The Christmas Miracle

The Christmas Miracle, by

Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) This eBook is
for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
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Title: The Christmas Miracle 1911
Author: Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
Release Date: November 19, 2007 [EBook #23553]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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Produced by David Widger

THE CHRISTMAS MIRACLE
By Charles Egbert Craddock
1911
He yearned for a sign from the heavens. Could one intimation be

vouchsafed him, how it would confirm his faltering faith! Jubal
Kennedy was of the temperament impervious to spiritual subtleties,
fain to reach conclusions with the line and rule of mathematical
demonstration. Thus, all unreceptive, he looked through the mountain
gap, as through some stupendous gateway, on the splendors of autumn;
the vast landscape glamorous in a transparent amethystine haze; the
foliage of the dense primeval wilderness in the October richness of red
and russet; the "hunter's moon," a full sphere of illuminated pearl, high
in the blue east while yet the dull vermilion sun swung westering above
the massive purple heights. He knew how the sap was sinking; that the
growths of the year had now failed; presently all would be shrouded in
snow, but only to rise again in the reassurance of vernal quickening, to
glow anew in the fullness of bloom, to attain eventually the perfection
of fruition. And still he was deaf to the reiterated analogy of death, and
blind to the immanent obvious prophecy of resurrection and the life to
come. His thoughts, as he stood on this jutting crag in Sunrise Gap,
were with a recent "experience meeting" at which he had sought to
canvass his spiritual needs. His demand of a sign from the heavens as
evidence of the existence of the God of revelation, as assurance of the
awakening of divine grace in the human heart, as actual proof that
wistful mortality is inherently endowed with immortality, had
electrified this symposium. Though it was fashionable, so to speak, in
this remote cove among the Great Smoky Mountains, to be repentant in
rhetorical involutions and a self-accuser in finespun interpretations of
sin, doubt, or more properly an eager questioning, a desire to possess
the sacred mysteries of religion, was unprecedented. Kennedy was a
proud man, reticent, reserved. Although the old parson, visibly
surprised and startled, had gently invited his full confidence, Kennedy
had hastily swallowed his words, as best he might, perceiving that the
congregation had wholly misinterpreted their true intent and that
certain gossips had an unholy relish of the sensation they had caused.
Thereafter he indulged his poignant longings for the elucidation of the
veiled truths only when, as now, he wandered deep in the woods with
his rifle on his shoulder. He could not have said to-day that he was
nearer an inspiration, a hope, a "leading," than heretofore, but as he
stood on the crag it was with the effect of a dislocation that he was torn

from the solemn theme by an interruption at a vital crisis.
The faint vibrations of a violin stirred the reverent hush of the
landscape in the blended light of the setting sun and the "hunter's
moon." Presently the musician came into view, advancing slowly
through the aisles of the red autumn forest. A rapt figure it was,
swaying in responsive ecstasy with the rhythmic cadence. The head,
with its long, blowsy yellow hair, was bowed over the dark polished
wood of the instrument; the eyes were half closed; the right arm,
despite the eccentric patches on the sleeve of the old brown-jeans coat,
moved with free, elastic gestures in all the liberties of a practiced
bowing. If he saw the hunter motionless on the brink of the crag, the
fiddler gave no intimation. His every faculty was as if enthralled by the
swinging iteration of the sweet melancholy melody, rendered with a
breadth of effect, an inspiration, it might almost have seemed,
incongruous with the infirmities of the crazy old fiddle. He was like a
creature under the sway of a spell, and apparently drawn by this dulcet
lure of the enchantment of sound was the odd procession that trailed
silently after him through these deep mountain fastnesses.
A woman came first, arrayed in a ragged purple skirt and a yellow
blouse open at the throat, displaying a slender white neck which upheld
a face of pensive, inert beauty. She clasped in her arms a delicate infant,
ethereal of aspect with its flaxen hair, transparently pallid complexion,
and wide blue eyes. It was absolutely quiescent, save