PAUL AND ABEL
From 'Paul Felton'
He took a path which led through the fields back of his house, and wound among the steep rocks part way up the range of high hills, till it reached a small locust grove, where it ended. He began climbing a ridge near him, and reaching the top of it, beheld all around him a scene desolate and broken as the ocean. It looked for miles as if one immense gray rock had been heaved up and shattered by an earthquake. Here and there might be seen shooting out of the clefts, old trees, like masts at sea. It was as if the sea in a storm had become suddenly fixed, with all its ships upon it. The sun shone glaring and hot on it, but there was neither life, nor motion, nor sound; the spirit of desolation had gone over it, and it had become the place of death. His heart sunk within him, and something like a superstitious dread entered him. He tried to rouse himself, and look about with a composed mind. It was in vain—he felt as if some dreadful unseen power stood near him. He would have spoken, but he dared not in such a place.
To shake this off, he began clambering over one ridge after another, till, passing cautiously round a beetling rock, a sharp cry from out it shot through him. Every small jut and precipice sent it back with a Satanic taunt; and the crowd of hollows and points seemed for the instant alive with thousands of fiends. Paul's blood ran cold, and he scarcely breathed as he waited for their cry again; but all was still. Though his mind was of a superstitious cast, he had courage and fortitude; and ashamed of his weakness, he reached forward, and stooping down looked into the cavity. He started as his eye fell on the object within it. "Who and what are you?" cried he. "Come out, and let me see whether you are man or devil." And out crawled a miserable boy, looking as if shrunk up with fear and famine. "Speak, and tell me who you are, and what you do here," said Paul. The poor fellow's jaws moved and quivered, but he did not utter a sound. His spare frame shook, and his knees knocked against each other as in an ague fit. Paul looked at him for a moment. His loose shambly frame was nearly bare to the bones, his light sunburnt hair hung long and straight round his thin jaws and white eyes, that shone with a delirious glare, as if his mind had been terror-struck. There was a sickly, beseeching smile about his mouth. His skin, between the freckles, was as white as a leper's, and his teeth long and yellow. He appeared like one who had witnessed the destruction about him, and was the only living thing spared, to make death seem more horrible.
"Who put you here to starve?" said Paul to him.
"Nobody, sir."
"Why did you come, then?"
"Oh, I can't help it; I must come."
"Must! And why must you?" The boy looked round timidly, and crouching near Paul, said in a tremulous, low voice, his eyes glancing fearfully through the chasm, "'Tis He, 'tis He that makes me!" Paul turned suddenly round, and saw before him for the first time the deserted tract of pine wood and sand which has been described. "Who and where is he?" asked Paul impatiently, expecting to see some one.
"There, there, in the wood yonder," answered the boy, crouching still lower, and pointing with his finger, whilst his hand shook as if palsied.