The lost hunter: A tale of early times

by John Turvill Adams

It is painful to follow the sad moods of a noble mind, conscious of its aberrations, and yet unable to control them. We have not the power of analysis capable of tracing it through all its windings, and exhibiting it naked to the view, and if we had, might shrink from the task, as from one inflicting unnecessary pain, both on the writer and the reader. It is our object only so far to sketch the state of Armstrong's mind, as to make his conduct intelligible.

His restlessness has been alluded to. He found himself unable to sleep as formerly. Long after retiring to rest he would lie wide awake, vainly courting the gentle influence that seemed to shun him the more it was wooed. The rays of the morning sun would sometimes stream into the window before sleep had visited his eyelids, and he would rise haggard, and weary, and desponding. And if he did sink into slumber, it was not always into forgetfulness, but into a confused mist of dreams, more harassing than even his waking thoughts. The difficulty of obtaining sleep had lately induced a habit of reading late into the night, and not unfrequently even into the morning hours. Long after his daughter had sought her chamber, and when she supposed he was in bed, he was seated in his solitary room, trying to fasten his attention on a book, and to produce the condition favorable to repose. The darkness of his mind sought congenial gloom. If he opened the sacred volume, he turned not to the gracious promises of reconciliation and pardon, and the softened theology of the New Testament, or to those visions of a future state of beatitude, which occasionally light up the sombre pages of the Old, as if the gates of Paradise were for a moment opened, to let out a radiance on a darkness that would else be too disheartening and distracting; but to the wailings of the prophets and denunciations of punishment. These he fastened on with a fatal tenacity, and by a perverted ingenuity, in some way or other connected with himself, and made applicable to his own circumstances. Naught could pass through his imagination or memory, but, by some diabolical alchemy, was stripped of its sanative and healthful properties, and converted into harm.

"Young's Night Thoughts" was a book that possessed peculiar attractions. For hours would he hang over its distressful pages, and many were the leaves blotted by his tears. Yet those tears relieved him not. Still, from time to time, would he recur to the book, as if tempted by a fascination he could not resist, striving to find, if possible, in the wretchedness of another, a lower deep than his own. Especially in the solemn hours of the night, when the silence was so profound, he could fancy he heard the flickering of the candles, he read the book. Then hanging upon image after image of those deploring strains, and appropriating all their melancholy, intensified through the lens of his own dark imagination, he would sink from one depth of wretchedness to another, till he seemed lost away, where no ray of light could ever penetrate, or plummet sound.

He had been reading one night late, until as if unable to endure the images of woe it conjured up, he pushed the book away from him. The night was dark and stormy, and the rain pouring in torrents. He walked to the window and looked out. He could see nothing, except as the landscape was revealed for an instant by a flash of lightning. He could hear nothing, except the peals of thunder rolling through the valleys. He took a candle, and walked cautiously to the door of Faith's chamber, to see if she were asleep. The door was ajar, for the purpose of ventilation, and, shading the light with his hand, Armstrong could see the face of his sleeping daughter without waking her. She lay in the profound slumber of health and youth, undisturbed by the noise of the thunder, as one conscious of a protecting Providence. Her left hand was under her cheek, the black hair combed back, and collected under the snowy cap. Her breathing was scarcely perceptible, but soft and quiet as an infant's. An expression of happiness rested on her features, and the color was a little kindled in her cheek, looking brighter in contrast with the linen sheet.

"She sleeps," he thought, "as if there were no sin and misery in the world. And why should she not? What has she to do with them? Were my spiritual eyes opened, I should see the protecting angels in shining garments around her bed, unless my approach has driven them away. Heaven takes care of its own. So I could sleep once. Will the time come when she, too, shall be so guilty she cannot sleep? Almighty God forbid! Better she were in her grave. They are fortunate who die young. They are taken from the evil to come. The heart ceases to beat before it becomes so hard it cannot repent. Were she to die to-night her salvation would be assured. What infinite gain! The murderer could inflict no injury, but would confer a benefit."

Why did he start? Why did he shudder all over? Why did he hastily turn round, and shut the door, and hasten to his own room, locking it after him? Why was it he took something from his pocket, and, opening the window, threw it violently into the dark? But a moment Armstrong remained in his room. Blowing out the candles, and noiselessly descending the stairs, he as quietly opened and shut the front door, and stood in the open air.

The storm was at its height. The rain poured with such violence that in the flashes of lightning he could see the large drops leap from the ground. But he felt not that he was wet to the skin. He minded not that he had left the house without a hat, and that the water was running in streams from his head to the earth. With a rapid pace, approaching running, he fled through the streets, until he reached the grave-yard. Without a ray to guide him, through a darkness that might be felt, he found his way to a grave, it was his wife's. He threw himself prostrate on his face, and lay motionless.

When Armstrong raised himself from the ground the storm had ceased, the clouds had left the sky, and the stars were shining brilliantly. He gazed around, then looked up into the blue vault. What were those innumerable shining points? Were they worlds, as the learned have said? Were they inhabited by beings like himself, doomed to sin and suffer? Did they suffer, more or less? Could the errors of a few years be expiated by sufferings of ages, as countless as the grains of sand on the seashore? He struck the palm of his hand violently on his forehead; he threw out his arm, as if in defiance, toward heaven, and groaned aloud. It seemed as though from every heaped-up grave that groan was echoed, and called to him like an invitation to join the hosts of darkness. He started, and looked again at the gruel sky. But no voice of comfort was breathed thence. The silver stars were now sparks of an universal conflagration. With a gesture of despair, he left the city of the dead.

Silence and darkness still shrouded the house of Mr. Armstrong on his return. He closed the door quietly after him, and, cautiously as he had descended, ascended the stairs, which, in spite of all his precaution, creaked under his feet. The sounds sent a thrill of alarm through him as though he feared discovery. It was as if he were returning from some guilty enterprise. Without striking a light, he threw off his soaked garments, and got into bed. Strange, perhaps, to say, he soon fell into a sleep, deeper and more refreshing than any he had for a long time enjoyed. It may be that the excitement of his system was worked off by rapid motion, and exposure to the night air and rain, or that nature, unable longer to endure it, sunk beneath the tension. It was not until a late hour he arose, when he found breakfast awaiting him. After the usual greetings, Faith said:

"Here is your penknife, father, which Felix found lying on the path this morning. You must have lost it from your pocket."