The lost hunter: A tale of early times

by John Turvill Adams

CHAPTER XXIV.

We talk of love and pleasure—but 'tis all
A tale of falsehood. Life's made up of gloom:
The fairest scenes are clad in ruin's pall,
The loveliest pathway leads but to the tomb.

PERCIVAL.

After the event just recorded, it may well be supposed that all further legal proceedings against the Recluse were abandoned. They had been commenced only to gratify the wounded pride of Davenport, and since the preservation of the life of his son by Holden, the community would have cried shame on him had the matter been pursued further. But no such public sentiment was needed in order to induce Davenport to give the justice and Basset a hint to do nothing more. He was really grateful, though feeling no compunction for his conduct, easily persuading himself that it had been prompted by a love of justice, and a desire to protect the interests of religion.

Holden could, therefore, without fear of the consequences, resume openly his usual visits to the village. Of late they had been more than usually frequent at the house of Mr. Armstrong, by whom he seemed almost as much attracted as by Faith. With the former the conversation usually turned upon points of theology that every day appeared to assume with Armstrong deeper importance, with the latter on the effects produced by the teachings of Holden among the Indians. For since his exile at the Patmos of the Indian village, a new subject had engaged the attention of the Solitary, to which with characteristic energy he had devoted the powers of his soul—the conversion of the poor wretches who had kindly harbored and protected him. To his sanguine expectations, expressed in the impassioned language of Scripture he loved to use, the enthusiastic girl would listen, with the warmest interest. Accustomed to assign every event to an overruling Providence, she thought she now saw clearly the hand of a superior Power in the occurrences which had compelled Holden, in the first instance, to take up his temporary residence among them. Temporary residence, we say, because the Solitary had since returned to his hut, which was at the distance of only two or three miles from the cabins of his former protectors. Solitude he found was necessary in order to enable him the better to perform his new duties, and the distance was too slight to interpose any serious obstacle, or even inconvenience.

Such was the state of things, when some weeks after the freshet, Mr. Armstrong acquainted his daughter, at the breakfast-table, with his intention to visit Holden that day.

"It is a long time," he said (four days had elapsed), "since we have seen him, and there are things upon my mind I would gladly speak about."

A few months before, such a declaration from her father would have suprised Faith, but now she regarded it as quite natural. The intimacy between the family and the Recluse had become such, and the commanding character of the latter had acquired so great an influence over both its members, that neither of them saw anything strange in the deference paid him. She, therefore, acquiesced with some common-place remark in the proposal, begging to be remembered to the old man.

Accordingly, after breakfast, Mr. Armstrong walked down to the wharf, thinking it probable he might find some boat going down the river, by which he might be left at the island, intending, should he not find the Solitary there, to go to the Indian settlement. Nor was he disappointed. He found a fisherman making preparations to cast off his boat, who cheerfully consented to convey him to the place of destination. Mr. Armstrong jumped into the boat, and, the wind favoring, they rapidly scudded down the stream.

The fisherman, a fine, frank fellow, of some thirty years of age, to whom Mr. Armstrong was well known, at least, by reputation, although the recognition was not mutual, endeavored to engage him in conversation, but without effect. Although answering politely any questions, he made no remarks in return, and the conversation soon languished for want of material to support it. Poor Josiah Sill, finding his social qualities not appreciated, soon himself relapsed into silence, wondering what could induce his companion to seek Holden, and connecting his reserve in some mysterious way with the visit. Finding the silence not altogether agreeable, Josiah finally burst out with "Yankee Doodle," which he amused himself with whistling together with some other favorite tunes, until they reached the island. As they approached they caught a glimpse of Holden entering the house, and Josiah landed his passenger, promising to call for him on his return in the afternoon, though Armstrong expressed a doubt whether he should remain so long.

"If you ain't here, there won't be no harm done," said the good-natured fellow, "and it won't take a minute to stop."

Mr. Armstrong having thanked him and wished him success, advanced to the cabin.

He found Holden in the outer room, engaged in his usual employment, when at home, of weaving baskets. A large quantity of prepared saplings, split very thin, lay scattered around him, while bundles of walnut poles, the crude material of his manufacture, were piled up in the corners ready for use. With a quick and dexterous hand the Solitary wove in the ribbon-like pieces, showing great familiarity with the work. Without desisting from his labor, he expressed pleasure at the visit of his friend, and requested him to be seated.

"I am honored," he said, "this day. To what shall I ascribe the notice of the wealthy Mr. Armstrong?"

There was a slight tone of irony in the words. It probably was observed by Mr. Armstrong, for, with some feeling, he replied:

"Speak to me not so coldly. And yet," he added, dejectedly, "I deserve that all the world should reject me. Neither the happy nor the miserable feel sympathy for me."

The wayward humor of Holden was evidently softened by the sadness of the sweet, low voice.

"Each heart," he said, "knoweth best its own bitterness, and I repent me of my rudeness. But when I saw thee here I could not but remember that I had dwelt long years in this dwelling, and"—he hesitated, and Armstrong finished the sentence:

"And you would say this is the first time I have darkened your door. Well may it be called darkness where my unhappy shadow falls. But forgive me: it is only lately that I learned to know you."

"Thou errest, James Armstrong," returned Holden, "if thou thinkest thou knowest me, or will ever know me. Yet, after all," he added in a gentler manner, "thou art right. Yes, know me as a fellow sinner, journeying with thee to eternity."

"As my friend," replied Armstrong; "as the guide whose deeper experience in heavenly things shall teach me the way to heaven, unless by some inscrutable decree I am excluded."

"How has my heart been open, how has it longed for years to meet thine! How gladly would I have poured out my grief into thy bosom as into that of a brother!" cried Holden, his voice choked with emotion.

The countenance of Mr. Armstrong betrayed astonishment. "How is this?" he said. "I never knew it. You have always been to me as a common acquaintance."

A shade fell on the face of Holden. He misunderstood the meaning of the other. He supposed the phrase applicable to the feelings of Armstrong towards himself, and not as descriptive of his own conduct to Armstrong. "For the sake of the little Faith," he said coldly, "who is now a lovely woman, have I highly regarded thee."

"It is even so," said Armstrong, in a melancholy tone. "There are none left to love me for my own sake. Yet why should I quarrel with my own daughter? Let me rather be grateful that she has been the means of attracting one being towards me. How can I show my friendship? How can I make you my friend?"

"I am thy friend," cried Holden, grasping his hand with another revulsion of feeling. "Put me to any proof. I will not fail."

"If money could avail with a man like you," continued Armstrong, "it should not be wanting. If ease or luxury could tempt—but you have trampled them under foot, and what are they to one whose conversation is in heaven?"

Holden, while he was speaking, had risen from his seat and strode twice or thrice across the room. When Armstrong had finished speaking he again approached him.

"It is not for naught," he exclaimed, "that the Lord hath conducted thee this day unto me. Speak what he shall put into thy mouth to say."

"I would have your confidence," said Armstrong. "As the sick beast or the hurt bird knows by an infallible instinct what herb or plant will best promote its cure, so it seems to me does Providence direct me to you. Repulse me not, but be my kind physician."

"How can the physician prescribe, if he knoweth not the complaint."

"You shall know if you have patience to listen. But I must go back years to make myself intelligible."

"Speak, my brother," said Holden, gently, "not a word shall fall in vain."

"Then listen," said Armstrong, "and learn what sorrows the outward shows of prosperity may gild."

Holden resumed his seat, and Armstrong began his relation.

"My parents," he said, "had but two children, myself and my brother, who was younger by two years. The tenderest affection existed between us, and we were never separated until I went to college, where, after a couple of years, I was joined by him, and where we remained together until the close of my collegiate course. I then returned home, in order to take my place in the mercantile business, in which our father was engaged. My brother George was destined for one of the professions. During the last year of his stay at college, his letters to me were full of the praises of a young lady whose acquaintance he had made, and in vacations he was never weary of talking of her beauty and amiable qualities. I was present when he took his degree, and at a party, given during my stay, in the town, he introduced me to her. Alas! that introduction was the cause of the happiness and the wretchedness of my life. It found me a wife, and lost me a brother. I cannot describe the impression which the first sight of Frances made upon me. Nor did she seem averse to my attentions. I offered myself, and was accepted."

"And didst thou nothing to alienate her affections from thy brother?" inquired Holden, in a hoarse voice.

"She never regarded him with more than a passing liking," returned Armstrong, "nor do I believe she had an idea of the fervor of his affection. God be my witness, I never spoke a word in his disparagement. We were married, and shortly after George began to exhibit indications of insanity. By the advice of physicians he was taken to an asylum for the insane, where it was hoped, under proper treatment, his reason might be restored. May God pardon me, who am the cause of the horrid tragedy, but, by some negligence of his keeper, he was permitted to escape—his body was found, after some days, in a neighboring pond." Here Armstrong paused and covered his face with both hands.

"The body was recognized as thy brother's?" inquired Holden.

"It had been in the water too long to be perfectly recognized, but the height, and age, and color of the hair, and what there was left to make it distinguishable, were sufficient to identify it as George's."

"There is no certainty then. Thy brother may be yet alive."

"There can be no doubt of his death. Thirty years have elapsed, and were he in existence he must have been heard of. Twelve years afterwards my Frances died, leaving me two children, a son and infant daughter. God saw fit, in his providence, to take my boy, but left me Faith, to lay my grey hairs in the grave. It will not be long before she will do me that service."

Mr. Armstrong ceased speaking, and silence succeeded, which was at last broken by the Solitary. He bent his brows with a keen, searching glance upon his guest, and said:

"Thou wert false to thy brother."

"Yes, and his blood cries against me. Whither shall I turn to hide my guilt?"

"Thou dost repent, then, of thy treachery?" inquired Holden, who seemed determined to probe the wound to the bottom.

"Alas! restore to me the morning of life; place me in the same circumstances, and I should fall again. I should be irresistibly attracted by a heart that seemed made for mine."

"In her arms thou didst forget the brother, whom thy cruelty had doomed to the maniac's cell and chain?" said Holden.

"Never! his image is graven on my heart. I have never ceased to think of him."

"Thou wouldst know him should he stand before thee?"

"Know him! aye, amidst ten thousand. No years could make such changes as to hide him from me. But he is in his grave, while his murderer lives."

"Thou didst find compensation for lamentation over the dead, in the caresses of the living?"

"True, too true. While Frances lived, she was my heaven. It was necessary that this idol should be torn from me. My son, too. Oh, James, my son! my son!"

Holden, during the conversation, had been unable to keep his seat, but with the restlessness of his nature had been walking across the room, stopping occasionally before Armstrong. The last expression of feeling evidently affected him. The rapidity of his steps diminished; his motions became less abrupt; and presently he laid his hand upon the shoulder of Mr. Armstrong.

"Thy tale," he said, "is one of sorrow and suffering. Thou didst violate thy duty, and art punished. No wrong shall escape the avenger. As it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.' But it is also written, 'He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.' Thou art after all but an instrument in the hand of One mighty to do. Even out of crime He works out the purposes of his will. Thou knowest not from what sin and sorrow an early death may be the refuge. Commit thyself to the hands of the Lord, nor grieve as one without hope. Thy brother liveth, and thou shalt yet behold him."

"I know he lives, and at the Judgment shall I behold him," said
Armstrong, shuddering, "to upbraid me with his murder."

"Not to upbraid, but to forgive, and to imprint upon thy brow the seal of reconciliation, as I now, by this token, vow to thee an everlasting love." So saying, Holden bent down, and his lips touched the forehead of Armstrong.

We do not know that we ought to be surprised at anything in the conduct of this extraordinary man. The principles by which he regulated himself, if he had any that were fixed and determinate, and was not impelled to his actions by the impulse of the moment, were so different from those of other men, that it is difficult to reduce them to the same standard, or, indeed, to assign them to any standard. Be it as it may, so accustomed was Mr. Armstrong to his ways, that so singular a thing did not impress him as strange. He only looked up with eyes dimmed with tears, and, in broken accents, thanked the Solitary.

The rest of the time spent by Armstrong on the island, was passed in conversation of very much the same description. It would seem from his self-reproaches and confessions, that during the lives of his wife and son, the melancholy death of his brother had made no great impression upon him. Happy in a woman he adored, and who returned his affection; with a blooming family around him; immersed in thoughts of business; and in the enjoyment of a large fortune, there seemed nothing wanting to complete his felicity. He remembered, too, that there had been an instance of insanity in his family, some years before the birth of himself, which had terminated fatally, the cause of which could not be traced, and felt disposed, therefore, with the natural tendency to self-exculpation of the happy, to find the reason for the tragical end of his brother in hereditary infirmity, rather than attach any serious blame to himself for securing the affections of a lady, whom he was assured had never loved another. But when after a few years of unclouded bliss, first his wife, and then his son, was taken away, all things assumed an altered aspect. He found himself the last male of his family, his name about to become extinct and forgotten, with only one other being in the world in whose veins ran his blood, and for whose life his paternal solicitude almost daily trembled. His mind brooded day by day more and more over his misfortunes, which gradually began to wear the form of judgments, the object and result of which must be to erase his hated name from the earth. As Faith grew up, his anxieties on her account diminished, but that only left him the wider scope to dwell upon wild imaginations and make himself more the subject of his thoughts. Of a grave and reflective cast of mind, he had even from his early years respected the duties of religion, and now he turned to it for consolation. But the very sources whence he should have derived comfort and peace were fountains of disquiet. His diseased mind seemed incapable of appropriating to itself the gentle promises of pardon and acceptance, but trembled at the denunciations of punishment. The universal Father came not to him with open arms, as to welcome a returned prodigal, but frowned with the severity of a Judge about to pronounce sentence. Whithersoever the unhappy man turned, he saw no ray of light to gild the darkness, and he himself sometimes feared lest reason should desert her throne. But his friends felt no apprehensions of the kind. In their presence, though grave, he was always reasonable and on his guard—for he shrunk with the sensitiveness of a delicate mind from exposing its wounds—nor with the exception of the minister, and now Holden, was there one who suspected his condition, and they probably did not realize it fully. These remarks may serve to abate, if not to remove entirely the reader's surprise, that one with the education, and in the position of Armstrong, should have sought counsel from Holden. But it may be, that the condition of mind to which Armstrong was approaching—similar in some respects to that of the Solitary—established a sort of relation or elective affinity between them, operating like the influence of the magnet, to attract one to the other. We have seen how fond Holden was of visiting the house of Mr. Armstrong. Could it be that this mysterious influence, all unconsciously to himself, led his steps thither, and that afar off he dimly espied the talisman that should establish a full community between them? Or was not this community already established? How else account for the visit of Armstrong, the strange conversation, the confessions, concluded by an act, tender, and perhaps graceful, but only such as was to be expected from a deranged man?

Josiah Sill, true to his promise, arrived while the two men were still talking, heedless of the passage of time. Mr. Armstrong stepped on board, and the boat resumed her course. The wind was drawing down the river, remaining nearly in the same point from which it had blown in the morning, and they were obliged in consequence to pursue a zig-zag course, tackling from one shore to the other. It blew fresh, and the little vessel, gunwale down, with the water sometimes pouring over the lee side, flew like a bird. They had run two-thirds of the distance, nor was the sun yet set, when the wind, which, till then, had blown pretty steadily, began to intermit and come in flaws or puffs, now driving the small craft with great rapidity, and now urging her gently on. At an instant, when she was about to tack, having hardly head-way sufficient to prevent missing stays, a sudden and violent puff, from a gorge in the hills, struck the sail. Had it come at any other moment, the catastrophe that followed could not have happened; but the boat lying almost motionless, received all the force of the wind, and instantly upset. Mr. Armstrong, unable to swim, and encumbered by his clothes, sank, but was caught by the strong arm of Sill, and pulled upon the keel. In a state of great discomfort, though of safety, there both remained for some time, waiting for assistance. None arriving, Sill, at last, became impatient, and as he was an excellent swimmer, proposed to throw off the heavier part of his clothing, and swim to land to hasten succor. As Mr. Armstrong made no objection, and the danger appeared less than what was likely to proceed from a long continuance on the boat, exposed in their wet clothes to the wind, the shore being but a few rods distant, Sill, after divesting himself of a part of his clothes, plunged into the water, and with vigorous strokes swam towards the land. He had proceeded but a short way when, either in consequence of becoming benumbed by the coldness of the water after being chilled by exposure to the wind, or from being seized by cramp, or from what other cause, the unfortunate man suddenly turning his face towards Armstrong, and uttering a cry of alarm, sank and disappeared from sight. Once more only was anything seen of him, when brought near the surface, perhaps, by an eddy in the stream, a hand emerged, and for an instant the fingers quivered in the air.

With a sort of desperate horror Armstrong gazed upon the appalling spectacle. The expression of anguish on the face of the drowning fisherman, as his distended eyes met his own, froze his blood, and left a memory behind to last to his dying day. Fascinated, his eyes dwelt on the spot where the fisherman sunk, and for a moment a terrible temptation was whispered into his ear quietly, to drop into the river, and accompany the spirit of the drowned man. But it lasted only a moment, and the instinct of life resumed its power.

It was not long ere his condition was discovered from the shore, when chilled and shivering he was taken off by a boat that put out to his rescue. On arriving at his home, Faith, excessively alarmed, immediately dispatched the faithful Felix for the doctor.