The Redemption of David Corson by Charles Frederic Goss

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With a sense of shame, he regretted his hasty decision, and was saying
to himself, "I will arise and go to my Father," for all the experiences
of life clothed themselves at once in the familiar language of the
Scriptures.

It is more than likely that he would have carried out this resolution,
and that this whole experience would have become a mere incident in his
life history, if his destiny had depended upon his personal volition.
But how few of the great events of life are brought about by our choice
alone!

Just at sunset, he crossed the bridge over the brook which formed the
boundary line of the farm, and as he did so heard a light footstep.
Lifting his eyes, he saw Pepeeta, who at that very instant stepped out
of the low bushes which lined the trail she had been following.

Her appearance was as sudden as an apparition and her beauty dazzled
him. Her face, flushed with exercise, gleamed against the background of
her black hair with a sort of spiritual radiance. When she saw the
Quaker, a smile of unmistakable delight flashed upon her features and
added to her bewitching grace. She might have been an Oread or a Dryad
wandering alone through the great forest. What bliss for youth and
beauty to meet thus at the close of day amid the solitudes of Nature!

Had Nature forgotten herself, to permit these two young and
impressionable beings to enjoy this pleasure on a lonely road just as
the day was dying and the tense energies of the world were relaxed?
There are times when her indifference to her own most inviolable laws
seems anarchic. There are moments when she appears wantonly to lure her
children to destruction.

They gazed into each other's eyes, they knew not how long, with an
incomprehensible and delicious joy, and then looked down upon the
ground. Having regained their composure by this act, they lifted their
eyes and regarded each other with frank and friendly smiles.

"I thought thee had gone," said David.

"We stayed longer than we expected," Pepeeta replied.

"Has thee been hunting wild flowers?" he asked, observing the bouquet
which she held in her hand.

"I picked them on the way."

"Has thee been walking far?"

"I have not thought."

"It is easy to walk in these spring days."

"I must have found it so, for I have been out since sunrise, and am not
tired."

"Thee does love the woods?"

"Oh, so much! I am a sort of wild creature and should like to live in a
cave."

"I am afraid thee would always turn thy face homeward at dusk, as thee
is doing now," he said with a smile.

"Oh, no! I am not afraid! I go because I must."

"I will join thee, if I may. The same path will take us toward our
different destinations."

"Oh, I shall be glad, for I want to ask you many questions. I can think
of nothing else but what I heard you say in the meeting house."

"I fear I have said some things which I do not understand myself," he
replied, with a flush, remembering the experience through which he had
just passed.

The path was wide enough for two, and side by side they moved slowly
forward.

The somber garb in which he was dressed, and the brilliant colors of her
apparel, afforded a contrast like that between a pheasant and a scarlet
tanager. Color, form, motion--all were perfect. They fitted into the
scene without a jar or discord, and enhanced rather than disturbed the
harmony of the drowsy landscape.

As they walked onward, they vaguely felt the influence of the repose
that was stealing upon the tired world; the intellectual and volitional
elements of their natures becoming gradually quiescent, the emotions
were given full sway. They felt themselves drawn toward each other by
some irresistible power, and, although they had never before been
conscious of any incompleteness of their lives, they suddenly discovered
affinities of whose existence they had never dreamed. Their two
personalities seemed to be absorbed into one new mysterious and
indivisible being, and this identity gave them an incomprehensible joy.
Over them as they walked, Nature brooded, sphynx-like. Their young and
healthy natures were tuned in unison with the harmonies of the world
like perfect instruments from which the delicate fingers of the great
Musician evoked a melody of which she never tired, reserving her
discords for a future day. On this delicious evening she permitted them
to be thrilled through and through with joy and hope and she accompanied
the song their hearts were singing with her own multitudinous voices.
"Be happy," chirped the birds; "be happy," whispered the evening
breeze; "be happy," murmured the brook, running along by their side and
looking up into their faces with laughter. The whole world seemed to
resound with the refrain, "Be happy! Be happy! for you are young, are
young, are young!"

Pepeeta first broke the silence.

"I had never heard of the things about which you talked," she said.

"Thee never had? How could that be? I thought that every one knew them!"

"I must have lived in a different world from yours."

"What sort of a world has thee lived in?"

"A world of fairs and circuses, of traveling everywhere and never
stopping anywhere."

"Has thee never been in a church?"

"Never until that night."

"And thee knows nothing of God?"

"Nothing except the gypsy god, and he was not like yours."

"And thee was happy?"

"I thought so until I heard what you said. Since then I have been full
of care and trouble. I wish I knew what you meant! But I have seen that
wonderful light!"

"Thee has seen it?"

"Yes, to-day! And I followed it; I shall always follow it."

"When does thee leave the village?" David asked, fearing the
conversation would lead where he did not want to go.

"To-morrow," she said.

"Does thee think that the doctor would renew his offer to take me with
him?"

"Do I think so? Oh! I am sure."

"Then I will go."

"You will go? Oh! I am so happy! The doctor was very angry; he has not
been himself since. You don't know how glad he will be."

"But will not thee be happy, too?" he asked.

"Happier than you could dream," she answered with all the frankness of a
child. "But what made you change your mind?"

"I will tell thee sometime; it is too late now. There is my home and I
have much work to do before dark."

"Home!" she echoed. "I never had a home, or at least I cannot remember
it. We have always led a roving life, here to-day and gone to-morrow. It
must be sweet to have a home!"

"Thee has always led a roving life and wishes to have a home? I have
always had a home, and wish to lead a roving life," said David.

They looked at each other and smiled at this curious contradiction. They
smiled because they were not yet old enough to weep over the
restlessness of the human heart.

Having reached the edge of the woods, where their paths separated, they
paused.

"We must part," said David.

"Yes; but we shall meet to-morrow."

"We shall meet to-morrow."

"You are sure?"

"I am sure."

"You will not change your mind?"

"I could not if I would."

"Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

At the touch of their hands their young hearts were swayed by tender and
tumultuous feelings. A too strong pressure startled them, and they
loosened their grasp. The sun sank behind the hill. The shadows that
fell upon their faces awakened them from their dreams. Again they said
goodbye and reluctantly parted. Once they stopped and, turning, waved
their hands; and the next moment Pepeeta entered the road which led her
out of sight.

In this interview, the entire past of these two lives seemed to count
for nothing.

If Pepeeta had never seen anything of the world; if she had issued from
a nunnery at that very moment, she could not have acted with a more
utter disregard of every principle of safety.

It was the same with David. The fact that he had been reared a Quaker;
that he had been dedicated to God from his youth; that he had struggled
all his days to be prepared for such a moment as this, did not affect
him to the least degree.

The seasoning of the bow does not invariably prevent it from snapping.
The drill on the parade ground does not always insure, courage for the
battle. Nothing is more terrible than this futility of the past.

Such scenes as this discredit the value of experience, and attach a
terrible reality to the conclusion of Coleridge, that "it is like the
stern-light of a vessel--illuminating only the path over which we have
traveled."

Nor did the future possess any more power over their destinies than the
past. Not a conscious foreboding disturbed their enjoyment of that brief
instant which alone can be called the present.

And yet, no moment in their after lives came up more frequently for
review than this one, and in the light of subsequent events they were
forced to recognize that during every instant of this scene there was an
uneasy but unacknowledged sense of danger and wrong thrilling through
all those emotions of bliss.

It is seldom that any man or woman enters into the region of danger
without premonitions. The delicate instincts of the soul hoist the
warning signals, but the wild passions disregard them.

It was to this moment that their consciences traced their sorrows; it
was to that act of their souls which permitted them to enjoy that
momentary rapture that they attached their guilt; it was at that moment
and in that silent place that they planted the seeds of the trees upon
which they were subsequently crucified.

CHAPTER X.

A POISONED SPRING

"It was the saying of a great man, that if we could trace our
descents, we should find all slaves to come from princes and all
princes from slaves!"--Seneca.

Early the next morning the two adventurers took their departure.

The jovial quack lavished his good-byes upon the landlord and the
"riff-raff" who gathered to welcome the coming or speed the parting
guest at the door of the country tavern. He drove a pair of beautiful,
spirited horses, and had the satisfaction of knowing that he excited the
envy of every beholder, as he took the ribbons in his hand, swung out
his long whip and started.

If her husband's heart was swelling with pride, Pepeeta's was bursting
with anxiety. An instinct which she did not understand had prevented her
from telling the doctor of her interview with the Quaker. Long before
the farmhouse came in sight she began to scan the landscape for the
figure which had been so vividly impressed upon her mind.

The swift horses, well fed and well groomed, whirled the light wagon
along the road at a rapid pace and as they passed the humble home of the
Quaker, Pepeeta saw a little child driving the cows down the long lane,
and a woman moving quietly among the flowers in the garden; but David
himself was not to be seen.

"He has gone," she said to herself joyously.

On through the beech grove, around the turn of the road, into full view
of the bridge, they sped.

It was empty! And yet it was there that he had agreed to meet them!

A tear fell from her eye, and her chin quivered. With the utmost effort
of her will she could not repress these evidences of her disappointment,
and with a spasmodic motion she clutched the arm of the driver as if it
were that of Destiny and she could hold it back.

So sudden and so powerful was the grasp of her young hand, that it
turned the horses out of the road and all but upset the carriage.

With a violent jerk of the reins, the astonished driver pulled them
back, and exclaimed with an oath:

"You little wild cat, if you ever d-d-do that again, I will throw you
into the d-d-ditch!"

"Excuse me!" she answered humbly, cowering under his angry glances.

"What in the d-d-deuce is the matter?" he asked more kindly, seeing the
tears in her eyes.

"I do not know. I am nervous, I guess," she answered sadly.

"Nervous? P-p-pepeeta Aesculapius nervous? I thought her nerves were
m-m-made of steel? What is the m-m-matter?" he asked, looking at her
anxiously.

His gentleness calmed her, and she answered: "I am sorry to leave a
place where I have been so happy. Oh! why cannot we settle down
somewhere and stay? I get so tired of being always on the wing. Even the
birds have nests to rest in for a little while. Are we never going to
have a home?"

"Nonsense, child! What do we want with a h-h-home? It is better to be
always on the go. I want my liberty. It suits me best to fly through the
heavens like a hawk or swim the deep sea like a shark. A home would be a
p-p-prison. I should tramp back and forth in it like a polar bear in a
c-c-cage."

Pepeeta answered with a sigh.

"Cheer up, child," he cried in his hearty fashion. "Your voice sounds
like the squeak of a mouse! B-b-be gay! Be happy! How can you be sad on
a morning like this? Look at the play of the muscles under the smooth
skins of the horses! Remember the b-b-bright shining dollars that we
coaxed out of the tightly b-b-buttoned breeches pockets of the
gray-backed Q-Q-Quakers. What more do you ask of life? What else can it
g-g-give?"

"It does not make me happy! I shall never be happy until I have a home,"
she said, still sobbing, and trying to conceal the cause of her grief
from herself as well as from her husband.

Nothing could have astonished the great, well-fed animal by her side
more than this confession. In all his life he had never heaved a sigh.
His contentment was like that of a lion in a forest full of antelopes.
But if he was fierce and cruel to others, he was at least kind to his
mate, and he now put his great paw around her little shoulders and gave
her one of his leonine kisses.

"You are as melancholy as an unstrung d-d-drum," he said. "I must cheer
you up. How would you like a s-s-song? What shall it be? 'Love's Young
D-D-Dream'? All right. Here g-g-goes."

And at the word, he opened his great mouth and stuttered it forth in
stentorian tones that went bellowing among the hills like the echoes of
thunder.

Pepeeta smiled at his kindness and was grateful for his clumsy efforts
at consolation; but they did not dispel her sadness. Her spirits sank
lower and lower. The light seemed to have faded out of the world, and
the streams of joy to have run dry. She sighed again in spite of
herself, and in that sigh exhaled the hope which had sprung from her
heart at the prospects of a new and sweet companionship.

She had divined the cause of her disappointment with an unerring
instinct. It was exactly as she thought. At the last instant, David's
heart had failed him.

On the preceding evening, he had hurried through his "chores," excused
himself from giving an account of the adventures of the day on the
ground of fatigue, and retired to his room to cherish in his heart the
memories of that beautiful face and the prospects of the future. He
could not sleep. For hours he tossed on his bed or sat in the window
looking out into the night, and when at last he fell into an uneasy
slumber his dreams were haunted by two faces which struggled ceaselessly
to crowd each other from his mind. One was the young and passionate
countenance of the gypsy, and the other was that of his beautiful mother
with her pale, carven features, her snow-white hair, her pensive and
unearthly expression. They both looked at him, and then gazed at each
other. Now one set below the horizon like a wan, white moon, and the
other rose above it like the glowing star of love. Now the moon passed
over the glowing star in a long eclipse and then disappearing behind a
cloud left the brilliant star to shine alone.

When he awoke the gray dawn revealed in vague outline the realities of
the world, and warned him that he had but a few moments to execute his
plans. He sprang from his couch strong in his purpose to depart, for the
fever of adventure was still burning in his veins, and the rapturous
looks with which Pepeeta had received his promise to be her companion
still made his pulses bound. He hurriedly put a few things into a bundle
and stole out of the house.

As he moved quietly but swiftly away from the familiar scenes, his heart
which had been beating so high from hope and excitement began to sink in
his bosom. He had never dreamed of the force of his attachment to this
dear place, and he turned his face toward the old gray house again and
again. Every step away from it seemed more difficult than the last, and
his feet became heavy as lead. But he pressed on, ashamed to
acknowledge his inability to execute his purpose. He came to the last
fence which lay between him and the bridge where he had agreed to await
the adventurers, and then paused.

He was early. There was still time to reflect. Had the carriage arrived
at that moment he would have gone; but it tarried, and the tide of love
and regret bore him back to the old familiar life. "I cannot go. I
cannot give it up," he murmured to himself.

Torn by conflicting emotions, inclining to first one course and then
another, he finally turned his face away from the bridge and fled,
impelled by weakness rather than desire. He did not once look back, but
ran at the top of his speed straight to the old barn and hid himself
from sight. There, breathless and miserable, he watched. He had not long
to wait. The dazzling "turn-out" dashed into view. On the high seat he
beheld Pepeeta, saw the eager glance she cast at the farm house,
followed her until they arrived at the bridge, beheld her
disappointment, raved at his own weakness, rushed to the door, halted,
returned, rushed back again, returned, threw himself upon the sweet
smelling hay, cursed his weakness and indecision and finally surrendered
himself to misery.

From the utter wretchedness of that bitter hour, he was roused by the
ringing of the breakfast bell. Springing to his feet, he hastened to the
spring, bathed his face, assumed a cheerful look and entered the house.

For the first time in his life he attempted the practice of deception,
and experienced the bitterness of carrying a guilty secret in his bosom.
How he worried through the morning meal and the prayer at the family
altar, he never knew, and he escaped with inexpressible relief to the
stable and the field to take up the duties of his daily life. He found
it plodding work, for the old inspirations to endeavor had utterly
vanished. He who had hitherto found toil a beatitude now moved behind
the plow like a common drudge.

Tired of the pain which he endured, he tried again and again to forget
the whole experience and to persuade himself that he was glad the
adventure had ended; but he knew in his heart of hearts that he had
failed to follow the gypsy, not because he did not really wish to, but
because he did not wholly dare. The consciousness that he was not only a
bad man but a coward, added a new element to the bitterness of the cup
he was drinking.

Each succeeding day was a repetition of the first, and became a painful
increment to his load of misery and unrest. The very world in which he
lived seemed to have undergone a transformation. The sunlight had lost
its glory, the flowers had become pale and odorless, the songs of the
birds dull and dispiriting.

What had really changed was the soul of the young recluse and mystic.
The consciousness of God had vanished from it; the visions of the
spiritual world no longer visited it; he ceased to pray in secret, and
the petitions which he offered at the family altar were so dull and
spiritless as even to excite the observation and comment of his little
nephew.

"Uncle Dave," remarked that fearless critic, "you pray as if you were
talking down a deep well."

No wonder that the child observed the fact upon which he alone had
courage to comment, for there is as great a difference between a prayer
issuing from the heart and one merely falling from the lips as between
water gushing from a fountain and rain dripping from a roof.

Some men pass their lives in the midst of environments where insincerity
would not have been so painful; but in a home and a community where sham
and hypocrisy were almost unknown these perpetual deceptions became more
and more intolerable with every passing hour. Nothing could be more
certain than that in a short time, like some foreign substance in a
healthy body, his nature would force him out of this uncongenial
environment. With some natures the experience would have been a slow and
protracted one, but with him the termination could not be long delayed.

It came in a tragedy at the close of the next Sabbath. The day had been
dreary, painful and exasperating beyond all endurance, and he felt that
he could never stand the strain of another. And so, having detained his
mother in the sitting room after the rest of the family had retired, he
paced the floor for a few moments, and after several unsuccessful
attempts to introduce the subject gently, said bluntly:

"Mother, I am chafing myself to death against the limitations of this
narrow life."

"My son," she said calmly, "this has not come to me as a surprise."

He moved uneasily and looked as if he would ask her "Why?"

"Because," she said, as if he had really spoken, "a mother possesses the
power of divination, and can discern the sorrows of her children, by a
suffering in her own bosom."

The consciousness that he had caused her pain rendered him incapable of
speech, and for a moment they sat in silence.

"What is thy wish and purpose, my son?" she asked at last, with an
effort which seemed to exhaust her strength.

"I wish to see the world," he answered, his eye kindling as he spoke.

This reply, foreseen and expected as it was, sent a shiver through her.
She turned paler, if possible, than before; but summoning all the powers
of self-control resident in that disciplined spirit, she replied with an
enforced tranquillity:

"My son, does thee know what this world is which thee fain would see?"

"I have seen it in my dreams. I have heard its distant voices calling to
me. My spirit chafes to answer their summons. I strain at my anchor
like a great ship caught by the tide."

"Shall I tell thee what this world of which thee has dreamed such dreams
is really like, my son?" she asked, struggling to maintain her calm.

"How should thee know?"

"I have seen it."

"Thee has seen it? I thought that thee had passed thy entire life among
the Quakers," he answered with surprise.

"I say that I have seen it. Shall I tell thee what it is?" she resumed,
as if she had not heard him.

"If thee will," he answered, awed by a strange solemnity in her manner.

Her quick respirations had become audible. Small but intensely red spots
were burning on either cheek. Her white hands trembled as they clutched
the arms of the old rocking chair in which she sat.

"I will!" she said, regarding him with a look which seemed to devour him
with yearning love. "This world whose voices thee hears calling is a
fiction of thine own brain. That which thee thinks thee beholds of glory
and beauty thee hast conjured up from the depths of a youthful and
disordered fancy, and projected into an unreal realm. That world which
thee has thus beheld in thy dreams will burst like a pin-pricked bubble
when thee tries to enter it. It is not the real world, my son. How shall
I tell thee what that real world is? It is a snare, a pit-fall. It is a
flame into which young moths are ever plunging. It promises, only to
deceive; it beckons, only to betray; its smiles are ambushes; it is
sunlight on the surface, but ice at the heart; it offers life, but it
confers death. I bid thee fear it, shun it, hate it!"

She leaned far forward in her chair, and her face upon which the youth
had never seen any other look but that of an almost unearthly calm, was
glowing with excitement and passion.

"Mother," he exclaimed, "what does thee know of this world, thee who has
passed thy life in lonely places and amongst a quiet people?"

She rose and paced the floor as if to permit some of her excitement to
escape in physical activity, and pausing before him, said: "My only and
well-beloved son, thee does not know thy mother. A veil has been drawn
over that portion of her life which preceded thy birth, and its secrets
are hidden in her own heart. She has prayed God that she might never
have to bring them forth into the light; but he has imposed upon her the
necessity of opening the grave in which they are buried, in order that,
seeing them, thee may abandon thy desires to taste those pleasures which
once lured thy mother along the flower-strewn pathway to her sin and
sorrow."

Her solemnity and her suffering produced in the bosom of her son a
nameless fear. He could not speak. He could only look and listen.

"Thee sees before thee," she continued, "the faded form and features of
a woman once young and beautiful. Can thee believe it?"

He did not answer, for she had seemed to him as mothers always do to
children, to have been always what he had found her upon awakening to
consciousness. He could not remember when her hair was not gray.

Something in her manner revealed to the startled soul of the young
Quaker that he was about to come upon a discovery that would shake the
very foundation of his life; for a moment he could not speak.

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