"Whose hand was it?"

"I couldn't tell."

"Well, swim on and look up, Davy, and God bless you."

They parted at dawn, one to break through the meshes and escape, and the other—!

In Australia, when drought drives the rabbits southward, the ranchmen, terrified at their approach, have only to erect a woven wire fence on the north side of their farms to be perfectly safe, for the poor things lie down against it and die in droves—too stupid to go round, climb over, or dig under! It is a comfort to see one of them now and then who has determined to find the green fields on the southward side—no matter what it costs!

Weak and bad as he had been, David at least took the first path which he saw leading up to the light.



CHAPTER XXXII.

THE END OF EXILE

"Every one goes astray, and the least imprudent is he who repents soonest." —Voltaire.

The steamer on which Corson embarked after his overland journey from New York City to Pittsburg, had descended the Ohio almost as far as Cincinnati, before other thoughts than those which were concerned with Pepeeta and his spiritual regeneration could awaken any interest in his mind. But as the boat approached Cincinnati, the places, the persons and the incidents of his childhood world began to present themselves to his consciousness. An irrepressible longing to look once more upon the place of his birth and the friends of his youth took possession of his mind.

He found, on inquiry, that the boat was to remain at the wharf in Cincinnati for several hours, and that there would be time enough for him to make the journey to his old home and back before she proceeded down the river. He decided to do so, and observed with satisfaction that those painful gropings for the next stepping stone across the streams of action which had been so persistent and painful a feature of his recent life had given place to the swift intuitions of his youth. He saw his way as he used to when a boy, and made his decisions rapidly and executed them fearlessly. The discovery of this fact gave a new zest and hope to life.

In a few moments after he had landed at the familiar wharf he was mounted upon a fleet horse, rushing away over those beautiful rolling hills which fill the mind of the traveler with uncloying delight in their variety, their fertility and their beauty. It was the first time since he had left the farm that his mind had been free enough from passion or pain to bestow its full attention upon the charms of Nature; they dawned on him now like a new discovery. The motion of the horse,—so long unfamiliar, so easy, so graceful, so rhythmical,—seemed of itself to key his spirits to his environment, for it is an elemental pleasure to be seated in the saddle and feel the thrill of power and rapid motion. The rider's eyes brightened, his cheeks glowed, his pulses bounded. He gathered up the beauties of the world around him in great sheaves of delicious and thrilling sensations. Long-forgotten odors came sweeping across the fields, rich with the verdure of the vernal season, and brought with them precious accompaniments of the almost-forgotten past. The rich and varied colors of field and sky and forest fed his starved soul with one kind of beauty; and the sweet sounds of the outdoor world intoxicated him with another. The low of cattle, the bleating of sheep, the crowing of chanticleers, the cackling of hens, the gobble of turkeys, the multitudinous songs of the birds enveloped him in a sort of musical atmosphere. For the first time since his restoration to hope, the past seemed like a dream, and these few blissful moments became a prophecy of a new and grander life. "For, if the burden can fall off for a single moment, why not for many moments?" So he said to himself, as the consciousness of his past misery and his unknown future thrust their disturbing faces into the midst of these blissful emotions.

The vague joys which had been surging through his soul became vivid and well-defined as the details of the landscape around his old home began gradually to be revealed. At first he had recognized only the larger and more general features like the lines of hills, the valleys, the rivers; but now he began to distinguish well-known farms and houses, streams in which he had fished, groves in which he had hunted, roads over which he had driven; and the pleasure of reviving old memories and associations increased with every step of progress. At last he began to ascend the high hill which hid the house of his childhood from view. He reached the summit; there lay the village fast asleep in the spring sunshine. He recognized it, but with astonishment, for it looked like a miniature of its former self. The buildings that once appeared so grand had shrunk to playhouses. The broad streets had contracted and looked like narrow lanes. He rubbed his eyes to see if they were deceiving him.

An unreality brooded mysteriously over everything. It was the same, yet not the same, and he paused a moment to permit his mind to become accustomed to these alterations; to ponder upon the reasons for this change; to realize the joy and sadness which mingled in his heart; and then he turned into a side road to escape any possible encounter with old acquaintances.

The route which he had chosen did not lead to the farm house, but to the cemetery where the body of his mother lay wrapped in her dreamless sleep; that neglected grave was drawing him to itself with a magnetic force. He who, for a year, had thought of her scarcely at all, now thought of nothing else. The last incident in her life, the face white with its intolerable pain of confession, the gasp for breath, the sudden fall, the quiet funeral, his own responsibility for this tragic death—he lived it all over and over again in an instant of time as grief, regret, remorse, successively swept his heart. Tying his horse outside the lonely burying ground, he threaded his way among the myrtle-covered graves to the low mound which marked her resting place, approached it, removed his hat and stood silently, reverently, by its side.

There come to us all hours or moments of sudden and unexpected disclosures of the hidden meaning of life. Such an one came to David, there by that lowly grave. He saw, as in the light of eternity, the grandeur and beauty of that character which the story of her sin and suffering had made him in his immaturity, misinterpret and despise! He did not comprehend that tragic story when she told it; it was impossible that he should, for he had no knowledge or experience adequate to furnish him the clew. Nothing is more inconceivable and impossible to a child than the possibility of his parents dying or doing wrong. When he awakens to consciousness he finds around him eternal things,—rocks, hills, rivers, stars, parents! They all seem to belong to the same order of indestructible existence, and he would as soon expect to see the sun blotted from heaven as a parent removed from earth! And when his ethical perceptions awake, he has another experience of a similar character. His father and mother stand to him for the very moral order itself! To his mind, it is inconceivable that they should ever err, and the bare suggestion that those august and venerable beings can really sin, fills him with horror and incredulity. If he, therefore, sometime learns that they have committed a trifling indiscretion, he trembles, and if, in some tragic moment, irresistible proof is brought to bear on him that they have been guilty of a dark and desperate deed, the whole moral system seems to undergo a sudden and final collapse! There is no longer any standing-ground beneath his feet and he could not be driven into a deeper despair if God himself had yielded to temptation. This discovery and this despair had fallen to the lot of David, and he had cherished the impressions, formed in that dark hour, through all these many months. But now, returning to the scenes of his boyhood and bringing back his burdens of care and sin, bringing back also his deepened experience of life and his enlarged ability, to comprehend its difficulties and sorrows, he suddenly saw the conduct and character of his mother in a new light. He, too, had met temptation, had fallen, had gone down into the depths, and in that awful and interpretative experience, comprehended the victory which his mother had won on the field of dishonor and defeat! He was now enabled to reconstruct, by the aid of his enlightened imagination, a true picture of the events which she had sketched so imperfectly in those few brief words. He realized what she must have had to struggle against, and could measure the whole weight of guilt and despair that must have rested on her heart. He knew only too well how easy was the road into darkness, and how rugged the one leading up into the light; yet this frail woman had followed it and scaled those heights! She had been able to put that past into the background, and keep it where it belonged. She had hidden her sorrows in her heart; nothing had daunted her; no discouragement had cast her down. By a wonderful grace she had concealed her sin from some, and made others fear even to whisper the knowledge they possessed. She had made that sin a torch to illumine her future. She had used it as a stepping stone to ascend into purity and holiness. He could not remember in all those long years of devotion and of love, that she had ever permitted him to feel a moment's distrust of her perfect purity and goodness; and this seemed to him a miracle! That purity and goodness must have been real! So protracted an hypocrisy would have been impossible. Whence, then, had she derived the power thus to rise superior to her past? She had shown its terrific spell over her sensibilities by dying with shame when she at last proclaimed it, and yet for twenty years she had kept it under her feet like a writhing dragon, while she calmly fought her fight. It was incredible, sublime!

As he stood there by her grave, measuring this deep and tragic experience with his new divining rod of sympathy, there rushed upon him an overmastering desire to reveal his appreciation to that suffering heart beyond the skies. A feeling of bitterness at his inability to do this frenzied him; a new consciousness of the irony of life in permitting him to make these discoveries when they could do her no good plunged him suddenly into a struggle with the darker problems of being which for a little while had ceased to vex him.

"Do all the appreciations of heroism come too late?" he asked his sad heart. "Do we acquire wisdom only when we, can no longer be guided by it? Do we achieve self-mastery and real virtue only to be despised by our children? Where is the clue to this tangle? Oh! mother, mother, if I could only have one single hour to ask thee what thou didst learn about this awful mystery in those lonely years of struggle! If I could only tell thee of my penitence, of my admiration, my love! But it is too late—too late."

With this despairing cry on his lips, he flung himself upon the grave, buried his face in the green turf and burst into a convulsive passion of tears, such tears as come once or twice, perhaps, in the lives of most men, when they are passing through the awful years of adjustment to the incomprehensible and apparently chaotic experiences of existence.

Like a thunderstorm, these convulsions clear the atmosphere and give relief to the strained tension of the soul. At length, when his emotion had spent itself in long-drawn sighs, David rose in a calm and tender frame of mind, plucked a bunch of violets from the grave and reluctantly turned away.

On foot, and leading his horse, he entered a quiet and secluded path which led past the rear of the farm. He had not consciously determined what he should do next; but his heart impelled him irresistibly toward that little bridge where he had encountered Pepeeta on his return from the lumber camp. It was at that place and that hour, perhaps, that he had passed through the deepest experience of his whole life, for it was there that the full power of the beauty of the woman in whom he had met his destiny had burst upon him, and it was there that for the first time he had consciously surrendered himself to those rich emotions which love enkindles in the soul.

Perhaps our spiritual enjoyments are capable of an ever-increasing development and intensity; but those pleasures that belong to the earthly life and are excited by the things of time and sense, however often they may recur, by an inviolable law of nature attain their climax in some one single experience, just as there is in the passage of a star across the sky a single climactic moment, and in the life of a rose an instant when it reaches its most transcendent beauty. They all attain their zenith and then begin to wane; that one brilliant but transitory instant of perfect bliss can no more be recalled than the passing stroke of a bell, the vanished glory of a sunset, or the last sigh of a dying friend; and many of the vainest and most unsatisfying struggles of life are expended in the effort to reproduce that one evanescent and forevermore impossible ecstasy.

Possibly David hoped that he could live that perfect moment over again by standing on that bridge! It was thither he bent his steps, and as he approached it there did come back faint echoes, little refluent waves; his lively imagination reproduced the scene; the dazzling figure really seemed once more to emerge from the secluded forest path; he almost heard the sound of her voice!

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.

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.

When this single day's work was ended there remained nothing for David to do but chink and daub the walls with mud, cover the rude rafters of the roof with his shakes, build the chimneys out of short sticks, cob-house fashion, and cement them on the inside with clay to protect them from the flames.

The other day was the one on which, at the close of the long and genial summer, when the mass of timber and brushwood had been thoroughly seasoned by the hot suns, he set his torches to the carefully constructed piles.

Steven and Pepeeta were to share with him in the excitement of this conflagration, and David had postponed it until dusk, in order that they might enjoy its entire sublimity. He had taken the precaution to plow many furrows around the cabin and also around the edge of the clearing, so the flames could neither destroy his house nor devastate the forest.

Such precautions were necessary, for nothing can exceed the ferocity of fire in the debris which the woodsmen scatter about them. When the dusk had settled down on this woodland world and long shadows had crept across the clearing, wrapping themselves round the trees at its edge and scattering themselves among the thick branches till they were almost hid from view, David lighted a pine torch and gave it into the hands of the eager boy, who seized it and like a young Prometheus started forth. A single touch to the dry tinder was enough. With a dull explosion, the mass burst into flame. Shouting in his exultation, the little torch-bearer rushed on, igniting pile after pile, and leaving behind him almost at every step a mighty conflagration. At each new instant, as the night advanced, a new outburst of light illumined the darkness, until ten, twenty, fifty great heaps were roaring and seething with flames! Great jets spouted up into the midnight heavens as if about to kiss the very stars, and suddenly expired in the illimitable space above them. Immense sparks, shot out from these bonfires as from the craters of volcanoes, went sailing into the void around them and fell hissing into the water of the brooks or silently into the new-plowed furrows.

The clouds above the heads of the subdued and almost terrified beholders, for no one is ever altogether prepared for the absolute awfulness of such a spectacle, were glowing with the fierce light which the fires threw upon them. Weird illuminations played fantastic tricks in the foliage from which the startled shadows had vanished. The roar of the ever-increasing fires became louder and louder, until in very terror Pepeeta crept into David's arms for protection, while the child who had fearlessly produced this scene of awful grandeur and destruction shouted with triumph at his play.

"Thee's a reckless little fire-eater!" said David, watching his figure as it appeared and disappeared. "How youth trifles with forces whose powers it can neither measure nor control! It was well that I drew a furrow around our cabin or it would have been burned."

His gaze was fixed on the little cabin which seemed to dance and oscillate in the palpitating light; and touched by the analogies and symbols which his penetrating eye discovered in the simple scenes of daily life, he continued to soliloquize, saying, "I should have drawn furrows around my life, before I played with fire!"

"Nay, David," replied Pepeeta, "we should never have played with fire at all."

"How wise we are—too late!"

"Shall we walk any more cautiously when the next untried pathway opens?" he added, somewhat sadly, as he recalled the errors of the past.

"We ought to, if experience has any value," said Pepeeta.

"But has it? Or does it only interpret the past, and not point out the future?"

"Something of both, I think."

"Well we must trust it."

"But not it alone. There is something, better and safer."

"What is that, my love?"

"The path-finding instinct of the soul itself."

"Do you believe there is such an instinct?"

"As much as I believe the carrier pigeon has it. It is the inner light of which you told me. You see, I remember my lesson like an obedient child."

"Why, then, are we so often misled?" he asked, tempting her.

"Because we do not wholly trust it!" she said.

"But how can we distinguish the true light from the false, the instinct from imagination or desire? If the soul has a hundred compasses pointing in different ways, what compass shall lead the bewildered mariner to know the true compass?"

"He who will know, can know."

"Are you speaking from your heart, Pepeeta?"

"From its depths."

"And have you no doubts that what you say is true?"

"None, for I learned it from a teacher whom I trust, and have justified it by my own experience."

"And now the teacher must sit at the feet of the pupil! Oh! beautiful instructress, keep your faith firm for my sake! I have dark hours through which I have to pass and often lose my way. The restoration of my spiritual vision is but slow. How often am I bewildered and lost! My thoughts brood and brood within me!"

"Put them away," she said, cheerily. "We live by faith and not by sight. We need not be concerned with the distant future. Let us live in this dear, divine moment. I am here. You are here! We are together; our hands touch; our eyes meet; our hearts are one; we love! Let us only be true to our best selves, and to the light that shines within! Oh! I have learned so much in these few months, among these people of peace, David! They know the way of life! We need go no farther to seek it. It lies before us. Let us follow it!"

"Angel of goodness," he exclaimed, clasping her hand, "it must be that supreme Love reigns over all the folly and madness of life, or to such a one as I, a gift so good and beautiful would never have been given!"

She pressed his hand for response, for her lips quivered and her heart was too full for words.

And now, through the ghastly light which magnified his size portentously and painted him with grotesque and terrible colors, the child reappeared, begrimed with smoke and wild with the transports of a power so vast and an accomplishment so wonderful.

The three figures stood in the bright illumination, fascinated by the spectacle. The flames, as if satisfied with destruction, had died down, and fifty great beds of glowing embers lay spread out before them, like a sort of terrestrial constellation.

The wind, which had been awakened and excited to madness as it rushed in from the great halls of the forest to fan the fires, now that it was no longer needed, ceased to blow and sank into silence and repose. Little birds, returning to their roosts, complained mournfully that their dreams had been disturbed, and a great owl from the top of a lofty elm hooted his rage.

It was Saturday night. The labors of the week were over. The time had come for them to return to the farm house. They turned away reluctantly, leaving nature to finish the work they had begun.



CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE SUPREME TEST

"Not in the clamor of the crowded street, Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat." —Longfellow.

The emotions of the woodsman's heart had been in the main cheerful and full of hope during the springtime and the summer; but when the autumn came, with its wailing winds, its dying vegetation, and falling leaves, new moods were superinduced in his sensitive soul.

It is impossible even for the good and innocent to behold this universal dissolution and decay without remembering that they themselves must pass through some such temporary experience. But upon those who carry guilty secrets in their hearts these impressions descend with crushing weight. David felt them to the full when at last the winter set in; when the days were shortened and he was compelled to forego his toil at an early hour and retire to his cabin! There he was confronted by all the problems and temptations of a soul battling with the animal nature and striving to emancipate the spirit from its thraldom.

At the close of one cold, blustering day, when his evening meal had been eaten in solitude, he sat down before the great fire which roared in the chimney. He read awhile, but grew tired of his book and threw it down. The melancholy which he had suppressed so long rose at last, and there burst on him the apparent uselessness of the task he had gratuitously assigned himself. Why had he ever done it? Why should he be sitting there alone in his cabin when by his side there might be that radiant woman whose presence would dispel instantly and forever the loneliness which ceaselessly gnawed at his heart? What, after all, was to be gained by this self-sacrifice? Life is very short, and there are few pleasures to be had, at best. Why should he not seize them as fast as they came within his reach? Had he not suffered enough already? Who had ever suffered more? It was only an unnecessary cruelty that had even suggested such agony as he was now experiencing. He was being cheated out of legitimate pleasures, and that by the advice of an old ascetic whose own capacity for enjoyment had been dried up, and who was envious of the happiness of others! As these thoughts rushed through his soul, he could not but perceive that he had been forced once more to enter the arena and to fight over the old battle which he had lost in the lumberman's cabin three years before! And he found to his dismay how much harder it was to fight these foes of virtue when they come to us not as vague imaginations of experiences which we have never tried, but as vivid memories of real events. Then he had only dreamed of the sweet fruits of the knowledge of good and evil: but now the taste was in his mouth, to whet his appetite and increase his hunger. The slumbering selfhood of his soul woke and clamored for its rights.

It was Chateaubriand who affirmed that the human heart is like one of those southern pools which are quiet and beautiful on the surface, but in the bottom of which there lies an alligator! However calm the surface of the exile's soul appeared, there was a monster in its depth, and now it rose upon him. In his struggles with it he paced the floor, sank despairingly into his chair, and fell on his knees by turns. Animal desires and brute instincts grappled with intellectual convictions and spiritual aspirations; flesh and blood with mind and spirit; skepticism with trust; despair with hope.

The old forest had been the theater of many combats. In earth, air and water, birds, animals and fishes had struggled with each other for supremacy and existence. Beasts had fought with Indians and Indians with white men; but no battle had been more significant or tragic than the one which was taking place in the quiet cabin. There was no noise and no bloodshed, but it was a struggle to the death. It was no new strife, but one which has repeated itself in human hearts since they began to beat. It cannot be avoided by plunging into the crowds of great cities, nor by fleeing to the solitudes of forests, for we carry our battleground with us. The inveterate foes encamp upon the fields, and when they are not fighting they are recuperating their strength for struggles still to come.

But although neither combatant in this warfare is ever wholly annihilated, there is in every life a Waterloo. There comes a struggle in which, if we are not victorious, we at least remain permanent master of the field. This was the night of David's Waterloo. A true history of that final conflict in the soul of this hermit would not have disgraced the confessions of Saint Augustine!

He wrestled to keep his thoughts pure and his faith firm, until the sweat stood in beads on his forehead. He felt that to yield so much as the fraction of an inch of ground in his battle against doubt and sin this night was to be lost! And still the conflict went against him.

It turned upon another of those trivial incidents of which there had been a series in his life. His attention was arrested by a sound in the woods which summoned his consciousness from the inner world of thought and feeling to the great external world of action and endeavor. His huntsman's ear detected its significance at once, and springing to the corner of the room he seized his rifle, threw open the cabin door and stood on the threshold. A full moon shone on the snow and in that white and ghostly light his quick eye caught sight of a spectacle that made his pulses leap. A fawn bounded out into the open field and headed for his cabin, attracted by the firelight gleaming through the window and door. Behind her and snapping almost at her heels, came a howling pack of a half dozen wolves whose red, lolling tongues, white fangs and flaming eyes were distinctly visible from where he stood. Coolly raising his rifle he aimed at the leader and pulled the trigger. There was a quick flash, a sharp report, and the wolf leaped high in the air, plunged headlong, tumbled into the snow, and lay writhing in the pangs of death.

There was no time to load again, and there was no need, for the terrified fawn, impelled by the instinct of self-preservation, chose the lesser of two dangers and with a few wild bounds toward the cabin, flung herself through the wide-open door.

David had detected her purpose and stepped aside; and instantly she had entered closed and bolted the door upon the very muzzles of her pursuers. They dashed themselves against it and whined with baffled rage, while the half-frantic deer crawled trembling to the side of her preserver, licked his hands and lay at his feet gasping for breath.

To some men an incident like this would have been an incident and nothing more; but souls like Corson's perceive in every event and experience of life, elements which lie beneath the surface.

Not only was he saved from the spiritual defeat of which he was on the verge, by being summoned instantly from the subjective into the objective world; but the rescue of the deer became a beautiful and holy symbol of life itself, and so revealed and illustrated life's main end "the help of the helpless,"—that he was at once elevated from a region of struggle and despair into one of triumph and hope. He remained in it until he fell asleep. He awoke in it on the morrow. From that high plane he did not again descend so low as he had been. The courage that had been kindled and the purposes which had been crystallized by the joy of this rescue and the gratitude of the deer remained permanently in his heart. He lived in dreams of other acts like this, in which the objects saved by his strength were not the beasts of the field, but the hunted and despairing children of a heavenly Father.

The fawn became to him a continual reminder of this spiritual struggle and victory, for he kept it in his cabin, made it a companion, trained it to follow him about his work, and finally presented it to Pepeeta.

There were many beautiful things to be seen in the winter woods; snow hanging in plumes from the trees, the smoke of the cabin curling into the still air, rabbits browsing on the low bushes, the woodsman standing in triumph over a fallen tree; but when, on the days of her visits to the exile, Pepeeta entered the clearing and the deer, perceiving her approach, ran to greet her in flying leaps, bounded around her, looked up into her face with its gentle eyes, ate the food she offered and licked the hand of its mistress—David thought that there was nothing more beautiful in the world.



CHAPTER XXXVII.

PARADISE REGAINED

"The loves that meet in Paradise shall cast out fear, And Paradise hath room for you and me and all." —Christina Rossetti.

At last—the springtime came!

The potent energy of the sun opened all the myriad veins of the great trees, wakened the hibernating creatures of the dens and burrows from their protracted sleep, caused the seeds to swell and burst in the bosom of earth, and sent the blood coursing through David's veins, quickening all his intellectual and spiritual powers.

And then, the end of his exile was near! In a few weeks he would have vindicated the purity of his purpose to attain the divine life, and have proved himself worthy to claim the hand of Pepeeta!

All the winter long he had plied his axe. Once more, now that the snow had vanished, he set fire to the debris which he had strewn around him, and saw with an indescribable feeling of triumph and delight the open soil made ready for his plow. He yoked a team of patient oxen to it and set the sharp point deep into the black soil. Never had the earth smelled so sweet as now when the broad share threw it back in a continuously advancing wave. Never had that yeoman's joy of hearing the ripping of roots and the grating of iron against stones as the great oxen settled to their work, strained in their yokes and dragged the plow point through the bosom of the earth, been half so genuine and deep. It was good to be alive, to sleep, to eat, to toil! Cities had lost their charm. David's sin was no longer a withering and blasting, but a chastening and restraining memory. His clearing was a kingdom, his cabin a palace, and he was soon to have a queen! He had reserved his sowing for the last day of his self-imposed seclusion, which ended with the month of May.

On the day following, having accomplished his vow, he would go to the house of God and claim his bride! This day he would devote to that solemn function of scattering the sacred seed of life's chief support into the open furrow!

No wonder a feeling of devotion and awe came upon him as he prepared himself for his task; for perhaps there is not a single act in the whole economy of life better calculated to stir a thoughtful mind to its profoundest depths than the sowing of those golden grains which have within them the promise and potency of life. Year after year, century after century, millions of men have gone forth in the light of the all-beholding and life-giving sun to cast into the bosom of the earth the sustenance of their children! It is a sublime act of faith, and this sacrifice of a present for a future good, an actual for a potential blessing, is no less beautiful and holy because familiar and old. The Divine Master himself could not contemplate it without emotion and was inspired by it to the utterance of one of his grandest parables.

And then the field itself inspired solemn reflections and noble pride in the mind of the sower. It was his own! He had carved it out of a wilderness! Here was soil which had never been opened to the daylight. Here was ground which perhaps for a thousand, and not unlikely for ten thousand years, should bring forth seed to the sower; and he had cleared it with his own hands! Generations and centuries after he should have died and been forgotten, men would go forth into this field as he was doing to-day, to sow their seed and reap their harvests.