The Redemption of David Corson

by Charles Frederic Goss

As the last syllable fell from her lips, the loathsome decoction boiled over, and the singer, pausing as if suddenly turned to marble, stood in statuesque beauty, her arms extended, her lips parted, her eyes fixed. Expectancy gave place to surprise, surprise to disappointment, disappointment to despair.

The lips began to quiver, the eyes to fill with tears; her girlish figure suddenly collapsed and sank upon the ground as the sail of a vessel falls to the deck when a sudden blast of wind has snapped its cordage.

While the broken-hearted and disillusioned priestess lay prostrate there, the fire spluttered, the birds sang cheerfully in the treetops, and the brook murmured to the grasses at its marge. No unearthly voice disturbed the tranquillity of the forest, and no unearthly presence appeared upon the scene. The great world spirit paid no more attention to the prone and weeping woman than to the motes, that were swimming gaily in the sunbeams.

As for her, poor child, her life faith had been dissipated in a single instant, and the whole fabric of her thought-world demolished in a single crash.

What had happened to the Quaker in the lumber camp, had befallen the gypsy in the forest. But while in his case the disappearance of faith had been followed by a sudden eruption of evil passions, in hers a vanished superstition had given place to a nascent spiritual life.

The seed of religious truth sown by his hand in the fertile soil of her heart already struck its roots deep down. She did not in any full degree comprehend his words; but that reiterated statement that "there is a light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world" had made an indelible impression upon her mind and was destined to accomplish great results.

As she lay crushed and desolate in her disillusionment, her mind began of its own accord suddenly to feed upon this new hope. She could not be said to have been reasoning, as David was doing in the cabin. Her nature was emotional rather than intellectual, or at least her powers of reason had never been developed. She could not therefore think her way through these pathless regions over which she was now compelled to pass; she could only feel her way. The thoughts which began to course through her mind did not originate in any efforts of the will, but issued spontaneously from the depths of her soul, and as they arose without volition, so did they flow on until they finally became as pure and clear as the waters of the brook by whose banks she lay.

When her emotions had expended their force and she arose, an experience befell her which revealed the immaturity of her mind.

The idea of that "inner light" had taken complete possession of her soul, and so when she suddenly perceived a long bright path of gold which a beam of the setting sun had thrown along the floor of the forest, like a shining track in the direction of the village, she thought it had emerged from the depths of her own spirit.

Without a moment's hesitation she entered this golden highway and sped along! Not for another instant did she regret the failure of the gypsy god to meet her. She knew well enough, now, the way to find her path amid the mysteries of life! She had but to follow this light!