IV
Long after the man and the girl had departed, the trapper and Herbert sat by their campfire discussing the question which their guest had propounded. Their conversation was grave and deliberate, as became the theme; and they united in the opinion that if the deed had been done in anger elicited by a provocation, the man should give himself the favor which the law even would allow under similar circumstances.
"I tell ye, Herbert," said the trapper, "the girl said the man had cause; leastwise, that the man whom he struck worried him to it and that the blow was given in anger. Now, hot blood is hot blood, and cold blood is cold blood, and ef a man kill another man in cold blood it be murder,—the law says so, and what is better, natur' says so; but ef a man kill another man in his anger, when his blood is up and he is strongly provoked to it, the law says there be a difference, and it isn't murder. And I conceit that the girl be right, and that the man has no right, in natur' or law either, to murder himself because in his anger he murdered another man. And besides," continued the old man, after a moment's pause, during which he had evidently made an effort at memory, "ef there be any wrath in the case it belongs to the Lord and not to man. Ye may recall the varse, Henry."
"'Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.'" Such was the quotation Herbert made.
"Sartinly, sartinly," answered the trapper, "that is it. Vengeance is the Lord's, and he is the only one that can handle it rightly; and the man had better leave it to the Lord."
For several moments Herbert made no reply; and then, as if speaking to himself more than his companion, he said:
"How the girl loves him!"
"Ye've hit it, Henry," answered the trapper, promptly. "Yis, ye've hit it in the centre. I noted her face, the look in her eyes and the arnestness of her voice; and there is no doubt about the matter of the lovin'. She is one of the quiet kind, boy; and she has got the faculty of listenin' a long time, which isn't nateral to a woman. But when she speaks, ye can see what she is. She has a quiet face but a detarmined sperit. I've seed several of the same sort,—seed them afore the battle and arter the battle; and I know what's in the heart of the girl. Yis, I know what's in the heart of the girl," and the old man looked at his companion across the camp fire.
The young man returned his gaze, and then said quietly:
"What is in the heart of the girl, John Norton?"
"Ef the man dies, the girl dies, too," answered the trapper, and stooping, he pushed a brand into the centre of the fire.
"It is awful to think so," replied the young man, "it is awful to think that one so lovely should die so miserable."
"She belongs to the kind that does seen things," answered the trapper. "But whether ye can call her dyin' miserable, I sartinly doubt; for there be some that can't die miserable owin' to their feelin's. And I've noted that them who die feelin' a sartin way die happy whenever they die; for death means one thing to one and another thing to another; and the heart that has lost all, is happy to go in sarch of it, even ef it be along the trail that the sun never shines on."
And so the two men sat and talked, feeding the camp fire with sticks occasionally as they talked. They wondered who the man was and whence he came, wondered if he would change his views and if the girl could win him over to a rational way of looking at the deed that had been done and the true way to atone for it; wondered if they could not assist her in her loving task when the morning came; talked and wondered and planned, and at last, wrapping their blankets around them, they laid down to sleep. The last words spoken were by the Trapper, and were these:
"We will go over in the mornin', Herbert, and help the girl."
And then they slept.
Beyond the balsam thicket, by another camp fire, the girl and the man sat talking, talking of the deed that had been done and the atonement demanded, and of the great future beyond this present life; the future that stretches away endlessly, the future of peace to some, perhaps to all, who knows? For there be some who think that this life has in it such forces of education, such enlightenment to the understanding, such quickening to the conscience, such ripening of character; and that through its experiences, its trials, and its griefs, come such graces to the souls of those that leave it, that when they pass they leave their worse self behind them, even as the germ leaves the shuck out of which it sprouted,—leaves the dull, clamp ground forever while it groweth up into the sunlight in which it finds perfection.
"Mary," said the man, "I have done with the past. My mind turns wholly toward the future. I see it as the shipwrecked sailor sees the land, which, if he can but reach, he will not only be beyond the storm that wrecks him, but beyond all storms forever. Companion of my joys and companion of my grief,—companion in everything but in my sin,—counsel with me, with your eyes turned ahead. You are innocent and innocence is prophetic. What lies beyond this world and the life men live in it? What of good waits for him who gives up this life bravely and penitently, and trusts himself to the decisions and the certainties of the great hereafter?"
"My master," said the girl, "it is not for me to teach you, you who are so much greater than I, you who have been gifted with faculties and powers that have lifted you above men. What can I say to you save to repeat what you have said to me?"
"Mary," he replied, "talk to me from out your heart and not from out your mind. The prophecies that come to men from Heaven, Heaven has communicated through the emotions of the just and the pure, and not through the perceptions. Tell me of the faith of your heart, the heart which I know has been free of guile. Tell me of the great Hereafter and what awaits me there."
"The Hereafter?" said the girl, and she lifted her eyes lovingly to the face of the man. "The Hereafter is the same as Here, only larger; as things grown are larger than things ungrown. The Future is to the Present what the river is to the stream, what the stream is to the fountain,—it is the flowing out and the flowing on,—the widening and the deepening of what is."
"Is there no gap, no breakage, no chasm or gulf between the Here and the Hereafter?" asked the man.
"No," said the girl, "there is no gap, nor chasm, nor gulf, but continuity of progress and perfect sequence. The connections between the Known and the Unknown are perfect. The one does not end and the other begin. Time is the beginning of eternity; and the brief time that men call a day is only a fraction of endlessness."
"There is no end to life, then?" queried the man.
"End to life!" exclaimed the girl. "How can life end? Life changes its form, its embodiment, the location of its residence; but life is the breath of God and when once breathed into the universe and it has taken form and made for itself expression, who may annihilate it? Who may take it out of existence? No, master, there is no end to life."
"It is a sublime faith," said the man, "and I have proclaimed it unto many; but few have been great enough to receive the doctrine as a verity. In theory they have received it; but their superstition has robbed them of its mighty consolations. But if we do not die, but only pass forward as men go out of a city's gate along a road that has no end, what fate befalls them? Does a change of nature come to them?"
"Only such as comes through growth," answered the girl.
"Shall I be just as I am when I have passed into the great future?" he asked.
"You will be the same," answered the girl, "only more abundantly yourself. We are all our life looking for ourselves," continued the girl, "and few, if any, find themselves until they die."
"I don't understand," said the man. "I know the Lord is speaking through you, for you are uttering truths so great that at the utterance they seem mysteries. Explain as the teacher explains to the child she is trying to teach."
"I mean," answered the girl, "that death is an enlightenment and a discovery. It will give us revelations of ourselves; for never do we find Him save as we find Him in His, and we are His. You will not know who and what you are until you get far enough ahead, my master, to look back upon yourself. We must go up and go on a long way before we know what we are now."
Here the conversation paused for a while and nothing disturbed the profound silence but the roar of the rapids whose ceaseless sound swelled and sank in the silence like the waves of the sea. At length the man said, "Have you thought of the land ahead? Is it real? And where is it, and what the life lived there?"
"Why do you ask me such questions," answered the girl, "when you know that I have thought only as you have taught me to think, am but repeating the faith I learned from your lips? Surely, there is a land ahead, or rather many lands,—lands and seas and blessed islands in the seas where the blessed live; and loves and lovers and homes exquisitely and endlessly peaceful are there; and men who have grown nobler than they were here; and women, far sweeter than their short life here might make them, live and love in the lands ahead."
The girl spoke low but earnestly, and her words sounded on the silent air like softly-breathed music, so much did her sweet self possess her words. And the man listened as men listen to music when it comes softly and sweetly to their ears.
"Mary," said the man, "you make the life ahead seem so sweet that I shrink from entering it, lest by so doing I escape the punishment for my sin I would fain inflict upon myself."
"Oh, master!" exclaimed the girl, "you do mistake; for though I do believe all I have said and would trust myself to the far future as young eagles trust themselves to the warm air when they have grown equal to the joy of flight, yet the life of this earth is sweet, so sweet when the heart is satisfied that one might fear to exchange it for another as one fears to part with what fully satisfies, even though the promise of more abundant things is sure as God. It is sweet to breathe the airs of the earth as health receives them. 'Tis sweet to live and love and serve in loving and find your happiness in giving it. 'Tis sweet to teach and guide men up and on to wider knowledge and nobler living,—to make them gentler and finer in their thoughts and happier-hearted; and oh, my master, 'tis sweet to live with one you love; be unto him a new life daily, and see him grow in your growth, matching it, and so go on in that perfect companionship that the future may give to us as the highest fortune, and, having given, has given its best and all."
"You shall live," answered the man, "you shall live and have as you deserve, dear girl; and if I have taught you aught which, being known, has made or shall make your life on earth sweeter, take it as my legacy to you. I had thought to leave you something more, perhaps something better, but that is past."
"I will not take your legacy and stay," answered the girl, "I will rather take it and go with you, that where you are I may be with you. You have promised nothing and I want no promise. I have only asked one thing and only one thing now do I ask, and that you will not hold from me, for I have earned it, earned it by patient serving and by growth that you know came from you."
"What is it that you ask? Tell me," replied the man, "for you shall have it if it be in the power of my giving."
"Companionship," answered the girl,—"the companionship of service. My mind must serve your mind; for only so may it find its growth for which it longs. You have led me from darkness to light; and into what future light you advance I must enter too. I love you as women love men; but I love you more than that. I love you for what you are separate from what you can ever be to me. I love you as a mind; I love you as a soul; I love you as a spirit; I love you with a purity, with an ambition, with a longing that men cannot interpret and earthly relations cannot express; but which God understands and which in his Heaven I know there must be a name for, and a connection that is known through all the social life of Heaven."
"It must not be," answered the man. "I admit your claim; but it must not be."
"Why must it not be?" asked the girl.
The man hesitated a moment, and then he said:
"Because my future is uncertain; I dare not say what it will be."
"I care not what it is," answered the girl. "Whatever it is, that I share, share because I cannot help it. It is not a question of condition, but of presence. With you I could bear all misery; yea, in the misery find happiness. Without you my heart could feel no joy throughout eternity. Master, my master, I love you so!" And as she looked into the face of the man there came to her countenance the expression of utter devotion; and in her large eyes tears gathered, and, having formed, from them slowly fell.
The man groaned aloud, and said:
"Alas! alas! My curse is doubled, being brought on thee."
"There is no curse on thee or me," she answered. "You were but mortal, and, being sorely tempted, did a wicked deed. But no single deed can change the nature. You are the same great man; great in your goodness as you are great in power, and my love, too, remains the same; nay, master, it is greater. You should stay and live and make atonement by living; for you cannot live and not better men. You can do deeds that would wipe out the deadliest guilt. But if you will not stay,—if to you it seems right to die, and if only—through death your sense of justice can be met and yourself find peace, then neither will I stay, but go—go where thou goest. Yea, I will sink or rise with thee; go to this world or that, I care not which or where, if only I may go with thee. And I pray thee not to think it hard for me to share thy journey. Why should I be left behind? And what might I have, thou being gone? What pleasure in all the world could I find, with thee out of it! I have no home,—thy presence is my home. I have no kindred and no loves await me anywhere. How could I have, loving thee? For in thee I have found father and mother, brother and sister and all sweet relationships. And so whither thou goest, let me go; and where thou stayest, let me stay. Do not resist me, but be persuaded, and let me die with thee. So shall we, passing out of these mortal bodies in the self-same hour, be together still."
The man made no response; but sat silently gazing at her face. In a moment the girl moved softly to his side and took his hand in hers; and so they sat together while the firelight died away and the darkness enveloped them. But through the darkness the stars beamed mildly, as if they expressed the sweet mercy which the imaginations of men picture as throned above the azure in whose blue field they stand suspended.
What happened farther is known only to Him whose eyes see through all darkness and to whom the night is as the day.
During the night the trapper started suddenly from his sleep. Was it a woman's cry he heard? Was it only such a sound as comes to us at times in dreams? He listened but heard nothing save the monotonous murmur of the rapids and the equally steady movement of the night breeze stirring through the pine tops. He listened and, hearing nothing, lay down again and slept.
The morning came,—came as brightly and cheerfully as if the world knew no sorrow and the men and women in it had no griefs. The morning came; but before it came, a wing darker than the shadow of the night had passed over the world; for when the trapper and his companion visited the camp beyond the balsam thicket, they found the two lying side by side,—the girl's head on the bosom of the man and her right hand lying gently in his; no mark of violence on their bodies; no instrument of death near,—lying as if they had fallen asleep, the man's countenance in grave repose, the girl's blessedly peaceful; no name on either; no scrap of paper that might tell who they might be. Perhaps the man's faith was true. Perhaps the will has power to will itself and all of life there is in us, out of the body. Be this as it may, the trapper and his companion only saw this: the unknown man in the prime of his strength lying dead under the pines and the girl in her loveliness lying dead by his side.
