The Lucky Piece: A Tale of the North Woods

by Albert Bigelow Paine

"It was during the fifth winter, I think, after I came here, that a group of neighbors gathered in the door-yard of the cottage, and my heart stood still, for I feared that she was dead. The air dazzled that day, but when near evening I saw a woman with a hand to each child re-enter the little house I knew that she still lived—and had been left alone.

"Oh, then my heart went out to her! Day and night I battled with the impulse to go to her, with love and such comfort and protection as I could give. Time and again I rose and made ready for the journey to her door. Then, oh, then I would remember that I had nothing to offer her—nothing but my love. Penniless, and a dying man, likely to become a helpless burden at any time, what could I bring to her but added grief. And perhaps in her unconscious heart she knew. For more than once that winter, when the trees were stripped and the snow was on the hills, I saw her gaze long and long toward this mountain, as if she saw the speck my cabin made, and once when I stretched my arms out to her across the waste of deadly cold, I saw a moment later that her arms, too, were out-stretched, as if somehow she knew that I was there."

A low moan interrupted the tale. It was from Constance.

"Don't, oh, don't," she sobbed. "You break my heart!" But a moment later she added, brokenly, "Yes, yes—tell me the rest. Tell me all. Oh, she was so lonely! Why did you never go to her?"

"I would have gone then. I went mad and cried out, 'My wife! my wife! I want my wife!' And I would have rushed down into the drifts of the mountain, but in that moment the curse of my heritage fell heavily upon me and left me powerless."

The hermit's voice had risen—it trembled and died away with the final words. In the light of the fading embers only his outline could be seen—wandering into the dusk and silence. When he spoke again his tone was low and even.

"And so the years went by. I saw the sturdy lad toil with his mother for a while, and then alone, and I knew by her slow step that the world was slipping from her grasp. I did not see the end. I might have gone, then, but it came at a time when the gloom hung on the mountains and I did not know. When the air cleared and for days I saw no life, I knew that the little house was empty—that she had followed him to rest. They two, whose birthright had been health and length of days, both were gone, while I, who from the cradle had made death my bed-fellow, still lingered and still linger through the years.

"I put the magic glass aside after that for my books. Nothing was left me but my daily round, with them for company. Yet from a single volume I have peopled all the woods about, and every corner of my habitation. Through this forest of Arden I have walked with Orlando, and with him hung madrigals on the trees, half believing that Rosalind might find them. With Nick the Weaver on a moonlit bank I have waited for Titania and Puck and all that lightsome crew. On the wild mountain top I have met Lear, wandering with only a fool for company, and I have led them in from the storm and warmed them at this hearthstone. In that recess Romeo has died with Juliet in the Capulets' tomb. With me at that table Jack Falstaff and Prince Hal have crossed their wit and played each the rôle of king. Yonder, beneath the dim eaves, in the moment just before you came, Macbeth had murdered Duncan, and I saw him cravenly vanish at the sound of your fearsome knocking.

"But what should all this be to you? It is but my shadow world—the only world I had until one day, out of the mist as you have come, so Robin came to me—her very self, it seemed—from heaven. At first it lay in my heart to tell him. But the fear of losing him held me back, as I have said. And of himself he told me as little. Rarely he referred to the past. Only once, when I spoke of kindred, he said that he was an orphan, with only a sister, who had found a home with kind people in a distant land. And with this I was content, for I had wondered much concerning the little girl."

The voice died away. The fire had become ashes on the hearth. The drip of the rain had ceased—light found its way through the parchment-covered window. The storm had passed. The hermit's story was ended.