The Redemption of David Corson Part 10

Violent emotions, like the lunar tides, must have their ebb because they have their flow. The feelings do not so much advance like a river, as oscillate like a pendulum.

Striding homeward after his downfall in the log cabin, David's determination to join his fortunes to those of the two adventurers began to wane. He trembled at an unknown future and hesitated before untried paths.

Already the strange experience through which he had just pa.s.sed began to seem to him like a half-forgotten dream. The refluent thoughts and feelings of his religious life began to set back into every bay and estuary of his soul.

With a sense of shame, he regretted his hasty decision, and was saying to himself, "I will arise and go to my Father," for all the experiences of life clothed themselves at once in the familiar language of the Scriptures.

It is more than likely that he would have carried out this resolution, and that this whole experience would have become a mere incident in his life history, if his destiny had depended upon his personal volition.

But how few of the great events of life are brought about by our choice alone!

Just at sunset, he crossed the bridge over the brook which formed the boundary line of the farm, and as he did so heard a light footstep.

Lifting his eyes, he saw Pepeeta, who at that very instant stepped out of the low bushes which lined the trail she had been following.

Her appearance was as sudden as an apparition and her beauty dazzled him. Her face, flushed with exercise, gleamed against the background of her black hair with a sort of spiritual radiance. When she saw the Quaker, a smile of unmistakable delight flashed upon her features and added to her bewitching grace. She might have been an Oread or a Dryad wandering alone through the great forest. What bliss for youth and beauty to meet thus at the close of day amid the solitudes of Nature!

Had Nature forgotten herself, to permit these two young and impressionable beings to enjoy this pleasure on a lonely road just as the day was dying and the tense energies of the world were relaxed?

There are times when her indifference to her own most inviolable laws seems anarchic. There are moments when she appears wantonly to lure her children to destruction.

They gazed into each other's eyes, they knew not how long, with an incomprehensible and delicious joy, and then looked down upon the ground. Having regained their composure by this act, they lifted their eyes and regarded each other with frank and friendly smiles.

"I thought thee had gone," said David.

"We stayed longer than we expected," Pepeeta replied.

"Has thee been hunting wild flowers?" he asked, observing the bouquet which she held in her hand.

"I picked them on the way."

"Has thee been walking far?"

"I have not thought."

"It is easy to walk in these spring days."

"I must have found it so, for I have been out since sunrise, and am not tired."

"Thee does love the woods?"

"Oh, so much! I am a sort of wild creature and should like to live in a cave."

"I am afraid thee would always turn thy face homeward at dusk, as thee is doing now," he said with a smile.

"Oh, no! I am not afraid! I go because I must."

"I will join thee, if I may. The same path will take us toward our different destinations."

"Oh, I shall be glad, for I want to ask you many questions. I can think of nothing else but what I heard you say in the meeting house."

"I fear I have said some things which I do not understand myself," he replied, with a flush, remembering the experience through which he had just pa.s.sed.

The path was wide enough for two, and side by side they moved slowly forward.

The somber garb in which he was dressed, and the brilliant colors of her apparel, afforded a contrast like that between a pheasant and a scarlet tanager. Color, form, motion--all were perfect. They fitted into the scene without a jar or discord, and enhanced rather than disturbed the harmony of the drowsy landscape.

As they walked onward, they vaguely felt the influence of the repose that was stealing upon the tired world; the intellectual and volitional elements of their natures becoming gradually quiescent, the emotions were given full sway. They felt themselves drawn toward each other by some irresistible power, and, although they had never before been conscious of any incompleteness of their lives, they suddenly discovered affinities of whose existence they had never dreamed. Their two personalities seemed to be absorbed into one new mysterious and indivisible being, and this ident.i.ty gave them an incomprehensible joy.

Over them as they walked, Nature brooded, sphynx-like. Their young and healthy natures were tuned in unison with the harmonies of the world like perfect instruments from which the delicate fingers of the great Musician evoked a melody of which she never tired, reserving her discords for a future day. On this delicious evening she permitted them to be thrilled through and through with joy and hope and she accompanied the song their hearts were singing with her own mult.i.tudinous voices.

"Be happy," chirped the birds; "be happy," whispered the evening breeze; "be happy," murmured the brook, running along by their side and looking up into their faces with laughter. The whole world seemed to resound with the refrain, "Be happy! Be happy! for you are young, are young, are young!"

Pepeeta first broke the silence.

"I had never heard of the things about which you talked," she said.

"Thee never had? How could that be? I thought that every one knew them!"

"I must have lived in a different world from yours."

"What sort of a world has thee lived in?"

"A world of fairs and circuses, of traveling everywhere and never stopping anywhere."

"Has thee never been in a church?"

"Never until that night."

"And thee knows nothing of G.o.d?"

"Nothing except the gypsy G.o.d, and he was not like yours."

"And thee was happy?"

"I thought so until I heard what you said. Since then I have been full of care and trouble. I wish I knew what you meant! But I have seen that wonderful light!"

"Thee has seen it?"

"Yes, to-day! And I followed it; I shall always follow it."

"When does thee leave the village?" David asked, fearing the conversation would lead where he did not want to go.

"To-morrow," she said.

"Does thee think that the doctor would renew his offer to take me with him?"

"Do I think so? Oh! I am sure."

"Then I will go."

"You will go? Oh! I am so happy! The doctor was very angry; he has not been himself since. You don't know how glad he will be."