The Redemption of David Corson by Charles Frederic Goss

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But such was the purpose of the man. His first words sounded on the
stillness like an alarm bell and shook the souls of listeners with a
sort of terror.

"We did not seek to try this cause," he said. "It was brought before us
by the wish of this sinful man himself. But if we must judge, let us
judge like God! We read of Him--that he 'lays righteousness to the line
and judgment to the plummet.' Let us do the same. That a great wrong
hath been done is evident to every mind. It is not meet that such wrongs
should go unpunished! These two transgressors have suffered; but who
believes that such wrongs may justly be so soon followed by felicity? It
would be an encouragement to evil-doers and a premium upon vice! Who
would refrain from violently rending the marriage bonds or sundering any
sacred tie, if in a few short months the fruit of the guilty deed might
be eaten in peace by the culprit? What assurance may we have that the
lesson which has been but superficially graven on this guilty heart may
not be obliterated in the enjoyment of triumph? Why should these youths
make such unseemly haste? If they are indeed in earnest to seek the
truth and lay to heart the meaning of this experience into which their
sinful hearts have led them, let them of their own accord and out of
their humble and contrite hearts devote a year to meditation and prayer.
Let them show to others they have learned that to live righteously and
soberly, and not to grasp ill-gotten gains or enjoy unhallowed
pleasures, is the chief end of human life! The hour is ripe for such a
demonstration. We have seen other evidences among us of an unholy
hungering after the unlawful pleasures of life. It is time that a halt
were called. If this community is dedicated to righteousness, then let
us exalt the standard. It is at critical moments like this that history
is made and character formed. If we weaken now, if we permit our hearts
to overpower our consciences, God will smite us with His wrath, vice
will rush upon us like a flood, and we shall be given over to the lust
of the flesh and the pride of life! 'To the law and to the testimony, my
brethren.'"

With his long arm extended and his deep-set eyes glowing, he repeated
from memory the solemn words:

"'Behold ye trust in lying words that cannot profit. Will ye steal,
murder and commit adultery and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal,
and walk after other gods whom ye know not, and come and stand before me
in this house which is called by my name and say, "We are delivered to
do all these abominations?" Is this house which is called by my name,
become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have said it, saith
the Lord. But go ye now into my place which was Shiloh, where I set my
name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my
people Israel! And now because ye have done all these works, saith the
Lord--and I spake unto you (rising up early and speaking), but ye heard
not, and I called you but ye answered not--therefore will I do unto
this house which is called by my name (wherein ye trust) and unto the
place which I gave unto you and your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh!
And I will cast you out of my sight--even the whole people of Ephraim!
Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayers
for them, neither make intercession to me--for I will not hear thee!'

* * * * *

"This is my message! This is the advice ye have invited! Wait a year!
Watch and pray! Fit yourselves for the enjoyment of your love by
repentance."

The impression made by these solemn words was tremendous. It was as if
eternity had suddenly dawned in that dim-lit room, and the leaves of the
book of doom had been opened.

There had been stillness before, but now there was the silence of the
grave, and at this dramatic moment one of the tallow candles whose
feeble light had served but to render the darkness visible, spluttered,
went out, and intensified the silence with a meaningless and
exasperating sound. No one knew how to break the spell which these
intense and terrible words had cast over them. Their limbs and faculties
were both benumbed.

Upon Pepeeta this message had fallen like a thunderbolt. Her Oriental
imagination, her awakened conscience, her throbbing heart had all been
thrilled. She did not move; her eyes were still fixed on the prophet;
her face was white; her hands were clasped tightly in her lap.

David leaned forward in his seat and listened like a culprit hearing
sentence from a judge. Those who were closely observing his noble
countenance saw it suddenly light up with the glow of a spiritual
ecstasy, and rightly conjectured that he was burning with the zeal of
martyrdom. He saw his way, for the first time, to a worthy expiation of
his sin. The prophet had interpreted the purpose of God and pointed out
the path of duty. He started to his feet, but at the same instant over
in the corner of the room rose the figure of a man whose full form,
benignant countenance and benevolent manner afforded the most marked
contrast to that of the Jeremiah who had electrified them by his appeal
to righteousness.

He moved toward one of the half dozen candles which were still burning,
and stood within the narrow circle of its feeble rays. Drawing from the
inner pocket of his coat a well-worn volume he opened it, held it up to
the light and began to read. The tones of his voice were clear and
mellifluous, his articulation slow and distinct, and his soul seemed
permeated with the wondrous depth and beauty of what is perhaps the most
exquisite passage in the literature of the world. It was the story of
the prodigal son.

As he proceeded, and that brief but perfect drama unfolded itself before
the imagination of his hearers, it was as if they had never heard it
before, or at least as if its profound import had never been revealed
to their dull minds. Intimations and suggestions which had never been
disclosed to them came out like lines written in sensitive ink, under
the influence of light and heat. The living medium through which they
were uttered seemed slowly to melt away, and as in a dissolving view,
the sublime teacher, the humble Galilean stood before them, and they
heard his voice! The last words died away; the reader took his seat
without uttering a single comment. Not a person moved.

Each heart in that silent room was thrilled with emotions which were
common to all. But there was one which had a burden all its own.

The demure Quaker maiden who had looked love out of her dove-like eyes
three years ago when Pepeeta appeared for the first time among these
quiet folk, was in her old familiar seat. Her life had never been the
same since that hour, for the man whom she loved with all the deep
intensity of which a heart so young, so pure, so true was capable, had
been suddenly stolen from her by a stranger. Her thwarted love had never
found expression, and she had borne her pain and loss as became the
child of a religion of silence, patience and fortitude. But the wound
had never healed, and now she was compelled to be a sad and hopeless
spectator of another scene which sealed her fate and made her future
hopeless. Her bonnet hid the sad face from view, as her heart hid its
secret.

The turn which had been given to the emotions of these quiet people by
the reading of the parable had been so sudden and so powerful that
perhaps not a single person in the room doubted that David and Pepeeta
would at once rise and enter into that holy contract for which the way
seemed to have been so easily opened by the tender story of the father's
love for the prodigal son.

But it was the unexpected which happened. The soul of David Corson had
passed through one of those genuine and permanent revolutions which
sometimes take place in the nature of man. He had completed the cycle of
revolt and anarchy to which he had been condemned by his inheritance
from a wild and profligate father. Whether that fever had run its
natural course or whether as David himself believed, he had been rescued
by an act of divine intervention, it is certain that the change was as
actual as that which takes place when a grub becomes a butterfly. It was
equally certain that from this time onward it was the mental and
spiritual characteristics of his mother which manifested themselves in
his spiritual evolution.

He became his true self--a saint, an ascetic, a mystic, a potential
martyr.

When he rose to his feet a moment after the reader had finished, his
face shining with an inward light and glowing with a sublime purpose,
all believed that he was about to summon Pepeeta to their marriage.

What was the astonishment, then, when in rapt words he began:

"God has spoken to us, my friends. We have heard his voice. It is too
soon for me to enjoy this bliss! Yes, I will wait! I will dedicate this
year to meditation and prayer. Pepeeta, wilt thou join me in this
resolution? If thou wilt, let the betrothal of this night be one of soul
to soul and both our souls to God! Give me thine hand."

Still under the spell of strange spiritual emotions to which her
sensitive spirit vibrated like the strings of an AEolian harp, Pepeeta
rose, and placing her hands in those of her lover, looked up into his
face with a touching confidence, an almost adoring love. It was more
like the bridal of two pure spirits than the betrothal of a man and
woman!

Not one of those who saw it has ever forgotten that strange scene; it is
a tradition in that community until this day. They felt, and well they
might, those strange people who had dedicated themselves and their
children to the divine life, that in this scene their little community
had attained the zenith of its spiritual history.

No wonder that from an English statesman this eulogy was once wrung: "By
God, sir, we cannot afford to persecute the Quakers! Their religion may
be wrong, but the people who cling to an idea are the very people we
want. If we must persecute--let us persecute the complacent!"

CHAPTER XXXIV.

FASTING IN THE WILDERNESS

"So great is the good I look for, that every hardship delights me."

--St. Francis.

The period of our country's history in which these characters were
formed was one of tremendous moral earnestness. In that struggle in
which man pitted himself against primeval forest and aboriginal
inhabitant, the strongest types of manhood and womanhood were evolved,
and those who conceived the idea of living a righteous life set
themselves to its realization with the same energy with which they
addressed themselves to the conquest of nature itself. To multitudes of
them, this present world took a place that in the fullest sense of the
word was secondary to that other world in which they lived by
anticipation.

David Corson was only one of many who, to a degree which in these less
earnest or at least more materialistic times appears incredible, had
determined to trample the world under their feet. He awoke next morning
with an unabated purpose and at an early hour set resolutely about its
execution. He bade a brave farewell to Pepeeta, exhorted her to seek
with him that preparation of heart which alone could fit them for the
future, and then with a bag of provisions over his shoulder and an axe
in his hand started forth to carry out a plan which he had formed in the
night.

At the head of the little valley where Pepeeta had built her gypsy fire,
and experienced her great disillusionment, was a piece of timber land
belonging to his mother's estate. He determined to make a clearing there
and establish a home for himself and Pepeeta.

He wisely calculated that the accomplishment of this arduous task would
occupy his mind and strength through the year of expiation which he had
condemned himself to pass.

It is one of the most impressive spectacles of human life to see a man
enter a primeval forest and set himself to subdue nature with no
implement but an axe! Those of us who require so many luxuries and who
know how to maintain existence only by the use of so many curious and
powerful pieces of mechanism would think ourselves helpless indeed in
the center of a wilderness with nothing but an axe or a rifle!

No such apprehensions troubled the heart of the young woodsman, for from
his earliest childhood he had handled that primitive implement and knew
its exhaustless possibilities. He was young and strong, for reckless as
his recent life had been, the real sources of his physical vitality had
not been depleted.

When David had passed out of sight of the house and entered the
precincts of the quiet forest, there surged up from his heart those
mighty impulses and irresistible tides of energy which are the sublime
inheritance of youth. He counted off the months and they seemed to him
like days. Already he heard the monarchs of the forest fall beneath his
blows, already he saw the walls of his log cabin rising in an opening of
the vast wilderness, already he beheld Pepeeta standing in the open
door. The vast panorama of this virgin world began to unroll itself to
his delighted vision. The splendid spectacle of a morning as new and
wonderful as if there had never been another, drew his thoughts away
from himself and his cares. The dew was sparkling on the grass; the
meadow larks were singing from every quarter of the fields through which
he was passing; the great limbs of the trees were tossed by the fresh
breezes of June. Everywhere were color, music, fragrance, motion. The
burden rolled from his heart; remorse and guilt faded like dreams; the
sad past lost its hold; the present and the future were radiant! To even
the worst of men, in such surroundings, there come moments of exemption
from the ennui and shame of life, and to this deep soul which had
issued, purified, from the fires through which it had passed, they
lengthened into glorious hours, hours such as kindled on the lips of the
poet those exultant and exquisite words:

"The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hillside's dew-pearled;

"The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in his heaven--
All's right with the world!"

He climbed a steep hillside, descended into a secluded and beautiful
valley, pressed his way through dense underbrush, and while the day was
still young stood on the spot where he had determined to lay the
foundation of his cabin.

Two ranges of hills came together and enclosed it as if in giant arms.
Two pure crystal springs issued from clefts in the bases of these hills,
and after flowing towards each other for perhaps a quarter of a mile,
mingled their waters in a brawling brook. It was at the point of their
junction that David had determined to erect that primitive structure
which has afforded a home to so many families in our American
wildernesses. He threw his bundle down and gazed with admiration on the
scene.

Here was the virgin and unprofaned loveliness of Nature. He felt her
charm and prostrated himself before her shrine. But he rendered to that
invisible spirit of which these forms were only an imperfect
manifestation, a worship deeper still, and by an instinct of pure
adoration lifted his face toward the sky.

Having refreshed his soul by this communion, he drank a deep draught of
the sparkling water at the point where the rivulets met. Then he threw
off his coat, took his axe in hand and selected a tree on which to begin
his attack.

It was an enormous oak which, with roots struck deep into the soil and
branches lifted high and spread wide in the air, had maintained itself
successfully against innumerable foes for perhaps a thousand years. He
reflected long before he struck, for to him as to all lovers of nature
there is a certain inviolable sacredness about a tree.

"Should you see me at the point of death," said Rousseau, "carry me
under the shade of an oak and I am persuaded I shall recover."

David was a lover of trees. From the summits of the hills he had often
gazed down upon the forests and observed how "all the tree tops lay
asleep like green waves on the sea." He had harvested the fruits of the
apple and peach, clubbed the branches of the walnut, butternut and
beach, and boiled the sap of the maple. He had seen the trees offer
their hospitable shelter to the birds and the squirrels, had basked
beneath their umbrageous shadows and had listened to their whispers in
the summer, and to their wild music "when winter, that grand old harper,
smote his thunder-harp of pines."

It cost him pain to lay violent hands on a thing so sacred; nevertheless
he swung his axe in the air and a loud reverberating blow broke the
immense solitude. There are many kinds of music; but there is none
fuller of life and power and primal energy than the ring of the
woodsman's axe as blow after blow, through hour after hour, falls
rhythmically upon the wound which he cuts in the great hole of a forest
monarch.

The gash deepened and widened, the chips flew in showers and the
woodchopper's craft, long unpracticed, came back to him with every
stroke. The satisfying consciousness of skill and power filled him with
a sort of ecstasy. Just as the sun reached the zenith and looked down to
see what devastation was being wrought in this solitude, the giant
trembled; the blade had struck a vital place; he reeled, leaned forward,
lurched, plunged headlong, and with a roar that resounded through the
wide reaches of the forest, fell prone upon the ground.

The woodsman wiped the perspiration from his brow and smiled. The
appetite of the pioneer had been whetted with his work. He kindled a
fire, boiled a pot of coffee, fried a half dozen slices of bacon,
remembered his sickly appetite in the luxurious restaurants of great
cities, and laughed aloud for joy--wild, unbounded joy--the joy of
primitive manhood, of health, of strength, of hope. And then he
stretched himself on the ground and looked up into the blue sky through
the opening he had made in the green canopy above him and through which
the sun was gazing with bold, free glances on the face of the modest
valley and whispering amorously of its love.

Those glances fell soft and warm on his own upturned countenance, and
the rays of life-giving power penetrated the inmost core of his being,
finding their way by some mysterious alchemy through the medium of
matter into the very citadel of the spirit itself. They imparted a new
life. He basked in them until he fell asleep, and when he awakened he
felt anew the joy of mere physical existence; he rose, shook himself
like a giant, and resumed his work.

He now began to prepare for himself a temporary booth which should
shelter him until he had erected his cabin; and the rest of the day was
consumed in this enterprise. At its close this simple task was done, so
easy is it to provide a shelter for him who seeks protection and not
luxury! Having once more satisfied his hunger, he built a fire in front
of his rude booth, and lay down in its genial rays, his head upon a
pillow of moss. The stillness of the cool, quiet evening was broken only
by the crackling of the flames, the quiet murmurs of the two little
rills which whispered to each other startled interrogations as to the
meaning of this rude invasion, the hoot of owls in the tall tree tops,
and the stealthy tread of some of the little creatures of the forest who
prowled around, while seeking their prey, to discover, if possible, the
meaning of this great light, and the strange noises with which their
forest world had resounded.

There came to the recumbent woodsman a deep and quiet peace. He felt a
new sense of having been in some way taken back into the fraternity of
the unfallen creatures of the universe, and into the all-embracing arms
of the great Father. He fell asleep with pure thoughts hovering over the
surface of his mind, like a flock of swallows above a crystal lake. And
Nature did take him back into that all-enfolding heart where there is
room and a welcome for all who do not alienate themselves. Her
latchstrings are always out, and forests, fields, mountains, oceans,
deserts even, have a silent, genial welcome for all who enter their open
doors with reverence, sympathy and yearning. A man asleep alone in a
vast wilderness! How easy it would be for Nature to forget him and
permit him to sleep on forever! What gives him his importance there amid
those giant trees? Why should sun, moon, stars, gravity, heat, cold,
care for him? How can the hand that guides the constellations--those
vast navies of the infinite sea--pause to touch the eyelids of this atom
when the time comes for him to rise?

CHAPTER XXXV.

A FOREST IDYL

"Stranger, if thou hast learned a truth which needs
No school of long experience, that the world
Is full of guilt and misery, and hast seen
Enough of all its sorrows, crimes and cares
To tire thee of it, enter this wild wood
And view the haunts of Nature. The calm shade
Shall bring a kindred calm, and the sweet breeze
That makes the green leaves dance, shall waft a balm
To thy sick heart." --Bryant.

When the sleeper woke, refreshed and rested, in the morning, it was to
take up the routine of duties which were to be only slightly varied for
many months to come.

One after another the great trees succumbed to the blows of his axe and
from their prostrate forms he carefully selected those which were best
adapted to the structure of his cabin, while over the others he piled
the limbs and brush and left them to dry for the conflagration which at
the end of the hot summer should remove them from the clearing.

When the rainy days came he spent his time in the shelter of his little
arbor cutting the "shakes," or shingles, which were to furnish the roof
of Pepeeta's home.

The days and weeks fled by and the opening in the forest grew apace. He
measured it by night with a celestial arithmetic, using the stars for
his triangulations, and as one after another of them became visible
where before they had been obscured by the foliage of the trees, he
smiled, and felt as if he were cutting his farm out of heaven instead of
earth. It was really cut out of both!

His Sundays were spent at the old homestead with his loved ones, and
once every week Pepeeta came with Steven to bring him luxuries which her
own hands had prepared, and to pass the afternoon with him at his work
in the "clearing."

Those were memorable hours, possessing that three-fold
existence with which every hour can be endowed by the soul of
man--anticipation--realization--recollection. In this way a single
moment sometimes becomes almost synchronous with eternity.

It would have been impossible to tell which of the three was happiest,
but Pepeeta was always the center of interest, attention and devotion.
Her whole nature seemed to be aroused and called into play; all her
countless charms were incessantly evoked; her inimitable laughter
resounded through the woods and challenged the emulous birds to
unsuccessful competition. Seriousness alternated with gaiety, coquetry
with gravity. Some of the time she spent in gathering flowers to adorn
her lover's booth, and some in carrying to the rubbish pile such limbs
and branches as her strength would permit her to handle.

Nothing could have been more charming than the immense efforts that she
put forth with such grace, to lift with all her might some branch that
her lover had tossed aside with a single hand! The attitudes into which
these efforts threw her body were as graceful as those into which the
water threw the cresses by its ceaseless flow, or the wind bent the tree
tops by its fitful gusts.

Steven was frantic with delight at the free, open life of the woods. He
chased the squirrels and rabbits, he climbed the trees to gaze into the
nests of the birds, and caught the butterflies in his hat.

David entered into all their pleasures, but with a chastened and
restrained delight, for he could never forget that he was an exile and a
penitent.

There were two days in the season when the regular routine of the
woodsman's work was interrupted by functions which possess a romantic
charm. One was when the Friends and neighbors from a wide region
assembled to help him "raise" the walls of his cabin.

From all sides they appeared, in their picturesque costumes of homespun
or fur. Suddenly, through the ever-open gates of the forest, teams of
horses crashed, drawing after them clanking log chains, and driven by
men who carried saws and "cant hooks" on their broad shoulders. Loud
halloos of greeting, cheerful words of encouragement, an eager and
agreeable bustle of business, filled the clearing.

Log by log the walls rose, as the horses rolled them into place with the
aid of the great chains which the pioneers wrapped around them. It was
only a rude log cabin they built--with a great, wide opening through the
middle, a room on either side, and a picturesque chimney at either end;
but it was not to be despised even for grace, and when warmth and
comfort and adaptability to needs and opportunities are considered,
there have been few buildings erected by the genius of man more justly
entitled to admiration.

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