The Redemption of David Corson by Charles Frederic Goss

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He threw the horse's bridle over the limb of a tree, leaned over the
handrail of the bridge and looked down into the water. The stillness of
the world, the slumber-song of the stream, the haunting power of the
past superinduced a mood of abstraction so common in other, happier
days.

Oblivious to all the objects and events of that outside world, he stood
there dreaming of the past. While he did so, Pepeeta, following her
daily custom, left the farm-house to take an evening walk. She also
sought the little bridge. Perhaps she was summoned to this spot by some
telepathic message from her lover; perhaps it was habit that impelled
her, perhaps it was some fascination in the place itself. She moved
forward with the quiet step peculiar to natures which are sensitive to
the charm of the great solitudes of the world, and came noiselessly out
from the low bushes behind the lonely watcher. As she stepped out into
the road, she caught sight of the solitary figure and her heart,
anticipating her eye in its swift recognition, throbbed so violently
that she placed her hand on her bosom as if to still it.

"David!" she said in a low whisper.

She paused to observe him for a moment and, as he did not stir, began to
move quietly towards him as he stood there motionless--a silhouette
against the background of the darkening sky. She drew near enough to
touch him; but so profound was his reverie that he was oblivious of her
presence. It could not have been long that Pepeeta waited, although it
seemed ages before he moved, sighed and breathed her name.

She touched him on the arm. He turned, and so met her there, face to
face.

It was an experience too deep for language, and their emotions found
expression in a single simple act. They clasped each other's hands and
stood silently looking into each other's eyes. After many moments of
silence David asked: "Why do you not speak to me, Pepeeta?"

"My eyes have told you all," she said.

"But what they say is too good to be believed! You must confirm their
mute utterance with a living word," he cried.

"I love you, love you, love you," she replied.

"You love me! I bless you for it, Pepeeta, but there is something else
that I must know."

"What can it be? Is not everything comprehended in that single word? It
is all-embracing as the air! It enfolds life as the sky enfolds the
world!"

"Ah! Pepeeta, you loved me when we parted, but you did not forgive me!"

She dropped her eyes.

"Have you forgiven me now?"

"It is not true that I did not forgive you," she replied, looking up at
his face again. "There has never been in my heart for a single moment
any sense of a wrong which I could not pardon. It has been one of the
awful mysteries of this experience that I could not feel that wrong!
When I tried to feel it most, my heart would say to me, 'you are not
sorry that he loved you, Pepeeta! You would rather that all this agony
should have befallen you than that he should not have loved you at all!'
It is this feeling that has bewildered me, David. Explain it to me. Let
me know how I could have such feelings in my heart and yet be good. It
seems as if I ought to hate you; but I cannot. I love you, love you,
love you."

"But, Pepeeta, if you loved me, why did you leave me? I do not
comprehend. How could you let me stand in the darkness under your window
and then turn away from it into the awful blackness and solitude to
which I fled?"

"Do not reproach me, I thought it was my duty, David."

"I do not reproach you. I only want to know your inmost heart."

"I do not know! There has been all the time something stronger than
myself impelling me. I grew too weak to reason. I felt that the heart
had reasons of its own, too deep for the mind to fathom, and I yielded
to them. I was only a woman after all, David. Love is stronger than
woman! Oh! it was I who wronged you. I ought not to have forsaken you.
Ought I? I do not know, even now. Who can tell me what is right? Who can
lead me out of this frightful labyrinth? If I did wrong in seeking you,
I humbly ask the pardon of God, and if I did wrong in abandoning you, I
ask forgiveness in all lowliness and meekness from the man I wronged."

"No, Pepeeta, you have never wronged me; I alone have been to blame. The
result could not have been really different, no matter what course you
took. The scourge would have fallen anyway! All that has happened has
been inevitable. Justice had to be vindicated. If it had not come in
one way, it would in another, for there are no short cuts and evasions
in tragedies like this! Every result that is attached to these causes
must be drawn up by them like the links in a chain, and one never knows
when the end has come."

His solemn manner and earnest words alarmed Pepeeta.

"Oh, David," she cried, "it cannot, cannot be so awful. Such
consequences cannot hang upon the deeds we commit in the limitations and
ignorance of this earthly life."

"Forgive me, Pepeeta, I should not talk so. These are the fears of my
darker moments. I have brighter thoughts and hopes. There is a quiet
feeling in my heart about the future that grows with the passing days.
God is good, and he will give us strength to meet whatever comes. We
must live, and while we live we will hope for the best. Life is a gift,
and it is our duty to enjoy it."

"Oh! it is good to hear you say that! It comforts me. I think it cannot
be possible that we should not be able to escape from this darkness if
we are willing to follow the divine light."

"I think so, too," he said.

His words were spoken with such assurance as to awaken a vague surmise
that he had reasons which he had not told. She pressed his hands and
besought him to explain.

"Oh! tell me," she said eagerly; "is there anything new? Has anything
happened?"

"Pepeeta," he answered slowly, "we have been strangely and kindly dealt
with. It is not quite so bad as it seemed, for I did not kill him."

"You did not kill him! What do you mean?"

"No, it is a strange story! I thought I had killed him. I knew murder
was in my heart. It was no fault of mine that the blow was not fatal. I
left him in the road for dead. But, thank God, he did not die; he did
not die then!"

"He did, not die then? Have you seen him? Is he dead now? Tell me! Tell
me!"

Quietly, gently, briefly as he could, he narrated the events of the past
few months, and as he did so she drew in short breaths or long
inspirations as the story shifted from phase to phase, and when at last
he had finished, she clasped her hands and gazed up into the depths of
the sky with eyes that were swimming in tears.

"Poor doctor, poor old man," Pepeeta sighed at last. "Oh! How we have
wronged him, how we have made him suffer. He was always kind! He was
rough, but he was kind. Oh! why could I not have loved him? But I did
not, I could not. My heart was asleep. It had never once waked from its
slumber until it heard your voice, David. And, afterwards,--well I could
not love him! But why should we have wronged him so? How base it was!
How terrible! I pity him, I blame myself--and yet I cannot wish him
back. Listen to me, David. I am afraid I am glad he is dead. What do you
think of that? Oh! what a mystery the human heart is! How can these
terrible contradictions exist together? I would give my life to undo
that wrong, and yet I should die if it were undone. All this is in the
heart of a woman--so much of love, so much of hate, for I should have
hated him, at last! I cannot understand myself. I cannot understand this
story. What does all this mean for us, David? Perhaps you can see the
light now, as you used to! I think from your face and your voice that
you are your old self again. Oh! if you can see that inner light once
more, consult it. Ask it if there is any reason why we cannot be happy
now? Tell it that your Pepeeta is too weak to endure this separation any
longer. I am only a woman, David! I cannot any longer bear life alone. I
love you too deeply. I cannot live without you."

Waiting long before he answered, as if to reflect and be sure, David
said quietly but confidently, "Pepeeta, I cannot see any reason why we
should not begin our lives over again, starting at this very place from
which we made that false beginning three long years ago. We cannot go
back, but, in a sense, we can begin again."

"But can we really begin again?" she asked. "How is it possible? I do
not see! We are not what we were. There is so much of evil in our
hearts. We were pure and innocent three years ago. Is it not necessary
to be pure and innocent? And how can we be with all this fearful past
behind us? We cannot become children again!"

"I have thought much and deeply about it," David responded. I know not
what subtle change has taken place within me, but I know that it has
been great and real. My heart was hard, but now it is tender. It was
full of despair, and now it is full of hope. I am not as innocent as I
was that night when you heard me speak in the old Quaker meeting-house,
or rather I am not innocent in the same way. My heart was then like a
spring among the mountains; it had a sort of virgin innocence. I had
sinned only in thought, and in the dreamy imaginations of unfolding
youth. It is different now; a whole world of realized, actualized evil
lies buried in the depths of my soul. It is there, but it is there only
as a memory and not as a living force. There must in some way, I cannot
tell how, be a purity of guilt as well as of innocence, and perhaps it
is a purity of a still higher and finer kind. There was a peace of mind
which I had as an innocent boy, which I do not possess now; but I have
another and deeper peace. There was a childish courage; but it was the
courage of one who had never been exposed to danger. There is another
courage in my heart now, and it is the courage of the veteran who has
bared his bosom to the foe! I know not by what strange alchemy these
diverse elements of evil can have become absorbed and incorporated into
this newer and better life, but this I do know, and nothing can make me
doubt it--that while I am not so good, yet I am better; while I am not
so pure, yet I am purer. Yes, Pepeeta, I think we can go back on our
track. We can be born again! We can once more be little children. I
feel myself a little child to-night--I who, a few days ago, was like an
old man, bowed and crushed under a load of wretchedness and misery! God
seems near to me; life seems sweet to me. Let us begin again, Pepeeta.
We have traveled round a circle, and have come back to the old starting
point. Let us begin again."

"Oh! David," she said, kissing the hands she held; "how like your old
self you are to-night. Your words of hope have filled my soul with joy.
Is it your presence alone that has done it, or is it God's, or is it
both? A change has come over the very world around us. All is the same,
and yet all is different. The stars are brighter. The brook has a
sweeter music. There is something of heaven in this intoxicating cup you
have put to my lips! I seem to be enveloped by a spiritual presence!
Hush! Do you hear voices?"

The excitement had been too intense for this sensitive woman to endure
with tranquillity. Her heart, her conscience, her imagination had
suffered an almost unendurable strain. She flung herself into the arms
of her lover and trembled upon his breast, and he held her there until
she had regained her composure.

"Do you really love me yet?" she asked, at length, raising her face and
gazing up into his with an expression in which the simple affection of a
little child was strangely blended with the passionate love of an ardent
and adoring woman.

"Love you!" he cried; "your face has been the last vision upon which I
gazed when I fell into a restless slumber, and the first which greeted
returning consciousness, when I waked from my troubled dream. My life
has been but a fragment since we parted; a part of my individuality
seemed to have been torn away. I have always felt that neither time nor
space could separate us for--"

At that instant the horse which had stood patiently beside them on the
bridge, shook his head, rattled his bridle and whinnied.

"Poor fellow! I had forgotten all about him in my joy!" said David,
starting at the sound, and patting his shoulder. "You have had a hard
run, and are tired and hungry. I must get you to the barn and feed you.
They will miss you at the stable to-night, but I will send you back
to-morrow, or ride you myself, that is if Pepeeta wishes to be rid of
me."

He said this teasingly, but smiled at her,--a tender and confident
smile.

"Oh! you shall never leave me again--not for a moment," she cried,
pressing his arm against her heart.

He paused a moment and looked down as if a new thought had struck him.

"What is the matter?" she asked.

"Do you think they will welcome me at home?" he said, with a penitence
and humility that touched her deeply.

"Welcome you home?" she exclaimed; "you do not know them, David. They
talk of nothing else. They have sent messages to you in every direction.
The door is never locked, and there has never been a night since you
disappeared that a candle has not burned to its socket on the sill of
your window; what do you think of that? You do not know them, David.
They are angels of mercy and goodness. I have been selfish in keeping
you so long to myself. Come, let us hasten."

Just at that instant a loud halloo was heard--"Pepeeta, Pepeeta,
Pepeeta!"

"It is Steven--the dear boy! He has missed me. You have a dangerous
rival, David."

She said this with a merry laugh and cried out, "Steven, Steven,
Steven!"

"Where are you?" he called.

"I am here by the bridge!" she cried, in her silvery treble.

"She is here by the bridge!" The deep bass voice of her lover went
rolling through the woods.

There was silence for a moment, and then they heard a joyous shout,
"Uncle David! Uncle David! Oh! Mother, Father, it is Uncle David."

There was a crashing in the bushes, and the great half-grown boy bounded
through them and flung himself into the arms extended to him, with all
the trust, all the love, all the devotion of the happy days of old.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

A SELF-IMPOSED EXPIATION

"Man-like is it to fall into sin,
Fiend-like is it to dwell therein,
Christ-like is it for sin to grieve,
God-like is it all sin to leave."
--Friedrich von Logau.

David's welcome home was quiet, cordial and heartfelt. The Quaker life
is calm; storms seldom appear on its surface, even though they must
sometimes agitate its depths; mind and heart are brought under
remarkable control; sympathy and charity are extended to the erring;
hospitality is a duty and an instinct; domestic love is deep and
powerful.

When David had frankly told his story, he was permitted to resume his
place in the life of the old homestead as if nothing had happened. He
expressed to his brother and sister his love for Pepeeta, and his
determination to make her his wife in lawful marriage.

They assented to his plans, and at the earliest possible moment the
minister and elders of the little congregation of Friends were asked to
meet, in accordance with their custom, to "confer with him about a
concern which was on his mind."

They came, and heard his story and his intention, told with
straightforward simplicity. They, too, touched with sympathy and moved
to confidence, agreed that there was no obstacle to the union. The date
of the wedding was placed at the end of the month, which, by their
ecclesiastical law, must elapse after this avowal, and an evening
meeting was appointed for the ceremony.

In the meantime David remained quietly at home, and took up his old
labors as nearly as possible where he had laid them down. Such a life as
he had been leading induces a distaste for manual labor, and sometimes
he chafed against it. Again and again he felt his spirit faint within
him when he recalled the scenes of excitement through which he had
passed, and looked forward to years of this unvaried drudgery; but he
never permitted his soul to question his duty! He had decided in the
most solemn reflections of his life that he would conquer himself in the
place where he had been defeated, perform the tasks which he had so
ignominiously abandoned, and then, when he had demonstrated his power to
live a true life himself, devote his strength to helping others.

The charms of this pastoral existence gradually came to his support in
his heroic resolution. The unbroken quiet of the happy valley which had
irritated him at first, grew to be more and more a balm to his wounded
spirit. The society of the animal world lent its gracious consolation;
the great horses, the ponderous oxen, the doves fluttering and cooing
about the barnyard, the suckling calves, the playful colts, all came to
him as to a friend, and in giving him their confidence and affection
awakened his own.

Above all Pepeeta was ever near him. It was no wonder that her beauty
threw its spell over David's spirit. It had been enhanced by sorrow, for
the human countenance, like the landscape, requires shadow as well as
sunshine to perfect its charms. But the burst of sunshine which had come
with David's return had brought it a final consummation which
transfigured even the Quaker dress she had adopted. Her bonnet would
never stay over her face but fell back on her shoulders, her animated
countenance emerging from this envelope like the bud of a rose from its
sheath. She was as a butterfly at that critical instant when it is ready
to leave its chrysalis and take wing. She was a soul enmeshed in an
ethereal body, rather than a body which ensheathed a soul.

Quietly and sedately the lovers met each other at the table, or at the
spring, or at the milking.

And when the labors of the day had ended, they sat beneath the spreading
hackberry trees, or wandered through the garden, or down the winding
lane to the meadow, and reviewed the past with sadness or looked forward
to the future with a chastened joy. Their spirits were subdued and
softened, their love took on a holy rather than a passionate cast, they
felt themselves beneath the shadow of an awful crime, and again and
again when they grew joyous and almost gay they were checked by the
irrepressible apprehension that out from under the silently revolving
wheels of judgment some other punishment would roll.

Tenderly as they loved each other, and sweet as was that love, they
could not always be happy with such a past behind them! In proportion to
the soul's real grandeur it must suffer over its own imperfections. This
suffering is remorse. In proud and gloomy hearts which tell their
secrets only to their own pillows, its tears are poison and its rebukes
the thrust of daggers. But in those which, like theirs, are gentle and
tender by nature, remorseful tears are drops of penitential dew. David
and Pepeeta suffered, but their suffering was curative, for pure love is
like a fountain; by its incessant gushing from the heart it clarifies
the most turbid streams of thought or emotion. Each week witnessed a
perceptible advance in peace, in rest, in quiet happiness, and at last
the night of their marriage arrived, and they went together to the
meeting house.

The people gathered as they did at that other service when David made
the address to which Pepeeta had listened with such astonishment and
rapture. The entire community of Friends was there, for even Quakers
cannot entirely repress their curiosity. There was evidence of deep
feeling and even of suppressed excitement. The men in their
broad-brimmed hats, the women in their poke bonnets, moved with an
almost unseemly rapidity through the evening shadows. The pairs and
groups conversed in rapid, eager whispers. They did not linger outside
the door, but entered hastily and took their places as if some great
event were about to happen.

There was a preliminary service of worship, and according to custom,
opportunity was given for prayer or exhortation. But all minds were too
intent upon what was to follow to enable them to take part with spirit.
The silences were frequent and tedious. The young people moved
restlessly on their seats, and their elders rebuked them with silent
glances of disapproval. All were in haste, but nothing can really upset
the gravity of these calm and tranquil people, and it was not until
after a suitable time had elapsed that the leader of the meeting arose
and said: "The time has arrived when David and Pepeeta are at liberty to
proceed with their marriage, unless there be some one who can show just
cause why this rite should not be solemnized."

A flutter ran through the assembly, and a moment of waiting ensued; then
David rose, while every eye was fixed on him.

"My friends," he said, in a voice whose gentleness and sweetness stirred
their hearts; "you have refrained from inquiring into the story of my
life during the three years of my absence. I would be glad if I could
withhold it from your knowledge; but I feel that I must make a
confession of my sins."

In the death-like stillness he began. The narrative was in itself
dramatic, but the deep feeling of him who told it, his natural oratory
and the hearers' intent interest, lent to it a fascination that at
times became almost unendurable. Sighs were often heard, tears were
furtively wiped away, criticism was disarmed, and the tenderness of this
illicit but passionate and determined love, blinded even those calm and
righteous listeners to its darker and more desperate phases. By an
almost infallible instinct we discover true love amid fictitious,
unworthy and evil elements; and when seen there is something so
sublimely beautiful that we prostrate ourselves before it and believe
against evidence, even, that sooner or later it will ennoble and
consecrate those who feel it.

When David had completed the narrative he continued as follows: "It is
now necessary that I should convince you, if I can, that with my whole
soul I have repented of this evil that I have done, and that I have
sought, and I hope obtained, pardon for what is irreparable, and am
determined to undo what I can. It is with awe and gratitude, my friends,
that I acknowledge the aid of heaven. From the logical and well-deserved
consequences of this sin I did not escape alone! I was snatched from it
like a brand from the burning! No mortal-mind could have planned or
executed my salvation. It is marked by evidences of Divine power and
wisdom. Through a series of experiences almost too strange to be
credible, I have been drawn back here to the scenes of my childhood, to
encounter the one I have wronged and to find myself, so far as I know,
able not only to make reparation, but to enjoy the bliss of a love of
which I am unworthy. If I were wise enough, I would set before you the
spiritual meaning of this terrible experience, but I am not. Three years
ago I stood here in boyish confidence and boldly expounded the mysteries
of our human life. It is only when we know nothing of life that we feel
able to interpret it! Now that I have seen it, tasted it, drunk the cup
almost to the dregs--I am speechless. Three facts, however, stand out
before my vision--sin, punishment, pardon! I have sinned; I have
suffered; I have been forgiven. I have been fully pardoned, but I feel
that I have not been fully punished! There are issues of such an
experience as this that cannot be brought to light in a day, a year,
perhaps not in a lifetime. Whatever they are, I must await them and meet
them; but as it is permitted a man to know his own mind, when he is
determined so to do, I know that I have turned upon this sin with
loathing! I know that I am ready to take up my burden where I left it
years ago. I know that I would do anything to atone for the evil which I
have wrought to others. I mean, if it seem good to you, here and now to
claim as my bride her into whose life I have brought a world of sorrow.
I mean, if God permits me, to live quietly and patiently among you until
I have so recruited my spiritual strength that I can go forth into the
great world of sorrow and of sin which I have seen, and extend to others
a hand of helpfulness such as was stretched out to me at the moment of
my need; but if there is any one here to whom God has given a message
for me, whether it be to approve or condemn my course, I trust that I
shall have grace to receive it meekly."

He took his seat, and it seemed for a few moments that every person in
the room had yielded heart and judgment to this noble and modest appeal.
But there was among them one whose stern and unyielding sense of justice
had not been appeased. He was a man who had often suffered for
righteousness sake and who attached more value to the testimony of a
clear conscience than to any earthly dignity. He slowly and solemnly
rose. His form was like that of a prophet of ancient days. His deep-set
eyes glowed like two bright stars under the cloudy edge of his
broad-brimmed hat. His face was emaciated with a self-denial that
bordered upon asceticism, and wan with ceaseless contemplations of the
problems of life, death and immortality. Not a trace of tender emotion
was evident on features, which might have been carved in marble. It was
impossible to conceive that he had ever been young, and there seemed a
bitter irony in the effort of such a man to judge the cause of a love
like that which pleaded for satisfaction in the hearts of David and
Pepeeta, and to pronounce upon the destinies of those whose souls were
still throbbing with passion.

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