He was now quite calm, and realized fully where he was. It is strange, he thought, how I came hither. I am like Philip, whom the Spirit caught away.
He continued his walk, striving to drive away the gloomy ideas, which, in spite of his resistance, threatened again to master him. With his eyes bent upon the ground, he proceeded some distance, when a slight noise attracted his attention. He raised his eyes, and discovered the cause. Five or six men were approaching, bearing, between them, something on some boards. Mr. Armstrong stopped, and, as they came near, perceived, it was the body of the drowned fisherman.
"Fate," he murmured between his teeth, "has driven me here. It was meet that the murderer should be confronted by his victim."
The men, when they had surmounted the steep river bank, tired with the weight, put down the corpse near where Armstrong stood. He walked up to it, and gazed upon the face. The men, solemnized by the mournful task, and respecting the feelings of Armstrong, whom they all knew, preserved silence.
There was no expression of pain upon the features. They wore the calm, impassive look of marble. The eyes and mouth were wide open—efforts to close them had been in vain—but, there was no speculation in the former, and the soul played no more around the latter. The long brown hair, from which the water dripped, hung in disorder over the forehead and down the neck. Armstrong knelt on the withered leaves, by the side of the corpse, and parted the hair with his fingers.
"The agony," he said, as if addressing the drowned man, "is over. The curtain is lifted. The terrible secret is disclosed. You have heard the summons we must all hear. You have trod the path we must all tread. You know your doom. Poor fellow! how gladly would I give my life for yours."
The bystanders were moved. Thus to behold the rich and prosperous Mr. Armstrong, whose reserve was mistaken by some for haughtiness, kneeling on the ground and lamenting over the obscure fisherman, was something they had not expected.
"Sill was a good fellow and a ginerous," said Tom Gladding, wiping away a tear, with the rough sleeve of his coat.
"He was a clever fellow, was Sill," added another.
"I've known him more than once," said Tom, "give half his fish away to a poor family. Josiah tried to make everybody comfortable."