The Redemption of David Corson by Charles Frederic Goss

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To have a fellow-being completely in our power makes us either utterly
cruel or utterly kind, and all that was gentle in that great rough
nature went out in a rush of tenderness toward the little creature who
thus suddenly became absolutely dependent upon his compassion. After
they had ridden a little way, he began in his rough fashion to try to
comfort her.

"Don't cry, Pepeeta! You ought to be thankful that you have got out of
the clutches of those villains. You could not have been worse off, and
you may be a great deal better! They were not always kind to you, were
they? I shouldn't wonder if they beat you sometimes! But you will never
be beaten any more. You shall have a nice little pony, and a cart, and
flowers, and pretty clothes, and everything that little girls like. I
don't know what they are, but whatever they are you shall have them. So
don't cry any more! What a pretty name Pepeeta is! It sounds like music
when I say it. I have got the toughest name in the world myself. It's a
regular jaw-breaker--Doctor Paracelsus Aesculapius! What do you think of
that, Pepeeta! But then you need not call me by the whole of it! You can
just call me Doctor, for short. Now, look at me just once, and give me a
pretty smile. Let me see those big black eyes! No? You don't want to?
Well, that's all right. I won't bother you. But I want you to know that
I love you, and that you are never going to have any more trouble as
long as you live."

These were the kindest words the child had ever had spoken to her, or at
least the kindest she could remember. They fell on her ears like music
and awakened gratitude and love in her heart. She ceased to sigh, and
before the ride to town was ended had begun to feel a vague sense of
happiness.

* * * * *

The next few years were full of strange adventures for these singular
companions. The quack had discovered certain clues to the past history
of the child whom he had thus adopted, and was firmly persuaded that she
belonged to a noble family. He had made all his plans to take her to
Spain and establish her identity in the hope of securing a great reward.
But just as he was about to execute this scheme, he was seized by a
disease which prostrated him for many months, and threw him into a
nervous condition in which he contracted the habit of stammering. On his
recovery from his long sickness he found himself stripped of everything
he had accumulated; but his shrewdness and indomitable will remained,
and he soon began to rebuild his shattered fortune.

During all these ups and downs, Pepeeta was his inseparable and devoted
companion. The admiration which her childish beauty excited in his heart
had deepened into affection and finally into love. When she reached the
age of sixteen or seventeen years, he proposed to her the idea of
marriage. She knew nothing of her own heart, and little about life, but
had been accustomed to yield implicit obedience to his will. She
consented and the ceremony was performed by a Justice of the Peace in
the city of Cincinnati, a year or so before their appearance in the
Quaker village. An experience so abnormal would have perverted, if not
destroyed her nature, had it not contained the germs of beauty and
virtue implanted at her birth. They were still dormant, but not dead;
they only awaited the sun and rain of love to quicken them into life.

The quack had coarsened with the passing years, but Pepeeta, withdrawing
into the sanctuary of her soul, living a life of vague dreams and
half-conscious aspirations after something, she knew not what, had grown
even more gentle and submissive. As she did not yet comprehend life, she
did not protest against its injustice or its incongruity. The vulgar
people among whom she lived, the vulgar scenes she saw, passed across
the mirror of her soul without leaving permanent impressions. She
performed the coarse duties of her life in a perfunctory manner. It was
her body and not her soul, her will and not her heart which were
concerned with them. What that soul and that heart really were, remained
to be seen.

CHAPTER IV.

THE WOMAN

"One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well;
but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my
grace."--Much Ado About Nothing.

True to his determination, the doctor devoted the night following his
advent into the little frontier village to the investigation of the
Quaker preacher's fitness for his use. He took Pepeeta with him, the
older habitues of the tavern standing on the porch and smiling
ironically as they started.

The meeting house was one of those conventional weather-boarded
buildings with which all travelers in the western states are familiar.
The rays of the tallow candles by which it was lighted were streaming
feebly out into the night. The doors were open, and through them were
passing meek-faced, soft-voiced and plain-robed worshipers.

The silhouettes of the men's broad hats and the women's poke bonnets,
seen dimly against the pale light of the windows as they passed, plainly
revealed their sect. The similarity of their garments almost obliterated
the personal identity of the wearers.

The two strangers, so different in manners and dress, joined the
straggling procession which crept slowly along the road and chatted to
each other in undertones.

"What queer people," said Pepeeta.

"Beat the Dutch, and you know who the D-d-dutch beat!"

"What sort of a building is that they are going into?"

"That's a church."

"What is a church for?"

"Ask the marines! Never b-b-been in one more'n once or twice.
G-g-g-guess they use 'em to p-p-pray in. Never pray, so never go."

"Why have you never taken me?"

"Why should I?"

"We go everywhere else, to theaters, to circuses, to races."

"Some sense in going there. Have f-f-fun!"

"Don't they have any fun in churches?"

"Fun! They think a man who laughs will go straight to the b-b-bow-wows!"

"What are they for, then, these churches?"

"For religion, I tell you."

"What is religion?"

"Don't you know?"

"No."

"Your education has been n-n-neglected."

"Tell me what it is!"

"D-d-d-don't ask so many questions! It is something for d-d-dead folks."

"How dark the building looks."

"Like a b-b-barn."

"How solemn the people seem."

"Like h-h-hoot owls."

"It scares me."

"Feel a little b-b-bit shaky myself; but it's too late to b-b-back out
now. I'm going if they roast and eat me. If this f-f-feller can talk as
they say he can, I am going to get hold of him, d-d-d-dead or alive.
I'll have him if it takes a habeas c-c-corpus."

At this point of the conversation they arrived at the meeting-house.
Keeping close together, Pepeeta light and graceful, the doctor heavy and
awkward, both of them thoroughly embarrassed, they ascended the steps as
a bear and gazelle might have walked the gang-plank into the ark. They
entered unobserved save by a few of the younger people who were staring
vacantly about the room, and took their seats on the last bench. The
Quaker maidens who caught sight of Pepeeta were visibly excited and
began to preen themselves as turtle doves might have done if a bird of
paradise had suddenly flashed among them. One of them happened to be
seated next her. She was dressed in quiet drabs and grays. Her face and
person were pervaded and adorned by simplicity, meekness, devotion; and
the contrast between the two was so striking as to render them both
self-conscious and uneasy in each other's presence.

The visitors did not know at all what to expect in this unfamiliar
place, but could not have been astonished or awed by anything else half
so much as by the inexplicable silence which prevailed. If the whole
assemblage had been dancing or turning somersaults, they would not have
been surprised, but the few moments in which they thus sat looking
stupidly at the people and then at each other seemed to them like a
small eternity. Pepeeta's sensitive nature could ill endure such a
strain, and she became nervous.

"Take me away," she imploringly whispered to the doctor, who sat by her
side, ignorant of the custom which separated the sexes.

He tried to encourage her in a few half-suppressed words, took her
trembling hand in his great paw, pressed it reassuringly, winked
humorously, and then looked about him with a sardonic grin.

To Pepeeta's relief, the silence was at last broken by an old man who
rose from his seat, reverently folded his hands, lifted his face to
heaven, closed his eyes and began to speak. She had never until this
moment listened to a prayer, and this address to an invisible Being
wrought in her already agitated mind a confused and exciting effect; but
the prayer was long, and gave her time to recover her self-control. The
silence which followed its close was less painful because less strange
than the other, and she permitted herself to glance about the room and
to wonder what would happen next. Her curiosity was soon satisfied.
David Corson, the young mystic, rose to his feet. He was dressed with
exquisite neatness in that simple garb which lends to a noble person a
peculiar and serious dignity. Standing for a moment before he began his
address, he looked over the audience with the self-possession of an
accomplished orator. The attention of every person in the room was at
once arrested. They all recalled their wandering or preoccupied
thoughts, lifted their bowed heads and fixed their eyes upon the
commanding figure before them.

This general movement caused Pepeeta to turn, and she observed a sudden
transformation on the countenance of the dove-like Quaker maiden. A
flush mantled her pale cheek and a radiance beamed in her mild blue
eyes. It was a tell-tale look, and Pepeeta, who divined its meaning,
smiled sympathetically.

But the first word which fell from the lips of the speaker withdrew her
attention from every other object, for his voice possessed a quality
with which she was entirely unfamiliar. It would have charmed and
fascinated the hearer, even if it had uttered incoherent words. For
Pepeeta, it had another and a more mysterious value. It was the voice of
her destiny, and rang in her soul like a bell. The speech of the young
Quaker was a simple and unadorned message of the love of God to men, and
of their power to respond to the Divine call. The thoughts to which he
gave expression were not original, but simply distillations from the
words of Madam Guyon, Fenelon, Thomas a Kempis and St. John; and yet
they were not mere repetitions, for they were permeated by the freshness
and the beauty of his own pure feelings.

"We are all," said he, "the children of a loving Father whom the heaven
of heavens cannot contain, who yet dwells in every contrite human heart
as the light of the great sun reproduces itself in every drop of dew.
To have God dwell thus in the soul is to enjoy perfect peace. This life
is a life of bitterness to those who struggle against God, a world of
sorrow to those who doubt Him, and of darkness to those who refuse His
sweet illumination. But the sorrow and the struggle end, and the
darkness becomes the dawn to every one who loves and trusts the heavenly
Father, for He bestows upon all a Divine gift. This gift is the 'inner
light,' the light which shines within the soul itself and sheds its rays
upon the dark pathway of existence. This God of love is not far from
every one of us and we may all know Him. He is to be loved, not hated;
trusted, not feared! Why should men tremble at the consciousness of His
presence? Does the little sparrow in its nest feel any fear when it
hears the flutter of its parent's wings? Does the child shudder at its
mother's approaching footsteps?" As he uttered these words, he paused
and awaited an answer.

Each sentence had fallen into the sensitive soul of the Fortune Teller
like a pebble into a deep well. She was gazing at him in astonishment.
Her lips were parted, her eyes were suffused and she was leaning forward
breathlessly.

"If we would live bravely, hopefully, tranquilly," he continued, "we
must be conscious of the presence of God. If we believe with all our
hearts that He knows our inmost thoughts, we shall experience comfort
beyond words. This life of peace, of aspiration, of communion, is
possible to all. The evil in us may be overthrown. We may reproduce the
life of Christ on earth. We may become as He was--one with God. As the
little water drop poured into a large measure of wine seems to lose its
own nature entirely and take on the nature and the color of both the
water and the wine; or as air filled with sunlight is transformed into
the same brightness so that it does not appear to be illuminated by
another light so much as to be luminous of itself; so must all feeling
toward the Holy One be self-dissolved and wholly transformed into the
will of God. For how shall God be all in all, if anything of man remains
in man?"

In words and images like these the young mystic poured forth his soul.
There were no flights of oratory, and only occasional bursts of anything
that could be called eloquence. But in an inexplicable manner it moved
the heart to tenderness and thrilled the deepest feelings of the soul.
Much of the effect on those who understood him was due to the truths he
uttered; but even those who, like the two strangers, were unfamiliar
with the ideas advanced, or indifferent to them, could not escape that
nameless influence with which all true orators are endowed, and were
thrilled by what he said. In our ignorance we have called this influence
by the name of "magnetism." Whatever it may be, this young man possessed
it in a very high degree, and when to it was added his personal beauty,
his sincerity, and his earnestness, it became almost omnipotent over
the emotions, if not over the reason. It enslaved Pepeeta completely.

It was impossible that in so small a room a speaker should be
unconscious of the presence of strangers. David had noticed them at
once, and his glance, after roaming about the room, invariably returned
and fixed itself upon the face of the Fortune Teller. Their fascination
was mutual. They were so drawn to each other by some inscrutable power,
that it would not have been hard to believe that they had existed as
companions in some previous state of being, and had now met and vaguely
remembered each other.

When at length David stopped speaking, it seemed to Pepeeta as if a
sudden end had come to everything; as if rivers had ceased to run and
stars to rise and set. She drew a long, deep breath, sighed and sank
back in her seat, exhausted by the nervous tension to which she had been
subjected.

The effect upon the quack was hardly less remarkable. He, too, had
listened with breathless attention. He tried to analyze and then to
resist this mesmeric power, but gradually succumbed. He felt as if
chained to his seat, and it was only by a great effort that he pulled
himself together, took Pepeeta by the arm and drew her out into the open
air.

For a few moments they walked in silence, and then the doctor exclaimed:
"P-p-peeta, I have found him at last!"

"Found whom?" she asked sharply, irritated by the voice which offered
such a rasping contrast to the one still echoing in her ears.

"Found whom? As if you didn't know! I mean the man of d-d-destiny! He is
a snake charmer, Pepeeta! He just fairly b-b-bamboozled you! I was
laughing in my sleeve and saying to myself, 'He's bamboozled Pepeeta;
but he can't b-b-bamboozle me!' When he up and did it! Tee-totally did
it! And if he can bamboozle me, he can bamboozle anybody."

"Did you understand what he said?" Pepeeta asked.

"Understand? Well, I should say not! The d-d-devil himself couldn't make
head nor tail out of it. But between you and me and the town p-p-pump
it's all the better, for if he can fool the people with that kind of
g-g-gibberish, he can certainly f-f-fool them with the Balm of the
B-B-Blessed Islands! First time I was ever b-b-bamboozled in my life.
Feels queer. Our fortune's made, P-p-pepeeta!"

His triumph and excitement were so great that he did not notice the
silence and abstraction of his wife. His ardent mind invariably
excavated a channel into which it poured its thoughts, digging its bed
so deep as to flow on unconscious of everything else. Exulting in the
prospect of attaching to himself a companion so gifted, never doubting
for a moment that he could do so, reveling in the dreams of wealth to be
gathered from the increased sales of his patent medicine, he entered the
hotel and made straight for the bar-room, where he told his story with
the most unbounded delight.

Pepeeta retired at once to her room, but her mind was too much excited
and her heart too much agitated for slumber. She moved restlessly about
for a long time and then sat down at the open window and looked into the
night. For the first time in her life, the mystery of existence really
dawned upon her. She gazed with a new awe at the starry sky. She thought
of that Being of whom David had spoken. Questions which had never before
occurred to her knocked at the door of her mind and imperatively
demanded an answer. "Who am I? Whence did I come? For what was I
created? Whither am I going?" she asked herself again and again with
profound astonishment at the newness of these questions and her
inability to answer them.

For a long time she sat in the light of the moon, and reflected on these
mysteries with all the power of her untutored mind. But that power was
soon exhausted, and vague, chaotic, abstract conceptions gave place to a
definite image which had been eternally impressed upon her inward eyes.
It was the figure of the young Quaker, idealized by the imagination of
an ardent and emotional woman whose heart had been thrilled for the
first time.

She began timidly to ask herself what was the meaning of those feelings
which this stranger had awakened in her bosom. She knew that they were
different from those which her husband inspired; but how different, she
did not know. They filled her with a sort of ecstasy, and she gave
herself up to them. Exhausted at last by these vivid thoughts and
emotions, she rested her head upon her arms across the window sill and
fell asleep. It must have been that the young Quaker followed her into
the land of dreams, for when her husband aroused her at midnight a faint
flush could be seen by the light of the moon on those rounded cheeks.

There are all the elements of a tragedy in the heart of a woman who has
never felt the emotions of religion or of love until she is married!

CHAPTER V.

THE LIGHT THAT LIES

"Oh! why did God create at last
This novelty on earth, this fair defect
Of nature, and not till the world at once
With men as angels, without feminine?"

--Paradise Lost.

On the following morning the preacher-plowman was afield at break of
day. The horses, refreshed and rested by food and sleep, dragged the
gleaming plowshare through the heavy sod as if it were light snow, and
the farmer exulted behind them.

That universal life which coursed through all the various forms of being
around him, bounded in tides through his own veins. The fresh morning
air, the tender light of dawning day, the odors of plants and songs of
birds, filled his sensitive soul with unutterable delight.

In the midst of all these beauties and wonders, he existed without
self-consciousness and labored without effort. His heart was pure and
his oneness with the natural world was complete. Whatever was beautiful
and gentle in the manifold operations of the Divine Spirit in the world
around him, he saw and felt. To all that was horrible and ferocious, he
was blind as a child in Paradise. He did not notice the hawk sweeping
upon the dove, the swallow darting upon the moth, nor the lizard lying
in wait for the fly; or, if he did, he saw them only as he saw the
shadows flitting across the sunny landscape. His soul was like a garden
full of light, life, perfume, color and the music of singing birds and
whispering leaves. Before his inward eye the familiar figures of his
daily life passed and repassed, but among them was also a new one. It
was the figure that had arrested his attention and inspired him the
night before.

For hours he followed the plow without the consciousness of fatigue, but
at length he paused to rest the horses, who were beginning to pant with
their hard labor. He threw back his head, drew in deep inspirations of
pure air, glanced about and felt the full tide of the simple joy of
existence roll over him. Life had never seemed sweeter than in those few
moments in which he quaffed the brimming cup of youth and health which
nature held to his lips. Not a fear, not an apprehension of any danger
crossed his soul. His glances roved here and there, pausing a moment in
their flight like hummingbirds, to sip the sweetness from some unusually
beautiful cloud or tree or flower, when he suddenly caught sight of a
curious equipage flying swiftly down the road at the other side of the
field. The spirited horses stopped. A man rose from the seat, put his
hands to his mouth like a trumpet, uttered a loud "hallo," and beckoned.

David tied the reins to the plow handles and strode across the fresh
furrows. Vaulting the fence and leaping the brook which formed the
boundary line of the farm, he ascended the bank and approached the
carriage. As he did so the occupants got out and came to meet him. To
his astonishment he saw the strangers whom he had noticed the night
before. The man advanced with a bold, free demeanor, the woman timidly
and with downcast eyes.

"Good morning," said the doctor.

David returned his greeting with the customary dignity of the Quakers.

"My name is Dr. Aesculapius."

"Thee is welcome."

"I was over to the m-m-meeting house last night, and heard your
s-s-speech. Didn't understand a w-w-word, but saw that you c-c-can talk
like a United States Senator."

David bowed and blushed.

"I came over to make you a p-p-proposition. Want you to yoke up with me,
and help me sell the 'B-B-Balm of the Blessed Islands.' You can do the
t-t-talking and I'll run the b-b-business; see?"

He put his thumbs in the armholes of his vest, spread his feet apart,
squared himself and smiled like a king who had offered his throne to a
beggar.

David regarded him with a look of astonishment.

"What do you s-s-say?"

Gravely, placidly, the young Quaker answered: "I thank thee, friend, for
what thee evidently means as a kindness, but I must decline thy offer."

"Decline my offer? Are you c-c-crazy? Why do you d-d-decline my offer?"

"Because I have no wish to leave my home and work."

Although his answer was addressed to the man, his eyes were directed to
the woman. His reply, simple and natural enough, astounded the quack.

"What!" he exclaimed. "Do you mean that you p-p-prefer to stay in this
p-p-pigstye of a town to becoming a citizen of the g-g-great world?"

"I do."

"But listen; I will pay you more money in a single month than you can
earn by d-d-driving your plow through that b-b-black mud for a whole
year."

"I have no need and no desire for more money than I can earn by daily
toil."

"No need and no desire for money! B-b-bah! You are not talking to
sniveling old women and crack-b-b-brained old men; but to a f-f-feller
who can see through a two-inch plank, and you can't p-p-pass off any of
your religious d-d-drivel on him, either."

This coarse insult went straight to the soul of the youth. His blood
tingled in his veins. There was a tightening around his heart of
something which was out of place in the bosom of a Quaker. A hot reply
sprang to his lips, but died away as he glanced at the woman, and saw
her face mantled with an angry flush.

Calmed by her silent sympathy, he quietly replied: "Friend, I have no
desire to annoy thee, but I have been taught that 'the love of money is
the root of all evil,' and believing as I do I could not answer thee
otherwise than I did."

It was evident from the look upon the countenance of the quack that he
had met with a new and incomprehensible type of manhood. He gazed at the
Quaker a moment in silence and then exclaimed, "Young man, you may mean
what you say, b-b-but you have been most infernally abused by the
p-p-people who have put such notions in your head, for there is only one
substantial and abiding g-g-good on earth, and that is money. Money is
power, money is happiness, money is God; get money! get it anywhere! get
it anyhow, but g-g-get it."

Instead of mere resentment for a personal insult, David now felt a tide
of righteous indignation rising in his soul at this scorn and denial of
those eternal principles of truth and duty which he felt to be the very
foundations of the moral universe.

"Sir," said he, with the voice and mien of an apostle, "I perceive that
thou art in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity. Thy money
perish with thee. The God of this world hath blinded thine eyes."

The quack, who now began to take a humorous view of the innocence of the
youth, burst into a boisterous guffaw.

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