He argued with himself a case of conscience hard to solve.
He was as brave a man as ever lived--had been habituated all his life to perils of many kinds, and had met them all fearlessly. Wake him in the woods at midnight, you would find him ready. Deafen his ear with the drum or the war-whoop, you could not make him start. He blinked not at the cannon's flash or the blaze of the lightning, and would have faced the fiery-mouthed platoon without a wavering step.
And yet the love of life was strong in him. He had so many joys in the bright treasury of nature; to his simple--nay, wild--tastes, there were so many pleasures in the wide world, that to part with them was hard, very hard.
He had never known how valuable earthly existence was to him till that hour, or how different a thing it is to hazard it in bold daring, or to contemplate the throwing it away in reckless passion, or disappointment, or despair, to calmly and deliberately laying it down as a sacrifice, whatever be the end, the inducement, or the duty.
What was the case of conscience he proposed to himself? Simply this: Whether he should suffer another to die for his act, or place himself not only in the peril from which he had lately escaped, but in the actual grasp of death.
Some men, of enthusiastic spirit and great constitutional fearlessness, might have decided the matter at a dash, and, with the first impulse of a furious nature, have cast themselves under the uplifted tomahawk to save their innocent friend. But he was not such; and I do not intend so to represent him. He was not a man to do anything without deliberation--without calculating all things--though he was generous as most men, as this world goes. All his habits--the very course of his previous life--disposed him to careful forethought. Every day had had its watchfulness, every hour its precaution. The life of the woods in those days was a life of peril and preparation, where forethought might be very rapid, but was always needful.
And now he debated the question with himself:--
"Could he live on and suffer Walter Prevost to die in his place?"
There were strenuous advocates on both sides. But the love of life was the most subtle, if generosity was the most eloquent.
"Poor boy!" he thought, "why should he die for what I have done? Why should he be cut off so soon from all life's hopes and blessings? Why should his father's eyes be drowned in tears, and his sister's heart wrung with grief, when I can save them all? And he so frank and noble, too--so full of every kindly feeling and generous quality--so brave--so honest--so frank--so true-hearted! Innocent, too--innocent of every offence--quite innocent in this case!"