nothing but a cave," he whispered to himself, almost in horror. While he mentally postulated the significance of nineteenth-century cave dwellers, the door opened.
It was not Esme who walked toward him, but her father.
"What do you want up here, Rhy?" Yo Crabb's anger was visible, and Cleav wondered momentarily if the old fiddler might try to do him harm.
Politeness being his only defense, Cleav smiled with as much amiability as he could manage. "Good afternoon, Mr. Crabb," he said. "I've come to speak with Miss Esme, if I may."
Crabb raised a disapproving eyebrow.
"Miss Esme ain't receiving callers at this time," he answered, mimicking Cleav's prim form of speech.
"Perhaps she'll receive me, if you were to ask her," he suggested.
Yohan Crabb put his hands on his hips and stared down the younger man before him.
"Now, why on earth would I want to do that?" he asked.
Cleav squared his shoulders, channeling his anger into innocuous actions. "Because," he answered evenly, "I plan to ask her to go down the mountain with me to get married."
