The Ordeal by Mary Noailles Murfree — Read

When next he saw the river the lunar lustre had dulled on the currents. No more the long lines of shimmering light trailing off into the deep shadow of the wooded banks, no more the tremulous reflection of the moon, swinging like some supernal craft in the great lacustrine sweep where the stream broadens in rounding the point. Now a filmy veil was over all, yet the night was so fine that the light filtered through the mist, and objects were still discernible, though only vaguely visible, like the furnishings of a dream. A rowboat was rocking on the ripples among the boulders at the water's edge. As the child made the perilous descent in the practised clasp of the grandfatherly Clenk, he could look up and see the jagged portal of the cave he had left, high above the river, though not so high as the great, tall deciduous trees waving their lofty boughs on the summit of the cliffs. Certain grim, silent, gaunt figures, grotesquely contorted in the mist, the child's wide blue eyes traced out, as the other moonshiners climbed too down the rugged face of the crag, all burdened with bundles of varying size and unimaginable contents -- food, clothing, or such appliances of their craft as the hurried revenue raiders had chanced to overlook. The little boy must have contended with fear in this awesome environment, the child of gentlest nurture, but he thought he was going to his mother, or perchance he could not have submitted with such docility, so uncomplainingly. Only when they had reached the rocky marge of the water and he had been uncoiled from the rug and set upon his feet did he lift his voice in protest.

Clenk had stepped into the boat and seated himself, the oars rattling smartly in the rowlocks, the sound sharp on the misty air, as he laid hold on them. "So far, so good," he exclaimed cheerily.